Author: robedwards.com

Rob Edwards   robedwards.com

Local communities have won a record-breaking £13 million deal from a French multinational company planning to build a wind farm near Edinburgh.

A healthy slice of the profits from 22 wind turbines proposed for Fauch Hill in West Lothian will be shared by surrounding towns and villages – plus all the profits from another turbine to be wholly owned by local people.

The deal, agreed after tough negotiations, is reckoned to be one of the best ever from a wind power developer, and could have major implications for other Scottish communities considering hosting wind farms.

The 69-megawatt wind farm is proposed by the Louis Dreyfus Group, a privately owned company founded in 1851 in Alsace, France. Two opinion polls have suggested it is backed by 60% of local residents.

But the development has been opposed by some environmental groups, and was rejected by West Lothian Council in 2012. Last year, it was the subject of a public inquiry, and is now awaiting a decision by Scottish ministers.

Community groups, meanwhile, have negotiated payments from Dreyfus of £5000 per megawatt per year, which is expected to total £8.25m over the 25-year lifetime of the project. The company is putting an additional £330,000 into a fund to improve energy efficiency and boost broadband locally in compensation for disruption during construction.

Unusually, Dreyfus has agreed to let the community own one of the three-megawatt turbines, and will lend the money to buy it on favourable terms. One conservative estimate says the turbine could net more than £4.5m over 25 years, though others suggest it could be two or three times that, depending on future electricity prices.

Dreyfus also promised the wind farm can be used by walkers, horse-riders and cyclists. It is planning a visitor centre, free parking and better access to the neighbouring Pentland Hills Regional Park.

Stewart McKenna, who chairs one of the local groups, Kirknewton Community Development Trust, predicted that the social and environmental benefits to local people would be “enormous”. It was a hard-won victory that others could learn from, he said.

“Scotland’s people and its renewable resources are two of our greatest assets,” he said. “In combination they form a powerful positive force and will help to deliver a more resilient local democracy, better able to make decisions for itself.”

The Kirknewton trust tried for seven years to develop its own renewable energy project, but had to abandon the idea due to lack of cash and land.

Instead, the community has driven a hard bargain with a foreign developer. “I cannot see how long-term, meaningful projects such as this can be delivered unless there is some form of partnership with a larger developer who is prepared to undertake the first and significant quantum of risk,” McKenna argued.

The community benefits package agreed for the Fauch Hill wind farm was praised as “excellent” by Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland. “Locals have clearly bargained hard to get a good deal,” he said.

“Simple financial contributions are welcome, but we would like to see the community owning a part of every new renewable energy development. The proposal at Fauch Hill sets an important standard for all the big renewables developers.”

Deborah Chawner, director of Dreyfus’s Fauch Hill Sustainable Energy company, said the project offered “the best package of community benefits”. It included “valuable suggestions that were made to us by local groups”.

She added: “If consented, this will represent a new model for community participation for communities hosting a wind farm in the future. In addition, all funds from both the cash element and the community turbine will be managed and distributed by local community development trusts.”

Chawner was not aware of another community wind-power scheme in which the developer would finance a turbine with a low-interest loan for which the borrower was not personally liable. The Fauch Hill deal was a response to Scottish Government guidelines encouraging communities to take a share in wind-farm ownership, she said.

Scottish ministers have set a target for 500 megawatts of renewable energy to be owned by local communities by 2020. The aim is “to maximise the benefits for communities from renewable energy”.

In 1960s America, if you lived in the wrong neighbourhood, you wouldn’t get credit. The practice of redlining blocked lending in particular areas – a red line on a map circled ‘unsafe’ zones where lenders wouldn’t go. And evidence grew of low income neighbourhoods, and in particular African American communities, only getting access to loans and mortgages on less favourable terms.

After campaigning from civil rights groups, the US government took action, and in 1977 passed the Community Reinvestment Act. It requires financial institutions to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of the communities they operate in, including low-income neighbourhoods. They are required to do so in line with safe and sound practices, and their compliance with the Act is taken into account when banks apply for mergers and acquisitions, or to open new branches.

The legislation was strengthened in the early 90s, with the creation of the US Treasury Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI) fund, to help fill finance gaps. The Act is widely credited with having extended financial services to communities that previously struggled to access them. Since its introduction the CRA has facilitated more than $6tn in lending and in 2012 facilitated 5.9 million small business loans.

Key players in the UK community development sector have long been calling for similar legislation here. Are we any closer to achieving this, and do we still need an Act for the UK?

Access to credit has remained a headline grabbing story in the UK over the past five years. The inability of small businesses to get finance and the huge numbers of consumers turning to payday lenders is problematic for national, local and indeed household economies. It means businesses are not growing and jobs are not being created, and money is draining away from our poorest neighbourhoods. We may not be experiencing redlining, but we are experiencing market failure. We have a small number of large finance providers dominating the market; given the still high barriers to entry for new ‘challenger’ banks and the market disadvantages for alternative finance providers, there is a strong case to be made for using legislation to re-balance the market.

The Community Development Finance Association (CDFA) is working with partners in the Community Investment Coalition (CIC) to raise awareness of how new legislation could work for the UK. At the end of 2013 the CDFA and CIC hosted a visit from three instrumental actors in the US (Joy Hoffman, Jeff Nugent, and Mark Pinsky) to share their lessons from the CRA.

What the UK can learn from the US

Dissatisfaction with banks has led to the rise of payday lending

Discussions highlighted four key elements of the CRA that have helped its success in the US, and that need to be replicated in the UK:

1. The importance of transparency

2. The crucial role for an independent regulator to oversee and scrutinise disclosure

3. The need for formal partnerships between key actors

4. The pivotal role of a government-backed CDFI fund

The CDFA hosted fruitful meetings between the US delegation and the main political parties, which elicited cross party interest and support. Perhaps the time has finally come for the UK to legislate for change.  Indeed Labour policy is already committed to new banking solutions; meanwhile, the coalition government’s introduction of the voluntary agreement with the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) to disclose bank lending data is a positive first step.

So while progress is being made, action is needed in four key areas:

1. Transparency: In the US the disclosure of lending data, including geography, ethnicity, and gender has enabled the identification and targeting of markets that were receiving little investment. Following the recent UK voluntary agreement, the BBA and Council of Mortgage Lenders released the first lending data in December 2013. Data has been provided at an aggregate level and individually by seven of the largest banks, detailing loans and overdrafts to SMEs, mortgages, and unsecured personal loans (by first half of the post code plus one digit). It is an important first step in transparency that will enable other finance providers, such as CDFIs, to understand where investment should be targeted. Work is currently underway to analyse the data, and assess if it is of sufficient quality and comprehensive enough to be useful and relevant.

2. Independent regulator to oversee and scrutinise disclosure: Since the legislation was introduced in the US, the Federal Reserve Bank has overseen the data disclosure, testing it for discriminatory behaviour and managing on-going compliance. This role of an impartial regulator has been crucial in holding banks accountable and ensuring that fair lending standards are maintained. An equivalent role is needed in the UK.  The CDFA is calling for the Financial Conduct Authority and Bank of England to play this role and ensure the continuity and quality of disclosed lending data.

3.  Formal partnerships between key actors: An important policy decision that proved powerful in advancing community finance in the US was the establishment of partnerships between stakeholders such as banks, private companies and CDFIs. The US experience suggests that a neutral, respected convener is needed to bring stakeholders to the table and mediate the conversation on addressing the market gaps. In the absence of a requirement for these parties to work together (which the CRA ensures in the US), voluntary engagement will require strong, impartial and legitimate leadership. There is a clear role here for the treasury.

4.  The pivotal role of a government-backed CDFI fund: The US CDFI Fund has been an important force in allowing CDFIs to operate sustainably by providing them with equity, managing guarantee programmes, providing capacity building training and tax relief programmes. Bodies such as the Federation of Small Businesses and British Chambers of Commerce have requested a similar fund for the UK. The CDFA is now calling for a dedicated community finance facility of £150m as a base for leveraging significant private sector investment.

A role for local groups? US regulations give community groups the right to comment on or protest about banks’ non-compliance with the CRA. Such comments can help or hinder banks’ planned expansions.

In the UK local groups can take advantage of the data that has already been disclosed, and encourage councils and local enterprise partnerships (Leps) to do the same. Understanding the geography of local lending can provide powerful information for planning and funding decisions – for example, for financial inclusion programmes.

Long-running debates over a CRA for the UK have moved on in recent months. We now need to seize the opportunity offered by voluntary disclosure and renewed political interest, to ensure that this translates into improved access to financial services in every neighbourhood.

Public sector, community sector and community: a developing matrix in Govanhill

Govanhill is a complex place. It’s a densely-populated, diverse and multi-ethnic working class urban community of some 15,000-plus people within Glasgow’s Southside. There’s a mix of social, private rental and owner-occupied homes; of residents long-standing and newly-settled; and of a rich community life with a diversity of community networks, groups and organisations. But it’s crucial to recognise that many, many people are struggling in the face of economic and social inequalities and associated poverty. As part of my research, staff, activists and volunteers from Govanhill Housing Association (GHHA), a community anchor in that community, and other people more widely from within the local community sector, took the time to help me recognise these complexities. I began, as well, to learn from the local public sector: for here the two sectors are finding ways, over time, to keep talking to each other about what’s happening and what needs to be done. 

In my first article/blog looking at the working relationships between public sector, community sector and community – see here . I reflected on my study trip to Northmavine in Shetland, and the understanding gained of the role of Northmavine Community Development Company as a multi-purpose community anchor working across local economic development, community-building, service provision and advocacy for community interests. I argued that the working relations between the community sector/community in Northmavine and the public sector/state, as Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Shetland Islands Council, had been one of a longer-term commitment over a decade, and that this has proven of significant benefit for all. In this second article on Govanhill, I’m looking further at the potential of such a committed, long-term relationship between these two sectors, given ongoing developments in Govanhill since 2008. 

Govanhill was born of a growing industrialisation within Glasgow and its satellite villages/towns during the 19th century. Migrant workers and families arrived to find work, in particular at the local iron works, and tenement blocks were built as homes. Irish, Italian and East European Jewish communities were the earliest to settle; later, by the 1960s/1970s, Pakistani/South Asian families were settling too. During the 2000s, East European peoples, given the growth in the number of European Union member states, have been arriving and settling; in particular people from Slovak and Romanian Roma communities fleeing hardship, racism and discrimination. Walking round the main thoroughfares, the range of shops, buildings and peoples confirms this rich cultural diversity and heritage; see for instance this recent article in the Scotsman on the Govanhill People’s History Project. Yet, as with working class communities more generally, it remains highly vulnerable to the changing economic and policy dynamics within the UK state and the global economy; which continue to impact on levels of suitable local employment, local investment and provision of services.

Investment in housing has proven particularly problematic over the long-term, given the extensive older privately-owned tenement blocks in south-west Govanhill. Such older housing remains a vulnerability more generally in Glasgow, and one constructive response in the late 1960s/early 1970s was that of the ‘community-controlled housing associations’ (CHHAs) managed by local committees of tenants and residents. These CHHAs developed from a community approach pioneered in Govan by Raymond Young and ASSIST, working with the University of Strathclyde’s Department of Architecture. When Glasgow Corporation and the District Council actively developed the initiative more widely, with funding support from central government via the Housing Corporation, GHHA became one of the earliest of these associations. The strategy gained ground across the city, with Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Association’s 50-odd member organisations in Glasgow now owning and managing some 58,000 homes, and leading on a significant and diverse array of community regeneration activities. 

By the early 2000s, GHHA had been responsible for over £100m of Scottish Government funded housing improvements across Govanhill. However, changing state policy and funding meant that the refurbishment of Govanhill’s tenements was not to be fully completed with 13 housing blocks in the south-west remaining ‘unimproved’. Further, many private sector landlords were now failing to invest in the maintenance of their properties and associated tenement blocks, yet were renting out these properties in appalling states of repair to the arriving and vulnerable migrant workers/families; with the latter, on very low incomes, being forced to live in dangerously over-crowded conditions. By 2008, GHHA was estimating that the costs of bringing almost 2000 such properties back-up to a safe, decent and liveable standard would be in the order of £180m. It is in working to meet this current crisis within the local housing, and the need for a continuing community regeneration, that the critical role of GHHA and the local community sector has come to the fore, and in three distinctive ways.

Firstly, GHHA and community partners have worked to sustain significant leadership and advocacy for local community interests over the longer-term. In order to generate the necessary recognition as to the scale of the ‘slum housing crisis’ in Govanhill, GHHA along with community partners – Govanhill Law Centre and Crosshill & Govanhill Community Council – petitioned the Scottish Parliament’s Petition Committee in 2008. The Petition ran to 2011 and influenced Scottish Government legislation aimed at empowering local authorities to deal with private rental housing problems – the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010 and the Private Rented Housing (Scotland) Act 2011. In the process, it has established an active working relationship between the community sector/community, Glasgow City Council (GCC) and the Scottish Government on the local housing crisis; one that has channelled £18m of state funding into Govanhill’s tenements over the last six years – more on this partnership below.

Such a sustained community leadership and advocacy has been enhanced by the formation in 2010 of Govanhill Community Action (GoCA) as a forum for the growing number of community organisations and groups, and which could ‘represent’ the diversity of local community interests. Further, a growing range of self-advocacy groups and initiatives have developed including: Romano Lav (‘Roma Voice’) for the Slovak Roma community supported by Oxfam Scotland; resident and tenant groups supported by GHHA; and a wider matrix of community organisations and groups working with the diversity of local people – across ages, ethnicities, faiths, tenures and gender. 

Other larger community organisations have played crucial roles too with Crossroads Youth and Community Association supporting self-advocacy with asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants; the Govanhill Baths Community Trust – born from the community campaign to save and re-open the public swimming baths – working for a wider social, cultural and physical community regeneration; and Govanhill Law Centre researching and advocating on employment and welfare rights, and campaigning against discrimination within (state) employment and benefit services. Media work led by GHHA and Oxfam Scotland has brought constructive stories of the Govanhill community back into both local and national media, so countering a negative and prejudiced narrative that had been growing.

The community sector has and is providing an invaluable, diverse and, at times, challenging  leadership and advocacy that sustains attention on the complexity of what’s actually happening on-the-ground, given the high levels of inequality and associated deprivation the community faces. Over the longer-term, the public sector/state is being both supported and challenged to sustain its attention on the housing crisis and the need for a wider regeneration across the community as a whole.

Secondly, GHHA and the local community sector are ‘providing traction’. They have been the means of ‘getting things done’ in ways that the public sector would be unable to achieve by itself. A Govanhill Service Hub has been created to coordinate public service provision and day-to-day management of local services; with GHHA providing the accommodation for the Hub and officers from key local public sector services. Within this Service Hub, GHHA now acts as local housing agent for GCC across social, private rental and owner-occupied housing as a whole. Meanwhile, GoCA acts to support joint-working within the community sector and with the public sector in service provision, neighbourhood and community auditing/plans, and more generally community consultation and dialogue.

GHHA’s community development trust – Govanhill Community Development Trust (GCDT) – and the wider local community sector now provide a complex matrix of projects and functions: more formal community-based services such as employment training and volunteering; more informal community-building alongside community and resident/tenant groups; and a developing focus on community social enterprise activity, including work with the minority ethnic resident and tenants group (MERG Welfare). The members of GoCA have completed a participatory budgeting pilot, as part of the Scottish Government’s Equally Well initiative, and they directed funding to relevant local projects and activity – the Baths Community Trust, the Law Centre and Govanhill Family Support Group.

GCDT also provides ‘infrastructure’ for a wider regeneration: providing office and workshop space for community organisations and local businesses; and leading on council-funded improvements to the local environment, shop fronts and other public spaces. GCDT/GHHA have also played a leading role in winning support and funding for Sistema Scotland to establish its second Scottish children’s orchestra in the local primary schools; with GCDT able to provide (‘in-kind’) the community-base for this ‘Big Noise Govanhill’. 

Thirdly and finally, GHHA/GCDT, GoCA and the local community sector have sustained this rich mix of community leadership/advocacy and the structures/networks to ‘get things done’ across a multitude of layers of decision-making and influence: working within the community, within local community planning structures, with the wider local authority, at a national level with the Scottish Government and Parliament, and with both local and national media. Such a multi-layered approach continues to be sustained over the longer-term. Currently, for example, GCC has developed a proposal – focused on the partnership between the community, GHHA, itself and the Scottish Government – in which substantially more housing funding/investment from central government, potentially of the order of £30m, is now being considered. The aim would be to refurbish the outstanding 13 key tenement blocks in south-west Govanhill, and with GHHA to take a key management and ownership role. If such a proposal is agreed, then here would be an intervention on a scale much closer to that originally identified as being necessary to actually tackle the private rental housing crisis. 

Govanhill is a complex place, and this article alone cannot do justice to the breadth and depth of the work being undertaken by the GHHA, GoCA and the local community sector in working alongside the public sector there. However, my research time there has helped me to better understand the very significant opportunities and benefits for the public sector in working with community anchors, the community sector and the wider community. Crucially, the gains in Govanhill have required the public sector/state to be willing to sustain listening and learning over a number of years and to work to find the necessary resources – the community sector and community cannot be understood as a ‘silver bullet’ that tackles society’s ills through minimal funding and investment. In the case of the housing crisis in Govanhill, for instance, the finance needed to resolve it will have to come through state interventions in various forms; the private rental sector and the market by themselves have failed, while the third sector, for now, lacks suitable financial institutions.

In the next article, I’ll turn to my third and final case-study on the Creetown Initiative in Dumfries and Galloway to think further on the ‘public-community’ working relationship; this time by considering the potential for community anchors to take the lead on local economic and social development.

James Henderson is a researcher and about to submit a PhD to Heriot-Watt University on the community sector.

Author: Huntly Development Trust

Huntly Development Trust (HDT) has just completed the purchase of a small farm on behalf of the community. Greenmyres Farm, which consists of 63 acres of grazing land, a farmhouse and associated outbuildings is situated just off the A96 some 4 miles south-east of Huntly. Financing for the purchase was provided mostly by a grant from the Scottish Land Fund, a Scottish Government initiative to help communities become more sustainable through the purchase of land and buildings.  

For the time being the farm will continue to be tenanted while the Trust conducts a major consultation exercise to determine exactly how the local community wishes the farm to be used. One partner already signed up is local charity, Networks of Wellbeing (formerly Huntly Mental Health) who already have several community wellbeing operations in Huntly and who are interested in using the farm to develop their activities. 

HDT Chair Richard Hammock said, “The Trust is very pleased to have acquired this substantial asset on behalf of the local community. We believe it offers a tremendous opportunity for local groups to develop interesting and worthwhile uses for the buildings and the site. It also provides the long-term security of asset ownership for our organisation, meaning that we can plan for the future.” 

Ian Cooke, Director of the Development Trust Association Scotland said: “DTAS is delighted to see another of our members acquiring a significant asset on behalf of their community. Huntly Development Trust is following in the footsteps of many like-minded, enterprising organisations across the country in using asset-ownership to strengthen their community in what are both challenging and exciting times. On behalf of all at DTAS I wish HDT well with developing the farm and look forward to visiting in the near future what I am sure will be a successful venture.”  

HDT stressed that it is open to a wide range of ideas from groups and individuals interested in site development. A working group has been formed to plan and deliver the community consultation and a community open day will be held shortly.

The Trust itself is to seek planning permission for a single wind turbine as a visual extension to the adjacent Dummuies windfarm, with a view to providing income and potentially energy for development of the site and to fund other community projects. Other potential uses are workshops and small business units, recreational use – the farm is adjacent to the Gartly Moor forest – small-scale agricultural enterprises, training and skills development, and aquaculture.

 However nothing is ruled out. Richard Hammock said, “Huntly has won awards for being the most creative place in Scotland and over the next few months we will be looking to see that creativity applied to the opportunity that Greenmyres offers to us all.” 

The show this year will focus on Transport, Energy, Sustainable Food and Land and will offer many activities and events over the full two days. We will be hosting debates, workshops and demonstrations with leaders from all sectors, with inspiring, guest international and industry speakers, Our FRESh FRINGE will have a full compliment of our community and business peers, where partnership and knowledge share will be the aim.  Space at the FRINGE is limited, so get on the list! Here’s the link to reserve space and time

Friday evening is FRESh Awards night! – honouring the very best of the sustainable community sector in Scotland. These are awards for communities, by communities, to honour and celebrate the amazing community-led work happening around Scotland Nominations required. Winners announced at the Awards event – May 2nd 2014. A night to remember!

There are 6 categories: Land, Renewable Energy. Sustainable Transport, Food, “Great All-Rounder” and “FRESh New-comer”.  We are really excited by the level of response that we’ve had to nominations since they opened last week, but really want as many community-led examples as possible nominated.  It is the easiest nomination process ever – nominee’s contact details and 100 (or much less) on what they are about/why inspiring.  

…

 On the Saturday, we will host a local market , FRESh FOOD FESTIVAL, electric bike test rides, EV test drives, Bike Doctor, gardening fun, demonstrations, activities for youngsters, live music, woodland bug hunt and an Eco show for the little ones and much more. We will be joined by environmental biggies – Greenpeace, Water Aid, RSPB, Scottish Wildlife Trust and others.

So much more to tell! Please look out for further information – coming soon! – Put the dates in your diary – May 2nd & 3rd 2014

Author: Evening News, Edinburgh

COMMUNITY campaigners bidding to take over a disused leisure centre are to battle on despite a recommendation from council officials that the building should be demolished.

Residents succeeded in stopping a previous move to bulldoze Bonnyrigg Leisure Centre and went on to form the Bonnyrigg Centre Trust, which drew up a business plan to reopen the premises as a community hub and play centre.

A report to Midlothian Council, due to be debated next week, recommends the community bid for the building should be rejected.

But the trust has appealed to councillors to take another look at the case for saving the centre, which lies in King George V Park, near the centre of the town.

In a last-minute plea, the campaigners said: “We are asking for the opportunity to be allowed to succeed and sincerely hope that councillors will be prepared to use their position to make this possible for the dedicated and self-motivated community of Bonnyrigg.”

The leisure centre was closed by the council last year following the opening of the Lasswade High School Centre, which has extensive facilities open to the community.

Lothian Green MSP Alison Johnstone tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament backing the campaign to keep the centre and delay demolition plans.

The trust proposes reopening the centre in two phases. The first would include a soft play/party venue with cafe, community offices, a youth club and a skate park.

Phase two would see transformation of the former pool into a large indoor creative play centre. A bike repair centre is also included in the proposals.

But a panel appointed by the council to assess the bid said it had concerns about the financing of the project, noting it would be heavily reliant on grant funding. The panel also described income projections as “over-optimistic”.

Architect Douglas Strachan, who has worked with the community to produce drawings for the proposed reopened centre, said the points made in the council report were not unfair.

But he added: “It’s not possible to have funding in place without agreement from the council [that] we are going to get the building.

“Councils elsewhere, faced with a similar situation, have taken a very different attitude. The community has come together to try to make this work. Instead of judging us, the council could have said ‘Let’s see what we can do here’.

“I’m hoping the spirit of what we are doing will mean they look at the report and come to a different conclusion.

“They have recognised we are trying to address people’s needs. If they take that as their mandate, they could get us in and say ‘Let’s make this happen’.”

Midlothian Council chief executive Kenneth Lawrie has also recommended rejection of a second bid for the leisure centre from Midlothian Fitness Academy and is urging demolition of the building as soon as is practical.

Author: Community Land Scotland

Community Land Scotland, the organisation representing Scotland’s community land owners and actively campaigning for more radical land reform in Scotland has re-affirmed its commitment to achieving “the just cause of establishing new land ownership patterns in Scotland”.

The commitment comes in the Bunchrew Land Declaration following a gathering of Scottish and international land reform interests.

 David Cameron, the Harris based Chair of Community Land Scotland said,

 “We have had a very valuable meeting with other Scottish, UK, EU and international land reform interests over two days last week. By referencing ourselves to what has and is happening internationally in land reform you are forcefully reminded that land reform has been and remains a cause that is legitimately pursued to empower communities and win a more people centred approach to land governance. Far from land reform being just the interest of a small group of radicals, as it is often portrayed, in fact land reform is a mainstream international cause in which the UN and national governments around the world are actively engaged.

 “When you meet with others out-with Scotland, you are also reminded just how far behind the rest of Europe Scotland is in land reform, most countries having brought about greater land justice in centuries past.

 “We have left the meeting with renewed commitment to bring about land justice through land reform and about the legitimacy of the cause, and we are pledged to learn from and work with others to bring this about.”

 Michael Taylor of the International Land Coalition based in Rome who attended the event, said,

 “Like any country facing high concentrations of land ownership, challenging this structure also means challenging the concentration of economic and political power with which land ownership is so intertwined. Community Land Scotland is now setting its sights internationally; on learning from land reform movements in other countries and on linking in with global processes that can support their cause.

 “Community Land Scotland’s efforts are simultaneously a national and a local struggle; nationally in gaining political and public support for land reform, and locally in demonstrating the tangible benefits to communities of moving from being tenants to being landowners. Their achievements, and of the many that work with them, are impressive.”

 Community Land Scotland drew together arrange of interests at a meeting at Bunchrew House near to Inverness for a 24 hour gathering. The meeting was attended by lawyers, academics and land reform interests from Scotland, other parts of the UK and Europe and overseas, including Michael Taylor from the International Land Coalition based in Rome (quoted above).

 The final Bunchrew Land Declaration was drawn up by Community Land Scotland following the event and drawing on the lessons from it.

 Bunchrew Land Declaration

Community Land Scotland has adopted a declaration following a meeting at Bunchrew House, Inverness in March 2014 involving land policy and reform interests from Scotland, the rest of the UK and internationally.

Having shared Scotland’s land experience and learned of initiatives and events internationally in land reform, and recognising Scotland lags behind most countries in Europe in delivering reformed land ownership patterns, Community Land Scotland has re-affirmed its commitment to the just cause of establishing new land ownership patterns in Scotland and a people centred approach to land governance in support of the common good.

 Community Land Scotland has called on established land owning interests to recognise the manifest unfairness of current land ownership patterns in Scotland and is citing international agreements which legitimise nation states intervening in land ownership to bring about greater fairness and land justice.

 Community Land Scotland has pledged itself to work with other interests in Scotland and more widely to learn from others and to share with others Scotland’s experience of the land ownership question.

 The full declaration can be accessed on Community Land Scotland’s website http://www.communitylandscotland.co.uk/index.php/home/17

Author: Electoral Reform Society

From Centre to Community – reclaiming local democracy

Playfair Library, Edinburgh, Saturday April 5th

Democracy Max was a 13 month long citizen led inquiry into ‘what makes a good Scottish democracy’. Having analysed the findings, ERS Scotland is holding a Convention on Scottish Democracy to discuss how we can make some of the aspirations of Democracy Max become reality. 

We would like you to be part of that conversation.

From our experience of and insights gained during Democracy Max, we decided that our focus should be on the extension of democratic power to a really local level, and to suggest ways that democracy can operate best when people have power in their own towns and communities. 

Together with the Academy of Government at the University of Edinburgh, we are holding a day long deliberative discussion event focussed on discussion, experience sharing and deliberation to decide the best ways to strengthen Scotland’s local democracy. 

We are inviting experts, academics, practitioners, advocates and critics to present ‘evidence sessions’ which will then be debated and discussed in a facilitated deliberative format in order that the evidence can be thoroughly examined and future actions proposed. Speakers include Oliver Dowlen, an expert on selection by lot; Paddy Bort on how local democracy works elsewhere in Europe; alongside practitioners and advocates of community led projects. 

From Centre to Community will take place on Saturday April 5th in the Playfair Library at the University of Edinburgh. We hope you are interested and available and would ask you to register here to secure your place. 

If you have any queries, please get in touch. 

Willie Sullivan, Director

Juliet Swann, Campaigns & Research Officer

ERS Scotland

9.00 REGISTRATION 

TEA AND COFFEE

9.15 Find a seat and introduce yourselves. Who are you and why are you here? What do you want to get out of today?

9.30 INTRODUCTIONS

9.45 1st deliberation: ‘Why are we discussing local democracy?’

Evidence session 1 – Hansard’s Audit of Political Engagement (Juliet Swann, ERS Scotland)

Evidence session 2 – How does Scottish local government compare internationally? (Paddy Bort, University of Edinburgh)

Evidence session 3 – Community councils’ status update (TBC)

Followed by a facilitated roundtable discussion reflecting on the presentations and resulting in statements about of why improving local democracy is important and what benefits it will bring. 

10.50 BREAK – tea and coffee

11.20 2nd deliberation: How might we strengthen local democracy?

Evidence session 1 – Community assets (David Erdal, Tullis Russell)

Evidence session 2 – Sortition (Oliver Dowlen, Queen Mary University of London)

Evidence session 3 – Mini publics (Oliver Escobar, University of Edinburgh)

Followed by a facilitated roundtable discussion about these and other ideas and solutions for strengthening local democracy, their merits and any disadvantages. 

13.00 LUNCH

14.00 New tables and short plenary session to describe next steps

14.10 3rd deliberation: How might we implement these solutions?

Evidence session 1: Community action across Scotland (Juliette Summers, University of Stirling)

Evidence session 2: Leith Decides – participatory budgeting (TBC)

Evidence session 3: Renewable energy as a community project (Jelte Harnmeijer, Scene Consulting)

Followed by the final facilitated discussion which will focus delivering solutions to strengthen local democracy, taking account of the reflections from this final evidence session.

15.35 BREAK

16:10 Final session: Building the campaign 

The aim of this plenary session is to draw together as many inputs as possible for shaping the campaign and to find out who is motivated and able to participate at some level. 

16.50 Thank you and next steps

Author: Locality

Executive Summary -Saving money by doing the right thing: Why ‘local by default’ must replace ‘diseconomies of scale’

This report shows that the UK public sector is wasting millions of pounds on services that do not meet people’s needs. When people’s problems go unresolved, their needs remain the same or get worse, creating unnecessary demand and spiralling costs. The human cost is incalculable but can be felt by reading the true stories of Child A, Melvyn, Ruth and Jake in Part Ic.

The financial cost to the public sector can be measured empirically as the groundbreaking studies in this report show. By tracking multiple demands from individuals over time and across public services, it is possible to quantify the actual costs of a service from start to finish for each individual. Analysing hundreds of thousands of demands from many individuals makes it possible to confidently draw conclusions on where and how to reduce costs. If the experience in the few areas we have studied is typical, initial calculations suggest that potential cost savings for local authorities alone from a move to locality working could run to as much as £16 billion annually across England, with even further savings in other parts of the public sector.

This differs from previous studies of public sector resources because it starts from the service user and then counts every demand they make across organisational boundaries. The counting only stops when the original need has been met, crucially, as perceived by the individual, not by the organisation. It is also the first study of its kind to discriminate between artificial demand for public services, generated only as a result of an organisation not taking the right action, and the real demand experienced by the person who needs help. This artificial demand is called ‘failure demand’ (‘demand caused by a failure to do something or do something right for the customer’, John Seddon, 2003).

This report shows why public sector organisations fail to meet people’s needs and why demand is rising. The two main causes, discovered empirically in the studies, are the belief in ‘economies of scale’ and the belief in the standardisation of services. Together, these beliefs prevent organisations from understanding and meeting people’s needs.

Perhaps the most surprising finding, described in Part I, is that real demand for most public services is not rising. It is the artificial demand, created and amplified by organisations themselves which is rising. This finding marks a seminal moment in our understanding of demand for public sector services because it shows us exactly what to do. No further cuts or attempts to ‘manage’ demand by putting it online are required. We know how to reduce millions of pounds worth of unnecessary demand on public services; simply design services which are able to do the right thing for people in the first place. More effective services are more efficient, as people have their needs met more quickly rather than having to place numerous demands on the old unresponsive systems.

The effects of scale principles on the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people helped by local third sector organisations are described in Part Ib. The belief that ‘economies of scale’ are achieved by commissioning 

large public sector contracts has a number of damaging consequences with no increase in efficiency. One consequence is an increase in costly administrative burdens of tendering, compliance and monitoring, particularly troubling for third sector organisations, who strive to maximise resource allocation to the frontline and away from management and administration. More worrying is the impact on vulnerable people; they are provided with what has been commissioned rather than what they need.

Other unintended consequences of large scale contracts include:

• the creation of silos and disjointed services across all sectors

• a decrease in competition and diversity of supply

• a decrease in innovation and cooperation

• an increase in uncertainty

• a culture of fear

• the erosion of independence

Taken together, this evidence represents a staggering opportunity for the UK to reconfigure public sector resources, saving the economy many millions, if not billions of pounds. The Vanguard Method achieves this empirically, starting with one person at a time, understanding their needs in context and building up a true picture of demand locally. As illustrated in Part III, this enables all public sector organisations in a geography to work together to design a bespoke, multi-disciplinary, evidence-based system that meets local demand. This approach, unlike many other attempts to join up services, does not require additional funding or encouragement from Whitehall. It does however, depend on the willingness of public sector managers to abandon unhelpful beliefs about ‘economies of scale’ and standardisation.

The principles and practice of this counter strategy are outlined in Part II, together with two case studies, one from the UK and one from the Netherlands. The example from the UK highlights the importance of understanding people and families in their own contexts and in their own language, away from standardised forms, scripted telephone conversations and official interview rooms. This approach shows the profound impact of helping people previously labelled ‘troubled’ and ‘lost’ to find ways of solving problems themselves. Not only does this approach improve lives and communities, it dramatically reduces future demands placed on the system.

The example from the Netherlands shows that understanding demand in human terms and providing the means for self-help are universal principles for effective and low cost services.

Part III describes the implications for policy and regulation. The report does not advocate further privatisation, nor conclude that private is good and public is bad. The conclusion is simple; if the public sector is to provide services that meet people’s needs at reduced cost, scale principles must be abandoned.

The new principles for services that meet people’s needs:

• are ‘local by default’

• help people to help themselves

• ensure a focus on purpose, not outcomes

• manage value not cost

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 public sector 

leaders who are willing to follow evidence and abandon old beliefs. Only they can do it.

See the full report here

Author: Jessica Conrad

To download a free copy of A Sharing Revolution click here

On a bitingly cold and rainy November evening last year, I was in a pickle: I’d taken a city bus to CoCo, thecoworking space where I office in downtown Minneapolis,and was seemingly stuck without an efficient option for getting to Birchwood Café, where I would meet friends for dinner, three miles away. That is until I remembered my new membership with car2go,a car-share service that had recently won a contract with the city of Minneapolis. I quickly located a vehicle using car2go’s mobile app and, my despair vanishing, dashed out of the building in search of the blue and white smart car parked only a few blocks away. car2go’s operating program—“take it, drive it, park

it”—allows users to drive vehicles and leave them on the street anywhere within the designated home area.

What I love about it, beyond the fact that it’s incredibly cost effective compared to owning a car, is that the community of drivers stewards the system. Users are encouraged to keep the cars’ gas tanks full and tidy their tiny interiors before ending a trip. What’s more, the drivers I know agree that it actually feels good to leave a car in a new location because, in doing so, you

increase access to the shared resource. That’s the appeal, along with saving money and the

planet, of the sharing economy—the emerging economic revolution where access has become more important than ownership.

But what struck me during that first trip in November was this: Not only was I participating in the sharing economy, but my use of the car-share system was utterly dependent on city streets, a commons belonging to all of us. Not to mention the airwaves that transmitted information to my smartphone, which we technically share together. This simple scenario reminded me that without the commons, there would be no sharing economy, no market, and—at the risk of sounding overly dramatic—there would be no future.

Sharing has always been essential to human life, but “What’s new,” says Neal Gorenflo, founder of Shareable Magazine, “is our blindness to it.” Through our individualized pursuit of happiness—a lifestyle ushered in during the Industrial Revolution—many of us have forgotten that for centuries the most promising source of security came from our ability to build and maintain strong social connections and respect the commons. From water and forests to public transportation systems

and public health to human knowledge and the Internet, the commons includes all that we share. But it’s not just stuff, it’s also the ways we work together—a whole new economic and political paradigm. Elizabeth Royte, author of Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, aptly notes, “In a world of hyper-individualization…sharing our stuff with friends or strangers can be a political act.”

Putting the ideals of the commons into practice in our everyday lives means engaging in community activities, for example, and sharing with our neighbours. “We act under the assumption that we will take care of each other and make decisions that increase our collective self-reliance,” says Julie Risatu, co-director of On the Commons. The good news, says Jennifer Bradley, a fellow at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, is that we’re starting to witness more and more people taking life into their own hands. People are starting to ask, “What can we do together that we can’t do by ourselves?”

This cultural shift seems capable of both strengthening community in a profound way and creating

new opportunities for sharing on a scale we’ve arguably never witnessed before. Through the sharing economy, we can now use online social networks to share and swap goods and services with peers (people we may or may not know) in a safe and efficient way. While some of these exchanges fuel the market economy—for example, 3 to 5 percent of any contribution you make through Kickstarter, the popular crowdfunding platform, goes to Amazon—more familiar, tried-and-true models of sharing—such as libraries, cooperatives, and credit unions—offer an alternative to private ownership.

With the global population skyrocketing and our supply of natural resources decreasing, the cultural shift toward sharing seems timely. But the question is will it actually help us protect our commons  and break the status quo of modern consumerism? To Leland Maschmeyer, a creative director and author of The Triumph of the Commons, the sharing economy succeeds as a first step toward a commons-based economy because it helps people understand that “private ownership does not have a monopoly on happiness, health, and freedom.” Owning things doesn’t necessarily make us feel good, but sharing certainly does. And the more people become comfortable with the idea of sharing, says Maschmeyer, the more they become comfortable with other kinds of sharing, the true spirit of community, and the commons. Another boon of the sharing economy is its ability to help us “use our existing physical resources and systems more effectively,” says David Mahfouda, founder of the taxi-share system Bandwagon. In an effort to make sharing more appealing, Mahfouda offers passengers an incentive to share their cab with others headed in a similar direction. In doing so, Bandwagon takes advantage of underutilized capacity in the current cab system, a strategy that will likely amount to significant environmental advantages over time. 

Sharing is not only good for the planet, but also serves as an “antidote to social isolation,” says Royte, adding: “That is, unless you orchestrate all your collaborative consumption [another term for the sharing economy coined by Rachel Botsman, author of What’s Mine is Yours] online, through the thousands of websites that facilitate this new economy.” Does sharing make us happy when there’s no person-to-person interaction? Probably not. Of course, as I’ve said before, the looming question

is how services within the sharing economy can become more effective in reaching across lines of class and geography. Some people are starting to address the question of equity in thoughtful ways, and I especially appreciate Jennifer Bradley’s recent Techonomy interview where she suggests how the sharing economy could address needs for a larger swath of society.

With a few tweaks, an Uber-like system, for instance, could help low-income people get to work.

Despite these possible shortcomings, this I know to be true: When we own less, share more, and use resources only when we need them, we will be on a path toward what Maschmeyer calls “redesigning society to promote the commons.”

The recent rise of both the sharing economy and the commons seems to suggest a growing recognition of the fact that our health, happiness, and security depend greatly on the planet and people around us. This book highlights the many ways, new and old, that people connect and collaborate to advance the common good and explores how we can work together to extend opportunities for sharing to even more people.

For when we operate as though we are all in this together—because we are—we will discover a tremendous abundance of goodwill, imagination, and the drive to create the kind of future we want to live in.

To download a free copy of the e-book click here