The title of this Hot Topic (HT) draws particularly on a case study which David Adams uses to exemplify the themes and learning that are at its heart. The 'policy implications' have much wider significance, because they encompass a comprehensive framework for public policy directed to the idea of community, and its relevance in addressing a range of economic and social policy objectives. They are drawn from the experience over the last five years of the very deliberate and ground-breaking efforts of the Victorian Government, one of the founding sponsors of PASCAL. The Hot Topic addresses these questions from the perspective of a senior practitioner who is now working in an academic environment, and thus epitomises PASCAL's priority of linking policy challenges with current investigations and theorising. It is not surprising that the Victorian Government's interest in PASCAL coincided with its formal commitment to establish a Department committed to public policy framed around the idea of community, and its decision to sponsor an OECD conference on learning regions. The work of the Department for Victorian Communities (DVC) has been very much a 'work in progress'. It is characterised by David Adams as producing learnings which can be summarised within four key themes, and which 'may constitute the building blocks of the body of knowledge around the public administration of building stronger communities'. The four themes are:

Each of these, and the associated learning, is explored in the Hot Topic, drawing on DVC's own research and policy interventions for exemplars. As David acknowledges, the process of policy formation has been hotly contested at times. Both the direction of policy and the mode of implementation have been the subject of critique. As is reflected in the discussion about governance, the relationships amongst the regional government, local government authorities and non-government organisations and individuals can have many complex dimensions, not least linked because of being with different political priorities. However, the principal focus of this Hot Topic is not the individual themes or learnings in themselves. Rather, it poses for us the question whether this does constitute indeed the foundation of an agreed explanation of a viable approach to public policy-making directed towards building stronger communities. This is tested through the afore-mentioned case study of a virtual community, 'Youthcentral'. Youthcentral is a website, but its importance here is that DVC has supported young people in creating a community around the website. As a case study in this HT, the question is how learning from public policy interventions in other forms of community strengthening can be applied in supporting a virtual community. Given shifting cross-generational cultural perspectives and practices, the focus on using information and communication technologies in a policy initiative targeted at young people extends the emerging theory in a very interesting way. The paper concludes by identifying five implications, perhaps really questions, which need to be considered in extending and refining our theoretical understanding further. They are: 

1. the issue for government of organising around either the typical functional, or a population (or group or place) focus; 
2. the challenge of keeping balance ('co-production') in the value placed on professional and community knowledge; 
3. extending the understanding of what counts as public value so as to encompass less tangible priorities alongside the existing priorities such as education and health; 
4. shifting a policy focus from a priority on needs to one that pursues assets and opportunities; and 
5. extending the role of local government, alongside new hybrid institutions that are emerging to address issues that need to be addressed in concert across local boundaries, but not necessarily require the purview of a regional government. 

This is a substantial agenda for ongoing research, theorising and public debate. It prompts regional governments also to continue to test the boundaries of existing practices in the community strengthening arena.

Bruce Wilson  is Co-Director of the PASCAL Observatory, RMIT University