In October 2014, the two UK-wide organisations that specifically support and represent local creative cultural activity, Voluntary Arts and Arts Development UK, launched a major new initiative in response to the changing landscape of cultural provision in local areas. Our Cultural Commons sets out to explore new ways to sustain and develop the creative lives of our communities in all their diversity.  Ways based on the assets we already know we have and can deploy rather than beginning with a deficit in what we have lost or never had.

Our Cultural Commons will:

•             collect evidence of existing innovative local collaborative practice to sustain and develop local cultural infrastructure and then promote best practice

•             provide a space for discussion of potential solutions to the problems facing local cultural infrastructure and organisation and the debate on the nature of the cultural commons that we aspire to in the future

•             empower and support the voice of those ‘local’ ambitions in debates on future national cultural policies, structures and funding.

In the next decades:

•             most of us will be able to experience the arts and cultures of the world virtually

•             some of us will travel to experience the arts and culture regionally, nationally and internationally

•             but all of us will grow up and grow old experiencing and participating in the arts and culture, locally.

Our cultural life – first and last – is local.

What can we do – as creative citizens – in our local communities and with our local authorities and supported regionally and nationally to make these ‘cultural commons’ the life enhancing places we aspire to for ourselves, our grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren throughout our and their lives?

•             What opportunities can we secure for all of us to explore and extend whatever gifts and talents in the arts we have been given and cultural interests we have developed as we grow?

•             How can we ensure that exceptional creative talent born into whatever circumstance in our community can flourish to its full potential in the world while we support, enjoy and join in that journey?

•             What places and programmes can we sustain and develop for our communities in all their diversity to:

•             congregate to enjoy and learn from each other’s creativity and cultures (including experiencing culture in different languages, or in our language of choice);

•             be challenged and inspired by the new;

•             relax in nostalgia and the familiar and

•             discover and celebrate our heritages – natural and built and intangible?

•             How can we make our cultural commons places where: joy and grief can be shared; wellbeing, concern, caring, kinship and respect are promoted; happiness and laughter, wonder and curiosity and learning are everyday experiences?

•             How do we ensure that our local programmes are designed ‘upwards’ from the assets we already know we have and can deploy rather than beginning with a deficit in what we have lost or never had?

•             How do we ensure address to two of the largest problems confronting us: the personal, social and economic costs of an ageing population and the whole life consequence of skills deficits and structural unemployment for the young?

Schools, clubs, pubs, churches, chapels, mosques, temples, synagogues, shops, community centres, sports centres, arts centres, health centres, play centres, care homes, libraries, local radio, galleries, museums, heritage sites, gardens, parks, beaches and more are the infrastructure that underpins our ambition. Creative cultural activity of all kinds, woven through these institutions, empowers and energises their potential to realise that ambition.

The rapid pace of change surrounding all our local cultural spaces, including changes to local government, and the rapidly increasing digitization of the wider cultural world, means that previous models of local cultural planning are no longer effectively providing support. However there are new and emerging models, building on local cultural assets and making links with education, healthcare, the voluntary and community sector, and local government.

Author: Carnegie UK

The Carnegie UK Trust and Fields in Trust are today launching our new #FieldFinders campaign to find the UK’s lost playing fields. We hope that you will be able to help.

Between 1927 and 1935 the Carnegie UK Trust gave grants worth £200,000 – the equivalent of around £10 million today – to create nearly 900 playing fields across the UK. These grants were given to local councils and community groups and a key condition of the grants was that the newly created playing fields were to be protected in perpetuity.

However, the precise location of these playing fields was not always recorded. Now, the Carnegie UK Trust and Fields in Trust have launched a new campaign to find the missing playing fields and ensure that they remain protected for local communities to enjoy today and in the future.

Our #FieldFinders campaign page has an easy to complete online form where anyone who has any extra information about a potential Carnegie playing field in their area can share it with us. There are development prizes of £5,000 each up for grabs for these identified protected fields so do tell us all about them.

We hope that you can help us with the campaign. We ask you to:

1.            Share the details of the #FieldFinders campaign with any of your colleagues, stakeholders or community networks who might wish to get involved.

2.            Visit the #FieldFinders campaign page to submit any information you might have about a Carnegie field, or to correct the information we currently hold.

3.      Visit the #FieldFinders campaign page and download the report of our 2014 pilot project, which identified the first 14 Carnegie playing field sites. Case study reports on each of these sites can also be downloaded.

If you think you can support the #FieldFinders campaign or would like to get involved in any other way please get in touch – we’d be delighted to hear from you.

Fauna & Flora International is coordinating an initiative that will provide technical and practical support and best practice guidance to those coastal communities around Scotland who want to conserve their local marine areas. This builds on our existing partnership with the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST), a community based organisation on the isle of Arran off the west coast of Scotland that has been uniquely successful in gaining protection for its local coastal area and has learnt important lessons that could prove invaluable to other communities. Ultimately the project hopes to create a network of communities, allowing them to work together to share their experiences and benefit from a louder voice in the debate around the future of Scotland’s seas.

Watch a short video explain the work to protect Scotland’s marine environment HERE

Information about two forthcoming conferences which promote a stronger voice for citizens and communities within the democratic process:

What Works Scotland is delighted to invite you to Democratic Sector Day – an encounter between people working in the public participation sector in Scotland.

Who can participate? Anyone working in the Democratic Sector in Scotland. That is, organisations, networks and practitioners whose job is to foster and/or enable public participation in policy and decision making, and community engagement in public service design and delivery. This may include practitioners from the public, third and private sector.

What is the purpose of the event?

DSD is a day for participation practitioners to share ideas, projects and ambitions, and hopefully develop a better understanding of this ‘community of practice’ in Scotland. The objectives are:

1. Improve our understanding of the Democratic Sector in Scotland: Who is doing what and how?

2. Discover opportunities for collaboration regarding research and practice

What will happen at the event?

The event will be hands-on and interactive:

 In the morning… there are structured table conversations to generate key themes for the rest of the day.

In the afternoon… participants decide what issues matter most to them and work in groups, before reporting back in a closing plenary session.

The design of the event borrows elements from formats such as Open Space, Unconference and Dialogue Circles in order to be as interactive and productive as possible.

Who funds the event?

What Works Scotland

Edinburgh University’s Academy of Government

Attendance is free, please book here

Contact about the organisation of the event: Simon Kershaw simon.Kershaw@ed.ac.uk and about the contents of the event: Oliver Escobar oliver.escobar@ed.ac.uk

Partners collaborating in planning DSD :

Angus Hardie (Scottish Community Alliance), Fiona Savage (FS Associates), Juliet Swann and Willie Sullivan (Electoral Reform Society Scotland), Tim Hughes and Sarah Allan (Involve), Alistair Stoddart (Democratic Society Scotland), Mark Langdon (CLD Standards Council), Susan Pettie (So Say Scotland), Fiona Garven (Scottish Community Development Centre), George Lamb (Disability History Scotland), Irene McAra-McWilliam (Glasgow School of Art), Ian Turner, Doreen Grove, Kathleen Glazik and Katy Betchley (Scottish Government), Bronagh Gallagher (West and Central Voluntary Sector Network + Art of Hosting), Sarah Drummond (Snook).

What Works Scotland is hosting this because…WWS is a 3-year project with the remit of Using evidence to transform public services for all of Scotland’s communities to flourish. Our work is guided by the key principles from the Christie Commission, and a key area is public participation and community engagement. Within this broad area we are planning various collaborative research projects and Knowledge Exchange events. Democratic Sector Day falls within the latter. You can see more info about WWS here: http://whatworksscotland.ac.uk

Invitation to participate in Democratic Sector Day, 10am-4.30pm, 5th March 2015, The South Hall at Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5AY

BOOK NOW: click here 

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‘Planning : The People’s Perspective’ a Conference for the Less Heard Voice in Planning

 Planning Democracy campaign for a fairer more inclusive planning system in Scotland. We have designed this conference especially with communities groups and community councillors in mind. In our experience most conferences about planning lack a strong community voice – this conference will be different. Planning Democracy’s management committee includes three community councillors who together have over 70 years’ experience between them. They have advised and helped shape the conference programme to ensure you get the most out of it.

 At the conference you will

– hear three community members speak about their experience of the planning system

– find out about Equal Rights of Appeal and how it can help improve the planning experience for people

– find out how Equal Rights of Appeal operates in Ireland from leading professor, Geraint Ellis from Queen’s University, Belfast

– meet others and exchange experience

– learn from experts on a variety of planning topics, including Public Inquiries and planning law

– work with us to campaign for more inclusive planning

 Cost: £10 community groups and individuals, £20 professionals

For more information see our website, reply to this email or ring 0781 387 4805.

Book your place today. We have a travel fund available to help people who might struggle to pay transport costs.

When: Saturday 25th April 2015, 10 – 4.30pm

Where: Central Glasgow, Trades Hall

Book online today. Click here

Please do share the conference details with others!

Author: Karma Tube

Watch a short film of what happened – click here

He runs a convenience store in Levittown, New York. For the past 10 years, Avi Gandhi has owned and solely operated Center Land Stationery — working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, without a single sick day. He is, however, much more than a guy who punches numbers into the cash register. “He knew the names of everyone who came in, who their family was, what their disappointments were, the dreams they had. He would frequently joke, offer sage advice, let people pay him back if they were hard up, listen intently, and make people feel like they mattered,” says friend and customer, Celeste Hamilton Dennis. So when the local community learned that he was going to have to let go of his lease, they stepped up with a flash mob to show him how much they loved him. Take a look.

Author: David Boyle

What’s most important? It isn’t local – it’s small

Don’t just take my word for it.  This is what the Bank of England wrote in a recent report on local currencies and secondary money systems:

‘If non-local goods are cheaper because market prices do not fully factor in the additional costs that they impose on society over locally produced goods — for instance, higher carbon emissions as a result of increased transportation — then local currencies may improve welfare.’

This seems to me to be the core of the mainstream argument for any of the various radical localist approaches to building economic resilience.  Strictly speaking, some of them may be untraditional, or seem to flout some of the narrow rules of open markets – but they may help to tackle some of the intractable issues of market failure.  Even the crustiest orthodox economist could recognise that.

The question is how serious those market failures are at local level, and what is needed to unstick them.

I realise that the term ‘market failure’ is not often gargled with in New Start.  I use it now to mark the launch of the report of our project with the Friends Provident Foundation.  Over the past six months, we have been interviewing economists – with the intention of ending the gulf between the radical economic localisers and mainstream economic policymakers.

And there is a gulf, a series of misunderstandings and disagreements, which are – at the very least – frustrating the efforts of the economic localisers.  The result is a short book, by Tony Greenham and myself, called People Powered Prosperity.

I hope it can heal the rift enough to shape a new economic narrative that can turbocharge the revival of local economies, and to genuinely lay the foundations of rebalancing the economy – which, despite the rhetoric five years ago, shows few signs of happening quite yet.

The main purpose was to translate what you might call ultra-local economics – local banks, local energy, local procurement, local currencies – into terms which the mainstream can get enthusiastic about.  We have at least burst out of the conventional divide – the chief secretary to the Treasury has written the foreword.  We will be holding a seminar to discuss it at the Treasury.

But inevitably, it has worked a little the other way as well, translating some of the concerns of the economic mainstream to the radicals.  They may not forgive this.

This may also make People Powered Prosperity potentially as challenging to the radicals as it is to the mainstream.  I have certainly ended up feeling a little sceptical about the word ‘local’, because it seems to obscure the real debate.

Economic policy-makers misunderstand it.  They think it implies trade barriers and protectionism.  Since this isn’t the case – ultra-local seems to me to be more about competition than protectionism – I wonder if it might make sense to start from somewhere else.

For me, the ultra-local agenda is not really about ‘local’ at all.  It is about small.  Small infrastructure, small communities, small business, small institutions, and the failure of the national institutions – and banks in particular – to deal effectively at that scale.

That may imply local institutions, supported by a new ‘mezzo’ level of institutional support, but that is a means to an end and not necessarily an end in itself.

That is why we propose the following test.

Small business now earns 51 per cent of value added in the UK economy.  They should therefore be getting a similar proportion of the business investment available in the UK.  If they are not doing so, then it is a sign of serious market failure and we need to provide the intermediaries and institutions which could make this possible.

In the interim, the government needs to track these numbers regularly – comparing profitability and investment by size of business – and to report on them.

This is not to suggest that small business needs the same kind of investment as big business – that is the kind of assumption that has caused all the problems – but they do require effort, support and some finance.  If half the nation’s wealth derives from small business (and it does), then an effective market would make sure that half the nation’s effort, imagination and wealth was going into developing that half of the economy.

We all know that nothing like that happens.  The vast majority of the effort, imagination and finance bypasses small business altogether.

And therein lies the market failure that a realistic, radical new economic approach, that might tackle to genuinely rebalance the economy – and rebalance the rewards from the economy too.

Only, don’t let’s satisfy ourselves that we few understand that, and feel smug about that.  Let’s make sure it counts in the economic mainstream as well.

Author: Community Shares Scotland

Community Shares Scotland

Our Next Roadshow – Aberdeen!

Tuesday, 24 February 2015 – 10:00am to 4:00pm

Inspire Ventures, Beach Boulevard, Aberdeen, AB24 5HP

Come along to Community Shares Scotland’s Aberdeen Roadshow to learn more about the community shares model and how it can benefit your community. Meet with other community groups who are interested in setting up a share offer or learn from those who have had success already. There will be a focus on sources of support, resources, emerging best practice, as well as details as to how to engage with the Community Shares Scotland programme.

FREE EVENT. All welcome but BOOKING ESSENTIAL.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/community-shares-scotland-aberdeen-roadsh…

Any questions? Give us a call on 0131 220 3777.

As the Independent Commission on the Future of Local Infrastructure releases its recommendations, David Brindle explains what it could mean for the sector.

With a name like the Independent Commission on the Future of Local Infrastucture, it was always going to be a challenge for the review of support for local social action to set pulses racing outside the voluntary sector. Inside it, though, the commission’s report is already causing a bit of a stir.

And to some extent it’s designed to. By calling the report Change for Good , the commission aimed to send a twin message that not only did the sector’s infrastructure bodies need to embrace positive change, but they needed to understand there was no prospect of a return to a world of bounteous grant funding. If there was any doubt about that, Labour’s shadow minister for civil society ​, Lisa Nandy, made clear at the report launch that a Labour government would not be prising open the coffers. “There is not going to be a huge amount of money around,” she said. “I don’t think [austerity] is going away any time soon.”

The future for infrastructure bodies lay in collaboration and partnership within and beyond the sector, Nandy added. That would “bring in funding, bring in support, bring in power”.

There’s a clear sense that some in the sector still do not ​agree with this. Sara Llewellin, chair of the commission and chief executive of Barrow Cadbury Trust, said at the launch: “In infrastructure organisations, but also in the sector as a whole, a lot of people are waiting for the good times to come back or just waiting for this tough period to end.”

Others who do buy it are none the less nervous of the implications: even Navca, the umbrella body for local support and development agencies in England, and the sponsor of the commission, is wary of relying on partnerships with the private sector.

In a foreword to the commission report, Navca chair Caroline Schwaller welcomes its ​19 recommendations and commits to promoting them, but says: “If we have some reservations, they concern the extent of private-sector support, which cannot replace public funding of the community development and place-shaping activities at the centre of our members’ work.”

At the House of Commons launch, Schwaller referred to the main recommendation that “local infrastructure needs to be redesigned and creatively resourced to meet the challenges of tomorrow”. She mused: “Creatively resourced ​– now that’s an interesting term.”

What creative resourcing may or may not mean for Navca’s 350 local members and other infrastructure bodies will be teased out at a series of events planned to take forward the commission’s work, with a review of progress scheduled for early 2016.

Llewellin stressed that the commission had seen much inspirational work and innovation by local infrastructure bodies in its evidence gathering, which included a Q&A on the Voluntary Sector Network last summer. But she warned there were clear deficits in aspects such as use of modern technology.

Also speaking at the launch were civil society minister Rob Wilson and his predecessor Nick Hurd, who hosted the event and said that modernising infrastructure had been “one of the biggest headaches” of his four years in the job from 2010 to 2014. There had been no shortage of funds for change provided by government, Hurd claimed. The coalition had invested £30m in the Transforming Local Infrastructure Fund, but “I have to be honest and say it has not sorted the issue”.

Whether the commission’s report can help ​resolve the issue is likely to depend critically on the sector’s willingness to accept the case for change – let alone do it.

Author: BBC

Moratorium on planning consents for unconventional oil and gas extraction is hailed as ‘huge victory’ by anti-fracking campaigners

The Scottish government has announced a moratorium on all planning consents for unconventional oil and gas extraction, including fracking.

Welcomed by campaigners as “a very big nail in the coffin for the unconventional gas and fracking industry in Scotland”, energy minister Fergus Ewing told the Scottish parliament on Wednesday afternoon that the moratorium would allow time for the government to launch a full public consultation on the controversial drilling technique, and to commission a full public health impact assessment.

Westminster MPs on Monday defeated an attempt to impose a UK-wide moratorium but the coalition government had to accept several Labour proposals to tighten regulation of shale developments.

“Given the importance of this work it would be inappropriate to allow any planning consents in the meantime,” Ewing told the Holyrood chamber, to applause. “I am therefore announcing a moratorium for the granting of planning consents on all unconventional oil and gas extraction including fracking.” He said that the Scottish government would also be working to further strengthen planning guidance and strong environmental regulation.

Acknowledging that local communities would bear the brunt of any developments, Ewing said that a public consultation “will allow everyone with a view to feed it in to government”.

He added that the government would take evidence from all interested parties, including chemical giant Ineos which owns Grangemouth oil and gas refinery and has acquired 729 square miles of fracking exploration licences around the central belt.

Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, described the announcement as a “huge victory for the communities, individuals and groups who have been campaigning to stop this dirty industry in Scotland”.

He added that he believed any serious examination of the mounting evidence would inevitably lead to a ban.

“The Scottish government has acted decisively today to protect communities across the country and the environment from this unnecessary industry.

“While we are calling for an outright ban, a halt on the industry while a full examination of health and environmental impacts is carried out is very welcome. Scotland joins France, Ireland, the Netherlands and New York State in a long list of countries and regions which have acted to stop the unconventional gas industry. We are convinced that a proper examination of the mounting evidence of health and environmental concerns must lead to a full ban.”

Asked in the Holyrood chamber by Scottish Green MSP Alison Johnstone why he would not impose an outright ban on fracking, Ewing reiterated that the Scottish government wanted “a national debate which is characterised by examining the evidence”. He said that the moratorium would apply until process of evidence gathering and consultation has been concluded, and that the public consultation was likely to be launched within the next two months.

WWF Scotland director Lang Banks also welcomed the Scottish government’s decision to impose the UK’s first moratorium on onshore unconventional oil and gas, but cautioned that it did not fully shut the door on new fossil fuel extraction.

“There is overwhelming public opinion in favour of cleaner forms of energy and a sufficient body of evidence why unconventional oil and gas are neither good for people or the planet. While this rightly puts a hold on fracking for now, we hope the final decision will be to rule it out completely.”

The Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy wrote to first minister Nicola Sturgeon on Monday, urging her to adopt his party’s triple lock proposal on fracking, which includes a local referendum before final planning approval is given. The SNP in turn criticised Scottish Labour MPs for failing to support Monday’s amendment to the infrastructure bill calling for a UK-wide moratorium, which the majority of SNP MPs voted for.

Ken Cronin, chief executive of Ukoog, the trade body that represents the sector, said that industry welcomed the consultation. “We recognise that the general public have concerns about the issues around fracking and welcome this opportunity to present the facts to the Scottish people. Many independent reports, including the independent panel set up by the Scottish government, have commented that a robust regulatory process is substantially in place. Scotland needs to produce its own oil and gas for both economic and energy security reasons.”

Public opposition to fracking in Scotland, which gained a high profile during last summer’s independence referendum campaign, has grown in momentum over the past six months with local opposition groups forming in particular around the central belt where Ineos was concentrating its activities. An online poll by Usurvof public opinion on fracking across the UK found that Scots were most likely to oppose the practice, with 54% saying they were against it, and less than 8% happy for it to happen elsewhere.

Full control over fracking is due to be devolved to Scotland after May’s general election, following recommendations of last November’s Smith commission. On Tuesday, the Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones said that he believed that fracking licensing should also be devolved to Wales, and that the Welsh parliament should consider a moratorium on fracking.

Author: Community Land Scotland

Community Land Scotland commissioned this small piece of work to be able to explore a potential and practical working methodology through which to test how it may be possible to explore and measure dimensions of social benefits deriving from community ownership. The initial work has revealed within the two areas concerned some striking differences in belief and attitudes of people living in the two community owned estates involved, and social attitudes more widely. Community Land Scotland is not drawing any conclusion or suggesting that these results are in any way or necessarily representative of other community owners, nor is it drawing any conclusion that this shows that community owners are necessarily in any way distinct as a group from any others. The study of residents within these two community owners is however both interesting and revealing, and raises wider questions: among other things, as to whether the results might be as much a function of the characteristics of these two communities in particular, within the group of community owners, or whether they are a function of remote rural living, as distinct from any ownership type? Community Land Scotland would like to see the work explored here taken further to test these and other questions more fully.

To view a summary of the results of this research – click here