History was made in Falkirk on 19th August with the signing of the new Community Charter, created by local residents to protect their environment. All 13 SNP councillors have adopted the Charter, along with two nonaligned independent councillors and 1 Labour Councillor. They join Larbert, Stenhousemuir and Torwood Community Council, the group CCoF (Concerned Communities of Falkirk) and a growing number of local residents and farmers who all support the UK’s first ever Community Charter. Residents had already handed over the Charter to MSP Angus MacDonald for delivery to Scottish ministers.

Resident Alison Doyle said: “We are delighted that councillors have recognised the Charter as direct expression of the values and aspirations of their electorate, and fully welcome their adoption and support”.

SNP Councillor Steven Carleschi said, “I was pleased all members agreed to sign this excellent Community Charter. I think it’s important that we support the local community who are against these proposals, shown by over 2000 objections to date. Despite many outstanding issues regarding this drilling method, Westminster Government has issued licenses across the UK. This will not lead to lower gas prices for local people, so there is no community benefit to this development.”

The Charter was produced in response to Australian firm Dart Energy’s application to extract coalbed methane commercially in the Forth Valley between Falkirk and Stirling, an area of old coal mines. The local community seeks protection from what many people consider a destructive, risky development close to homes, with boreholes even running under some houses. Farmland, green-belt and wildlife conservation areas would all be threatened. The Charter sets out a clear vision of what the community values and wants to safeguard. Over 2500 formal objections were lodged in relation to Dart’s application.

In response to Dart Energy’s clear discomfort with residents’ objections, Vivien Murchison, who lives locally, said: “Myself and the many other residents who contributed to the Charter, discovered that Unconventional Gas drilling has been going on largely unmonitored on our door-steps for 20 years, and is about to scale-up considerably, while evidence from other countries shows it may cause significant health problems. What’s unusual about a community coming together to safeguard their families, and what they value, from suspected risk?”

Local resident Dr Mark Williams added: “Dart’s latest documents and rebuttals have done little to allay our concerns. If anything, they have introduced new ones. With relevant research emerging all the time, and as we build our scientific knowledge, our case grows stronger every day.”

Both Dart’s application and the community response could set a precedent. Vast swathes of British countryside – including much of Scotland’s Central Belt – are being considered for various forms of Unconventional Gas development, including Coal Bed methane extraction, Shale Gas extraction, and Underground Coal Gasification. There has been widespread opposition to such developments, including in Balcombe, Sussex, where protests have been receiving national coverage.

Created through public meetings, with support from lawyers and consultants, the Falkirk Charter maps tangible and intangible ‘assets’, including public and environmental health, which local people consider essential to their present and future well-being. It also sets out community rights and responsibilities to protect these ‘assets’, such as meaningful participation by residents in planning processes.

Convenor of Larbert, Stenhousemuir and Torwood Community Council, Eric Appelbe, said: “The Charter lends further weight to the Community Council’s representations given the background of concern from the community, as well as the identified potential impact on environmental and public health assets. We are pleased to have had some input and wish to be associated with its terms.”

The Charter is not a legal document, but the intention is to give it legal effect through the planning process. Drawing inspiration from Community Bills of Rights in the USA – often a community response to unwelcome UG developments – the Charter also refers to the EU Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, which recognises the importance of ‘cultural heritage’ in a broad sense. This ground-breaking document is a direct expression of community opposition to risky developments. Seven Community Councils officially oppose Dart’s application.

Dart Energy lodged an appeal with the Scottish Government while Falkirk and Stirling Councils were still considering the application. Falkirk Council’s Planning Committee called for a Public Inquiry. Larbert, Stenhousemuir and Torwood Community Council and local residents joined that call in a letter submitted with the Charter, which itself declares the community’s rights to have its voice heard. An official Inquiry is now going to be held.

The Community group, Concerned Communities of Falkirk, which helped to create the Charter, has a website, . The Charter itself can be seen here

Major concern escalated in the Falkirk area from late 2012, when hundreds of people – including many owners of new homes – received notification of their proximity (20 metres) to Dart’s proposed site. Some families had just moved in, only to learn they would be living near to gas-wells, and that Dart proposed drilling boreholes close to, or actually under, their homes. While the UK government granted a license for exploratory drilling locally some years ago, Dart Energy’s plans for a commercial gas-field worries residents and farmers, faced with the prospect of potentially hundreds of wells and associated infrastructure across the region.

Dr Carol Anderson, who lives near to several wells, says: ‘We are worried about monitoring – about how often, and what chemicals will be monitored? Air quality is a particular concern. Dart’s Environmental Statement does not fully address the impact of fugitive emissions (leaks), despite the fact that in other countries wells have shown to leak significant amounts of methane into the air.’ SEPA (Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) is under pressure over its proposed regulation, while international toxics expert and adviser to Australian Government, Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith, has called the unconventional gas industry ‘unregulatable’. Australian state of New South Wales has banned all CBM activity (CSG) within 2 km of residential areas and rural businesses in response to scientific evidence and community pressure. As many people in Forth Valley live within 2km of Dart’s site, they are asking why they are not being afforded similar protection.

The Community Charter follows on from the Falkirk Community Mandate, a detailed objection letter co-developed by local residents, calling for an overhaul in policy given the risks found to be posed by UG elsewhere. Over 2000 Mandates were signed within a few weeks and delivered to Falkirk Council, with numbers still rising.

Against this background of public opposition, Falkirk Council commissioned a report from AMEC Consultancy on various aspects of Dart Energy’s potential activities, requesting further time to consider Dart’s application. AMEC’s report concluded there was a need for further information from Dart. At the beginning of June, Dart appealed to the Scottish Government on the basis of Falkirk Council’s non-determination of their application.

Dart Energy’s current application is to extract Coal Bed Methane (CBM) from 22 wells at 14 locations. CBM extraction, an industry relatively new to the UK, involves drilling deep into coal-seams vertically and horizontally for a kilometre or more to remove methane gas. In the CBM process, huge quantities of salty waste-water are pumped out containing naturally-occurring toxic chemicals (some are known carcinogens), and issued, partially-treated, into the River Forth, a RAMSAR site and SSSI. Possible risks include underground migration of toxic gases and water, air pollution linked to fugitive emissions, flares and venting, soil-contamination and problems with heavy traffic.

Although Dart Energy says they do not employ the controversial process of fracking (hydraulic fracturing of underground rocks to release gas), fracking has been used by previous licence-holders – unknown to most local residents – and evidence from elsewhere shows that up to 40% of CBM wells are eventually fracked. There is shale below the coal in Central Scotland, and fracking is inevitable for shale-gas extraction. Dart Energy have a half-share in the licence to extract shale-gas locally.

Author: Daily Record, by Paul English

The pioneering work of Reidvale Housing Association around the east end of Glasgow’s Duke Street – the longest street in the UK – features in The Secret History of Our Streets.

The legacy of campaigning residents on one of Glasgow’s most famous streets at the centre of the Commonwealth Games celebrations is to be celebrated on a major new BBC documentary.

The pioneering work of Reidvale Housing Association in the east end of Glasgow is the focus of an hour-long film detailing how strident community activism paved the way for the Housing Association movement across the UK.

The area around the east end of Glasgow’s Duke Street – the longest street in the UK – features in The Secret History of Our Streets, to be shown on BBC2 this week.

It was a zone earmarked for demolition by the city fathers in the late 1960s, with generations of working families set to be displaced into outlying schemes.

Glasgow council leaders pushed through compulsory purchase orders and plans for the demolition of many Dennistoun tenements.

Residents were to be decanted into schemes in areas like Easterhouse or into new high rises like the now-deserted Bluevale and Whitevale Towers in the east end, a notorious testimony to failed urban planning projects of the mid 1960.

But the pluck and resistance of a tight-knit group of community campaigners, dubbed “The Bathgate Street Mafia”, stalled bulldozers and established the UK’s first resident-run housing association successfully securing central government funding.

Thousands of families were “saved” from being shunted out into the schemes or into so-called cities in the sky thanks to the determination of activists led by the late John Butterly, who was awarded an MBE for his services to the community in 1987.

Campaigner Irene McInnes recalled: “They were telling us how they wanted to demolish the whole south side of Duke Street.

“John stood up at the public meeting and said ‘You go and live in Easterhouse if you like. I will not.”

The film also charts the area’s bygone social divisions, with doctors and lawyers being encouraged in the 1800s by the wealthy Dennistoun family – owners of a leafy country estate to the north of Duke Street –  to live in spacious purpose-built gated communities, behind the slum conditions endured by working class families in nearby tenements.

Producers hace also included candid personal archive film of the area taken by John Butterly as well as the remarkable story of American showman soldier Buffalo Bill giving the people of Dennistoun a three month residence in 1891 featuring hudreds of horses and 18 buffalo.

It also laments the demise of notable Victorian architecture in the area, specifically the once-luxurious marble-clad Whitevale Baths which boasted a Turkish baths, reading rooms and a classic Glasgow “steamie”.

Now a listed building, it fell into desrepair and was abandoned by the council in 1988 and was partially demolished in 2012.

 Local Harriet Stomboli said: “If I won the lottery I would buy this building, because I think it is the most lovely building going to waste, and I would convert it in to something for our area that would do benefit to the people. I would definitely buy this building if I won money.”

Series advisor Dr Gerry Mooney, of the Open University, said: “The programme highlights the issues of power, social inequality and marginalisation that exist within Scotland, as well as the struggles of its people to build a sense of community, a sense of place – often in very difficult circumstances.

“We hope that the programmes will inspire viewers across the country to uncover the secret histories of their own streets and areas.”

Author: Judy Wilkinson

Jenny Mollison, Rona Wilkinson and I (Judy Wilkinson) have written a book about allotments  ‘Raising Spirits – allotments, well-being and community’ as part of the Postcards from Scotland series. These are small books edited by Carol Craig and published by Argyll Publishing and the Centre for Confidence and Well-being.

Our book will be launched at the Trades Hall 85 Glassford St, G1 1UH ( thanks to the Incorporation of Gardeners)  on Tuesday August 26th from 5pm to 7pm.

We wrote the book because we felt there is a need to capture some of the passion we feel for our plots, explain the benefits allotments bring to all kinds of people as well as analyse the issues that we occasionally encounter.

We hope the Book Launch will be a celebration of allotments, give us all an opportunity to talk about our plots and also collect thoughts about the new allotments legislation that has just been introduced into the Scottish Parliament (first new law about allotments for 64 years!!)  This  will have an impact on the future of allotments in Scotland.

The Launch is open to everyone and we would like plot-holders and other interested people to come on 26th August and take the opportunity to net-work and discuss issues, both horticultural and political.

In addition to plot-holders we are hoping that representatives from housing associations, health, community associations etc will come because we want to tie the Launch in with a discussion of the Community Empowerment Bill.  This Bill will replace the current legislation on allotments in Scotland.  It offers the opportunity for a civic debate on well-being and quality of life in which allotments with their social, economic, environmental and cultural benefits are an integral part. The committee on Local Government and Regeneration in the Scottish Parliament has now called for written evidence and posed five questions all of which are relevant to the development of allotments in Scotland. Therefore, as part of this Launch we are asking organisations interested in or involved with communal growing if they would come and discuss the issues as part of the celebration of the publication of our book.

 We do not want to involve anyone in extra work and envisage an informal gathering with information presented on flip charts or posters, creating an environment where people can chat informally about the issues and way forward.

Any advice, help, publicity you can give would be very, very welcome. Please encourage people to come!

www.postcardsfromscotland.co.uk/

www.argyllbookstore.co.uk/index.php/postcards.html

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/78599.aspx’

Author: Scottish Govt

Being recognised as a Zero Waste Town could become a common-place accolade for Scottish communities, thanks to the launch of a new programme from Zero Waste Scotland aiming to recognise collective efforts from residents and businesses to reduce waste, recycle more, and use resources efficiently. 

Dunbar in East Lothian is set to become the first of Scotland’s Zero Waste Towns, it was announced today by Environment Minister, Richard Lochhead.   

The pilot project, which could in future be replicated elsewhere, will introduce a number of community-led initiatives, including:

•             Opening a facility to help make re-using goods easier;

•             Local engagement drives to help households waste less food and use food waste recycling collections;

•             Educational programmes with local schools; and

•             Initiatives to reduce litter such as on-street ‘Recycle on the go’ bins which fit in with the towns historic landscapes.

The project will be coordinated by local community group Sustaining Dunbar, which will work closely with Zero Waste Scotland, East Lothian Council, local groups, businesses and residents to coordinate a comprehensive approach to transforming attitudes to waste in the town. 

Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said:

“It’s fantastic that Dunbar has set an example and become Scotland’s first ever Zero Waste Town, demonstrating the community’s firm commitment to making real progress in resource management at a local level. This innovative programme will help the town recycle more, send less to landfill and use our precious resources more efficiently. I wish everyone involved in this initiative the best of luck and I hope it will create valuable experiences that other communities around Scotland can benefit from as we strive to make Scotland a zero waste country.”

Iain Gulland, Director, Zero Waste Scotland, said:

“Getting everyone in Scotland’s communities on-board with our vision to eliminate waste, for the benefit of local economies and the environment, is absolutely vital.  Scotland has set ambitious targets to achieve a recycling rate of 70 percent and reduce the waste produced by 15 percent by 2025.  To achieve this, everyone must play their part. 

“Working to becoming a Zero Waste Town will be a great way to bring communities together, working towards a shared goal.  Hopefully the pilot project in Dunbar will provide great examples of best practice which we can recreate in other towns across Scotland.”

Brian Grindley, Chair of Sustaining Dunbar said:

“Sustaining Dunbar are delighted that Dunbar has been chosen to be Scotland’s first Zero Waste Town. We have already spoken to a wide range of organisations, businesses and individuals throughout the community and received a hugely positive response to this project.

“We look forward to working together to lead the way in eliminating waste.”

Dunbar was selected for the pilot project following submissions from across Scotland after an open call for interested communities in 2013.

Author: Pamela Hartigan

Why social entrepreneurship has become a distraction: it’s mainstream capitalism that needs to change

The first time I heard the term “social entrepreneur” I thought it referred to business people who liked to party.  That was about twenty years ago, when the term was just beginning to surface, said to have been coined byBill Drayton, founder of Ashoka.  Ashoka was the first entity that identified and supported such individuals – innovators with a “bold idea” aimed at changing a system that was at the root of a major social or environmental problem.

Twenty years ago I fell in love with “social entrepreneurship”, its promise, and most of all, the stories of the champions that practiced this approach.   They didn’t take “it can’t be done” as a deterrent – in fact, as one of them described to me, “’it’s impossible’ is our clarion call to action”.   As the first Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, an entity supported by World Economic Forum’s founder Klaus Schwab and his wife, Hilde, I spent eight years identifying, celebrating and supporting such individuals, providing them with opportunities to enter the coveted corporate enclave that is the annual meeting of the WEF at Davos – which in turn gave them access to networks of power they had never been able to tap. Many of these social entrepreneurs formed strong and lasting relationships with members of the corporate C suite, heads of philanthropic foundations and the media leaders that attend Davos.  It was difficult not to become infected with the bug of “social entrepreneurship”.

The Schwab Foundation certainly was not the only social entrepreneurship organization on the scene.  A host of other organizations were created at around the same time, including Echoing Green, the Skoll Foundation, the Omidyar Network, Acumen, Mulago, to name just a few. These were primarily based in the USA, but the UK quickly followed suit along with countries on the European continent, Asia, Latin America, Africa and Australia.  Governments, led by the UK, embraced “social enterprise” as the “third way” – income-generating charities that did not depend wholly on public coffers but dealt with the increasing number of social problems that defied government solutions.

My main concern about this viewpoint is that it stripped the notion of innovation and systems change – the essence of social entrepreneurial endeavour – right out of the approach.  In the UK and those countries that have followed, social enterprises have become part of the “social enterprise industrial complex”,  sub-contractors to government and feeding into a dysfunctional system.  But that is for another blog.

The point is, all of a sudden, social entrepreneurship was everywhere and everyone wanted to be one.  But there was one question that was raised at every national and international gathering of social entrepreneurs.  As former President Bill Clinton noted in a speech about the challenge of school reform “Nearly every problem has been solved by someone somewhere.  The frustration is that we can’t seem to replicate [those solutions] anywhere else.”    Why is it that the only system-changing approach that has managed to go to scale is microfinance?  Yet we forget that it took 30 years and an estimated US$20 billion in subsidies from major foundations and individual philanthropists to transform microfinance from an undefined effort sitting between philanthropy, aid and the market, to something much closer to mainstream investing.

This begs the question as to whether the only way social entrepreneurship will scale is by becoming part of the mainstream market system.   As someone who is now working in a business school environment, this idea carries significant weight.

I do believe that transformational systems change will never be achieved on a massive scale by non-profit organizations or even by well-meaning “hybrids”.  I very much

Which needs fixing first?

believe that the way forward is through business. And so I have come to feel increasingly uncomfortable with the term “social entrepreneurship” and its main actor, the “social entrepreneur”.

But the reason is not because I have bought into the notion that capitalism as we now practice it is the solution – but because I firmly believe that every entrepreneur has to be a “social entrepreneur”.  The way business has operated in the last 50 years must be disrupted because we will not survive as a society or a planet if we do not tear down the walls that compartmentalise economic, social and environmental activity.  That is why I am now working in business schools.  The way we approach business education has to change.

There is no doubt that the term “social entrepreneurship” served its purpose at one point in time, mainly because we needed to highlight what type of entrepreneurial practice we were referring to – but today it only serves to further dichotomise entrepreneurial practice into the “social” and the “commercial” (“non-social”?).   It creates a false separation between “this is where we make money, and this is where we do good”.  And that is EXACTLY what is wrong with capitalism today.

It is hard for us who have been born and raised under capitalism and the large corporation to reflect on the fact that it was only relatively recently – not many centuries ago – that humankind finally began to achieve a surplus, something more than the necessities for survival.

The central precept of all early corporations that began to take shape around the 16th century was that even though they were chartered as private entities and possessed special privileges and monopoly rights, they were still expected to carry out activities with a public purpose. That has changed and needs to be revisited if the world is to advance.

Yep, maybe it is

There is no doubt that the modern corporation as we know it today has empowered individual genius and bestowed great social benefits.  Yet it has also done social harm. Many of the ills of modern life – non-sustainable levels of personal and institutional debt, toxic air and water, workplace injury, loss of livelihoods for communities, political bribery – can be traced to corporate lack of responsibility to one or more constituencies.  This is not intentional.  No one wants to cause poverty, pollution, disease, unemployment and corruption.  Rather, they want to make profits. But in that pursuit, they may find anti-social behaviour pays. To achieve profits in the short term, corporations exact a “social and environmental price” and that price is high and rising.

The key to sustainable capitalism is reasonable profits as opposed to maximizing profits.  In the current system, a segment of society is trying to maximize profits without concern for the impact on the well being of the society as a whole, while another segment of social organizations have to deal with the fall out.  The system is not working.

Fortunately, there are a growing number of people, particularly among the young, who embrace the notion of “entrepreneurship for society” rather than commercial or social entrepreneurship.   They are not waiting until they are 50 years old when they have “made their money” and can “give back”.  I am optimistic that through the new breed young professionals, we can go back to the future and base our economies on activities that uphold social and environmental goals without eschewing financial sustainability.

Author: Andrew Woodcock, Third Sector

A “BIG Society” project which won an £830,000 lottery grant with its plan to recruit a million members in a year managed just 64, according to a report from a spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office (NAO) report said the Big Lottery Fund (BLF) failed to challenge Big Society Network’s (BSN) “ambitious” target for recruitment of members to the Your Square Mile project before handing over the money, even though meeting the numbers was key to its success.

The finding was one of a number of criticisms relating to grants totalling more than £2 million to projects linked to the BSN and its charitable arm the Society Network Foundation.

The Big Society Network was launched by David Cameron at 10 Downing Street two months after winning power in 2010, with the aim of encouraging community work and volunteering.

Within months of the Network’s creation, the Big Lottery Fund asked it to submit a bid for a grant to fund the Your Square Mile project, which was intended to encourage work in the community through a website, mobile phones and public access screens.

The NAO found the process of soliciting the application was in line with BLF procedures, but the Fund did not challenge recruitment targets, and then allowed the grant to be transferred to a new company Your Square Mile Ltd (YSM), set up by the BSN chairman and another director, without checking it had the IT skills to make the scheme work.

By October 2011, the Fund judged successful completion of the project was “unlikely”.

By the end of its first year in February 2012, rather than one million members, whose subscriptions were needed to fund operations, YSM had recruited just 64.

The Big Lottery Fund said in a statement: “We are grateful to the NAO for their work on this report and are pleased that it finds these grants were awarded in line with the Big Lottery Fund’s procedures for soliciting and assessing bids and that the fund followed its standard approach in doing so.

“As a funder we are committed to supporting riskier projects on occasion, and not just the tried and tested.

“It is in the nature of such projects that sometimes they don’t achieve their intended outcomes.”

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “We are backing organisations which encourage people to volunteer and use their talents.

“Society Network Foundation won a grant to deliver such a programme, but despite their efforts and our support, it was unable to make it work and so we ended our funding.

“Trying new things and being innovative means taking sensible risks.

“The mistake is not trying something new it is to keep doing something that has been shown not to work.”

Author: Wally Harbert, Third Sector mag

Like Chesil Beach, volunteering is so treasured that it is under constant threat of being subverted by its friends, writes our columnist

Chesil Beach is an 18-mile stretch of pebbles on the Dorset coast. The pebbles gradually increase in size as you travel east. Local fishermen know where they have landed by the size of the pebbles underfoot. It is part of the Dorset and East Devon Coast Unesco World Heritage Site.

A fine of up to £2,000 can be imposed for removing a single stone, but tourists cannot resist stuffing pebbles into their pockets. This is known as the Chesil Beach Syndrome. The beach is so admired that people are prepared to destroy it just to own a part of it. Students of Freud will recognise this syndrome as closely related to the Oedipus complex.

What has this to do with the third sector? Well, the same thing is happening to volunteering. It is so treasured that it is under constant threat of being subverted by its friends. Last year, just as a vigorous campaign to empower charity trustees to pay themselves was thwarted, the Labour Party argued that volunteers and trustees should have a right to time off work for charitable activities. Now theLocal Government Association wants volunteers to receive discounts on their council tax.

The concept of volunteering is that people give their time to serve others. If they are rewarded by payment, time-off or other wheezes such as council tax rebates, they are not volunteers. I am sorry if that sounds obvious, but it apparently needs saying.

It is only in recent years that there has been sustained pressure to compensate volunteers. More than a million women from all walks of life served without payment in the WVS (now known as Royal Voluntary Service) during the war. They bought their own uniforms with their own clothing coupons. The WVS did not shut the door when it was overwhelmed by new volunteers, but utilised their skills to enlarge the management team.

Since then, there has been a shift in underlying values in wider society. Everything is now valued in monetary terms and the market dominates. Whereas in the 1960s and 1970s I would have been affronted if someone had suggested that I would work more assiduously with the promise of a bonus, it is now common practice to award bonuses to people who do no more than comply with their job descriptions.

It is little wonder that, in this atmosphere, young politicians fail to understand the meaning of charity and altruism. They are entranced by the uniqueness of volunteering in a wicked world but believe service without an exchange of money is demeaning. They feel uncomfortable if the Good Samaritan does not send an invoice for his time.

Fortunately, the cost and the complex bureaucracy required to implement the proposal ensures it will never be enacted.

We should not apologise for volunteering or introduce gimmicks that betray its values. If politicians want to raise the profile of volunteers, they should invest in staff training, extend the honours system and encourage more town hall receptions to celebrate their achievements. The instinct to give is deeply embedded in the human soul. It is manifested in every major religion and is the basis of all societies. Like the stones on Chesil Beach, volunteering is a heritage worth protecting.

Wally Harbert has worked in local government and the voluntary sector

Author: Caroline Julian

For a copy of full report click here

Our energy market is at a turning point. Trust in suppliers is at an all-time low, wholesale trading is opaque, and a comprehensive strategy to combat fuel poverty and boost energy efficiency is missing. Rarely have we seen energy on the front pages of our newspapers for such an extended period of time, and rarely have the revolving issues resonated so deeply with the general public.

Everyone is calling for change, but we have so far been presented with tweaks rather than reforms, and disparate policy rather than a strategy. In order to transform the market, and to really appreciate energy for what it is – a public good – we need a much more ambitious and innovative response.

This response must emerge from an understanding that markets are fundamentally embedded in the relationships between people, institutions and businesses, and are driven by the desire for our society and economy to flourish. For the traditions underpinning the British Left, this appeals to the motivation to re-embed markets in social relations and enable access to a public good. For the British Right, this resonates with the Burkean tradition with its emphasis on participation in institutions, alongside the importance of competition, innovation, diversity and decentralisation. For Liberals, the crucial role of widespread ownership and local democracy, facilitated by intermediary associations, is key.

We need to appeal again to our roots and remind ourselves of the purpose that energy provision serves. In light of this we need to adjust our vision, present a strategy, and as new innovations, discoveries and technologies arise, discern how we can welcome them and take corresponding action.

How can we begin to do this? One way is to think analogously about what we want our energy market to look like and be. What incremental measures do we need to implement now that will take us closer toward the market we all need? For this, it is often helpful to learn from innovations overseas and apply the learning to the UK.

This is in part what inspired me to undertake a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust travel fellowship to Germany in August 2013, which forms the basis to this essay. I set out in particular to explore the innovative partnerships forged between communities, public and private organisations, which have enabled localities to take ownership of or participate in the governance of their local energy systems and utilities – a phenomenon that has grown significantly in recent years. By the end of 2012, 190 German communities had been successful in bidding to run their local electricity distribution grid, with at least nine of these being wholly community-owned ventures. Almost 900 local energy co-operatives are now established across the country, and this number is growing rapidly. And almost half of all electricity supply companies are owned by local government, communities and small businesses, with many increasingly competing privately-owned utilities out of the market.

These communities had a vision for their local energy market: a vision that saw the eradication of power sourced from nuclear and non-renewable sources, an end to fuel poverty, an end to waste, and a vision that saw their community flourish and grow. The desire to own and run local energy services is not a move toward re-nationalisation or even re-municipalisation, but toward a much more constructive, locally-governed infrastructure in which communities can ensure that their vision is realised. Many of these emerging community-owned grid operators and suppliers are not only offering cheaper tariffs than their competitors, but are seeking and fuelling the prosperity of their locality.

Our concentrated market economy and centralised model of power production and supply has so far precluded communities from applying such principles to our public utilities: The UK’s distribution networks are operated by private companies alone, our larger six energy companies occupy almost 95% of the retail market, and communities own less than 1% of our renewable energy capacity.

But this ‘German phenomenon’ is not entirely alien to the UK. It is not far from the principles that have underpinned our desire to co-create, own and run our public services. Just as communities in the UK can now challenge and bid to run their public services, communities in Germany can challenge and bid to run their local supply companies and distribution grids. We are also seeing a rapid growth in community energy in the UK, and an ever-growing ambition from such groups to also supply the energy they produce.

As we seek the innovation and infrastructural framework needed to move from “the ‘big 6’ to the ‘big and facilitate a more competitive, diverse and innovative energy market, pioneering examples 60,000’”,from overseas are needed. A substantial part of this essay therefore comprises a succinct and accessible qualitative account of my site visits and experiences in order to provide a unique and helpful resource for UK communities and policy makers to help them think analogously about the shape and constitution of our energy market. For those who wish to delve deeper, more detailed case studies can be found in the accompanying report, which is also publicly available.

I conclude this essay by drawing together some initial reflections on the application of these examples to the UK, and close with three brief recommendations for Government, communities and the energy industry that outline a new way forward. This essay maintains throughout that our policies are still oiling the cog wheels of an existing and failing centralised system, rather than implementing a new vision that has a much more transformative end goal in mind. Ironically, in an attempt to ‘fix’ the market for the benefit of consumers, we are re-enforcing a model that will always exclude them. We need to set ourselves on a path that recognises such participation as integral to the way in which our markets should work.

Author: Ian Cooke, DTAS

Ian Cooke, Director of Development Trusts Association Scotland, shares his thoughts on the key to building vibrant communities:

Over the last few years we have seen the term ‘community’ increasingly move to the centre of the policy agenda in Scotland – community-led regeneration, community ownership, community renewable energies, community enterprise and a proposed key role for communities within the re-provisioning of public services.

While this is both welcome and exciting, it does raise an important question about how we build capacity in communities, if they are to successfully rise to this challenge, and respond positively to these new opportunities. The development of enterprising, asset owning communities, who can lead regeneration processes and play a key role in future public sector delivery, invariably requires the development of an expanded knowledge base and skill set within communities, and requires us to re-think how we do community capacity building.

Historically, community capacity building had been largely done ‘to’ communities, from outside agencies such as local authority services, Third Sector Interfaces (formerly CVS’s), consultants and other specialist voluntary agencies. Will this support continue to be available in the future, and are existing community capacity building services and agencies really up to the task of responding to this new agenda?

Discussions about community capacity building have often been dominated by community development professionals. But much of the afore-mentioned policy development has been influenced by largely organic, bottom-up activity, as community after community has responded to threats and opportunities. In doing so they have drawn inspiration and support from a wide range of sources. Is it now time to reflect on this experience, and listen to communities themselves about what kind of capacity building they require?

As Director of the Development Trusts Association Scotland, I have had the privilege of working with, and representing, some of the most dynamic community organisations in Scotland over the last few years, and it has been fascinating to discuss this issue with many of them. So here are a few thoughts to kick off this much needed debate about future capacity building provision in Scotland.

Firstly, there seems to be a lack of clarity about what we mean by community capacity building – whose capacity is being built and for what purpose? My own experience suggests the need to focus on building the capacity of community anchor organisations as a pre-requisite for any wider community capacity building.

Secondly communities need to be inspired, not patronised! The most effective (and cost effective) single intervention in the early development of community organisations is the opportunity to visit another community to find out what can be achieved and to learn how to go about it. This requires small grants of a few hundred pounds. So why do so few funders want to provide these?

Thirdly, rather than funding capacity building activity as something done to communities, let’s recognise that the opportunity to employ their own staff is the most effective way to create a step change in capacity, and start investing directly in the core costs of community anchor organisations.

Finally, let’s recognise the wealth of knowledge and experience which already exists within the Scottish community sector, and start to tap into this much more effectively and systematically by developing Peer Support Programmes.

Author: Locality

Overview

At a time of austerity cuts and mounting demand, the challenge for communities and the organisations that serve  them has never been greater. How do we ensure that key public services meet people’s needs and support thedevelopment of communities we all want to live in?

The response by some government departments and local authorities to this challenge is clear – they feel thatsavings can be made by standardising community services and up-scaling local delivery to multi-million pound contracts, delivered by multi-million pound organisations. While this approach has had some major high profile set-backs, the underlying assumption – that the difficulties facing the funding of public services will be met through scale and standardisation – is not being challenged.

Locality and Vanguard have been working together to examine the issues and are able to demonstrate that big services and scale are incredible wasteful and damaging to local communities.

At a time of austerity cuts and mounting demand, the challenge for communities and the organisations that serve them has never been greater. How do we ensure that key public services meet people’s needs and support the development of communities we all want to live in?

The response by some government departments and local authorities to this challenge is clear – they feel that savings can be made by standardising community services and up-scaling local delivery to multi-million pound contracts, delivered by multi-million pound organisations. While this approach has had some major high profile set-backs, the underlying assumption – that the difficulties facing the funding of public services will be met through scale and standardisation – is not being challenged.

Locality and Vanguard have been working together to examine the issues and are able to demonstrate that big services and scale are incredible wasteful and damaging to local communities.

Increased administrative burdens and costs

A TSO in the North West was an experienced and successful business support provider, but recently found itself at the bottom of a long supply chain. Three separate organisations subjected the TSO to three separate but similar audit processes. Overall unit costs for the service were much higher than previously, but the organisation only received 40-50% of those unit costs to actually deliver the service, with the remainder invisibly swallowed up through complex management chains above them.

Creating silos and disjointed services

A TSO in the South West was able to integrate youth provision into a seamless, family-oriented approach, which started with the birth of a new baby, continued through childhood, teenage years and into adulthood. When the local authority decided to move from working with 65 local providers to nine large contracts, the TSO lost the contract to provide youth and play services. Vital information and deep-rooted relationships with children and their families are now lost. Under the new provision fewer activities are taking place, and the closely related web of informal local support has unravelled.

The report ends with a call to action. We know how to improve the lives of individuals and communities and the good news is that it doesn’t take any more resources to do it. But it does take courageous people who arewilling to follow evidence and abandon old beliefs. We are looking for community and statutory partners to work with us.

Our four key recommendations

1. Local by default : Commissioning and delivering public services should take place at a neighbourhood level.

2. Help people to help themselves: build strength not dependency People are the solution not just the problem.  This is a massive resource which is often overlooked.

3. Focus on what people need: Predetermined targets start from the wrong place.  A focus on underlying purpose is what will make the difference.

4. Value people over unit cost: The only way to drive down costs is by focusing on value. In other words, designing services that address problems early.

 For the full report: click here