Author: Ian Jack, Guardian

We live in a globalised age. Does it matter if a French company owns the electricity supply so long as it works?

‘Our Chelsea’ … Surely hard for anyone other than Roman Abramovich to claim? Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP
The objects of our loyalty are increasingly chimerical – no more than “brands” in many cases, will o’ the wisps compared to the solid wooden furniture of our material history.

Football is a prime example. “Give us back our Arsenal” and “Give us back our Chelsea” are the chants of fans fed up with weak performances, but where does the “our” come from? Arsenal’s shareholding is divided mainly between two foreign tycoons, the American Stan Kroenke with two thirds and the Russian-Uzbek Alisher Usmanov with just short of a third. The manager is French. The players are drawn mainly from continental Europe and Africa. The stadium, the Emirates, is named after a sponsoring airline.

As for Chelsea, its owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, has just fired his eighth manager in nine years, none of them English, at a total cost of £77m. Altogether he has spent around £1bn at the club: money, as Richard Williams reminded us this week, that came from plundering the natural resources that once belonged to the people of the Soviet Union and recycling it “in the form of salaries and redundancy payments that trickle down to London’s car salesmen, concierges, watchmakers, estate agents, fashion designers, chefs, security guards, croupiers, interior decorators and dealers in yachts and executive jets”.

It seems incredible in this context that in 1967 Glasgow Celtic won the European Cup, the first British team to do so, with 10 out of 11 players, plus the manager, born within 10 miles of Celtic’s stadium (the exception’s birthplace was the Ayrshire coast). The fact is now famous but it seemed unremarkable at the time. Celtic supporters could look at these men, recognise that they shared the origins and religious denomination of most of them, and justifiably think of the institution as “ours”.

The team I followed, Dunfermline Athletic, took its players from a wider catchment area – Alex Ferguson, who eventually became the most famous of them, travelled all of 40 miles from Glasgow. But everything else about the club was intensely local. The town’s solicitors and owners of small businesses held the shares, and the players met most days for lunch in the City Hotel, where the proprietor was the team dietician. You would see them shopping in the high street and gripping a billiard cue at Joe Maloco’s snooker hall or a glass in the East Port Bar. They took the bus. One or two readers among them borrowed books from the library I worked in and stood in the queue to have them stamped. And all of this normality went on applying even after they’d won the Scottish Cup, which would be the most famous thing any of them ever did. They too could be thought of as “ours”.

But Chelsea? Surely it would be hard for anyone other than Abramovich to imagine it as “ours”, even in the loosest, most sentimental sense. A friend of mine supports Chelsea, though he lives nowhere close, and is affected by their results, win or lose, to a perplexing degree. The phrase “loyal fan” would describe him very well. Fandom is of course a mysterious condition, not easily understood by anyone not in its grip, but this week I thought I’d ask him how he could manage to stay so true to an old London institution now ruled by a cunning megalomaniac whose death might have been cheered by the sailors in Battleship Potemkin.

Personal tradition was at the root of his answer. As someone with little interest in football until he watched televised matches during the 1966 World Cup, he’d been taken by a friend to see Chelsea play and got hooked. It was entirely random – it might just as easily have happened with Fulham or Spurs – but he kept on going, “feeling that sense of belonging which is so much a part of being a fan, a loyalty that embraces both fellow feeling for other fans and hatred for the alien opposition, which sometimes included the referee”.

There was also what he called “a moral element” of sticking with the club through thick and thin. “If Chelsea were to be relegated, as has happened in the past more than once, I’d feel they needed my support more than ever.” It would be “unthinkable” to support another team: coming on for 50 years of triumphs and disasters are too deeply etched into his consciousness for him to do anything other than pick up a paper and look at the Chelsea result first. As for “moneybags Roman”, the fans knew he’d brought the club success on a previously unimaginable scale and therefore directed all their anger at the managers he appointed rather than his royal self. “I’d far rather he spends his ill-gotten gains on Chelsea players and managers than on more expensive yachts,” my friend said, with a heedless implication that rather surprised me: as though nothing else mattered. He supposed his loyalty was an addiction, “like alcohol”. But what was he being loyal to? Perhaps something easier to feel than to touch or to see: the fellowship of the crowd.

As it is with football, so it is with the state. Not as “ours” as it used to be, hard to touch or see. “Less and less are we a nation and more and more just a captive market to be exploited,” Alan Bennett writes in the introduction to his new play, People, complaining that “the diminution in magnanimity” in the state’s provision has rebranded the citizen as a customer “supposedly to dignify our requirements but in effect to make us available for easier exploitation”. A few weeks earlier, the writer James Meek had published in the London Review of Books a similar diagnosis of the private ownership, often foreign, of public utilities. The commodity that made water, roads and airports valuable to investors was us, the people who had no choice but to use them. “We are a human revenue stream; we are being made tenants in our own land, defined by the string of private fees we pay to exist here.”

The tendency is to discount a desire for local ownership as impossible nostalgia; to portray it as a childishly simple misunderstanding of the world. We live in a globalised age, the clock can’t be put back, what does it matter if a French company owns the electricity supply so long as it works? But Britain is an unusually open economy and something has gone missing: some sense of control, some texture that we can feel and think of as our own.

Author: Rory Reynolds, Edinburgh Evening News

PARENTS running childcare facilities and tenants managing housing estates are among the new measures expected to be introduced as part of wide-ranging changes to the way services in Edinburgh are run.
From this year, Edinburgh will be among a network of “John Lewis councils” – named after the employee-owned retailer – which works to hand greater control of services to city residents. Widely publicised south of the Border in recent years, the city is the first in Scotland to adopt the “co-operative council” ethos which aims to puts power in the hands of the public instead of bureaucrats and politicians.
A conference at the City Chambers heard the experiences of other local authorities, such as Lambeth in London, which handed control of 12 housing estates to elected management boards comprised of tenants.
Away from frontline services, residents along a bus route there established mini-allotments at each stop selling vegetables, while Brixton saw the creation of a “beer co-
operative” where those involved grew hops in their garden to produce Brixton Beer.
Later this year, Edinburgh City Council will publish its annual budget for the “first time in decades” according to city leader Andrew Burns, with a view to involving the public in the way in which cash is spent.
The next 12 months will also see the creation of initiatives that city leaders believe will lead to greater power sharing and support for community projects.
It aims to open up four different key service areas to the public, the most radical of which is expected to be putting tenants in charge of the way social housing blocks are run.
The John Lewis model – which has been adopted by Plymouth City Council and Telford Council in Shropshire – has been spreading in popularity among Labour local authorities.
Councillor Burns insisted that the current “we know best” approach from both politicians and officials cannot 
continue as it is.
He said: “We want council services to be transformed by shifting power; so the council is working much more ‘in partnership’ with the local people it is ultimately here to serve. That won’t happen overnight, and it won’t apply to all of the council’s services . . . but as evidence from elsewhere has proven, small beginnings can lead to a major transformation in service design and delivery.”
‘System puts power into the hands of locals’, By Steve Reed Leader of Lambeth Council
“This is a system of local government which puts power in the hands of local people, rather than having professionals and bureaucrats run their lives.
Whenever I speak to people in social housing they don’t like the way repairs are being done. Those in social care say their routine isn’t as good as it could be. If we listen to people and give them the power they need they can control the professionals which run these services and improve them for all.
This isn’t people getting on board what the council is doing, it’s about the council getting on board what people are doing.
There is a housing estate in my ward, Blenheim Gardens, where the residents have an annual meeting where a management board is elected. All the running of the housing estate is down to the residents, who decide what needs to be done. Empty homes have been filled, cleanliness has been increased and rates of rent collection have improved. There was one area full of drug addicts and prostitutes and the residents there made sure they were cleared out.
Residents are much happier than they were before because they are in the driving seat – if they have a problem they make the housing managers sort it out.
Edinburgh will do their own thing, it’s a very different place from Lambeth, but there are similarities and we can both adopt the same approach. We’d already like to learn from the idea that your leader Andrews Burns is taking towards co-operative childcare across the city.
Childcare
Establishment of parent-run nurseries and after-school clubs will be encouraged to cut down on the cost of sending children to private facilities.
A number of such groups, including those linked to Craiglockhart and Towerbank Primary schools, already exist. A management board is usually established and staff hired directly to work at the group. Fees can be as little as £7.75 per day.
Marion Clark, general manager at Towerbank, said: “Knowing that other parents run the club reassures people, and it also means parents can run it the way they would like. We have 64 kids registered with us and we’ve had to move recently because we’ve become so big.”
Housing
SOCIAL housing tenants would be handed control over the running of their own blocks and estates under one model being considered by city leaders.
Management boards made up of residents would be elected and handed responsibility over their local area. Housing officials would still work for the local authority but would be directed by those on the board, with the aim being to use their local knowledge.
Tenants would be able to ensure graffiti, vandalism and empty properties would not go unnoticed for long periods of time, while being in daily contact with the officers running their area.
Estates in Lambeth went further and ensured drug dealers and prostitutes were flushed out of the area and residents transformed squats into community facilities.
Social Care
Those who use care and home help services would be among those who would serve on boards of the organisations which deliver the service under one potential model. Social care provision would also be tailored to individuals as much as possible, instead of having city-wide guidelines.
In Lambeth the system of tailoring such services to specific communities was a huge success. The Living Well Collaborative holds monthly breakfast meetings to bring together health professionals and council workers and those who use the service, and alters its approach accordingly, assuming citizens are the experts on their own lives.
Energy
Groups aiming to establish community energy projects – such as solar panel arrays or small windfarms – will be given support from a central energy unit at the local authority.
It is intended that the service will offer advice on the government’s feed-in tariffs scheme, which pays groups for supplying renewable energy to the National Grid.
Projects already under way include the proposed small hydro-electric power station at Harlaw Reservoir, which a group of residents and engineers in Balerno are exploring. Residents in a block of flats seeking to explore such a scheme would also be supported when applying for grants.
Lord Provost Donald Wilson said: “I had solar panels installed on my home and have been using the feed-in tariff for some time.
“The legislation is all there to allow a community to explore a communal project. But it’s a question of getting the message out. It may be the case that people are put off because the returns on the feed-in tariffs have come down, but so have the costs of installation, quite significantly.”

If you live or work locally you’ve probably noticed the most recent addition to Wester Hailes’ landscape.  At 4.5 metres high it’s hard to miss, Wester Hailes’ first totem pole located just across the road from the Plaza, on the Westside Waterfront down by the canal.  Officially launched on the 10th December by the Lord Provost, the totem pole is not only a first for Wester Hailes but also a first for Scotland as the first digital totem pole in the country, designed to encourage digital interaction with a variety of information sources including the social history of the area.
The pole was created and carved through a series of workshops organised by WHALE Arts Agency and was designed by local people who decided what images represented Wester Hailes and the community here.  As you can see from the photo, the pole also has a series of QR codes around it.  These codes can be scanned with smart phones and link to different sites including our From Here To There Facebook page and the Community Council site.  People scanning the codes can therefore read information past and present about the area and about local priorities, aspirations and issues.  But the pole is also designed to encourage people to contribute their own information.  One of the codes links to the Digital Sentinel, a site that is looking for local contribution to create content that they think would be of interest to other local residents.  The eventual shape and scope of this site will be determined by those contributing and responding to it.  Whilst some areas of the site will be available generally online, the Totem Pole Community Noticeboard is only accessible from scanning the code at the pole.
WHALE are now planning to organise some workshops and sessions to bring together local residents who might be interested in taking an active role in the development of the digital sentinel, learn more about digital media, assist in editing content etc.  With more and more important information and services moving to online access only, it is important that everyone has the skills and confidence to use online and social media sources.  Areas such as Wester Hailes can lag behind in terms of digital inclusion with people sometimes lacking the resources and training needed to take advantage of new technology.  This project will help to put Wester Hailes at the forefront of such advances and enable local residents to develop the skills they need to operate within the world of online information and media sharing.
The pole was funded through a grant from the South West Neighbourhood Partnership and funding from the Arts and Humanities Council which came as part of a much larger project looking at what creates a connected community and how the different ways people access information can affect their response to it and the area they are living in.  Through this the University of Edinburgh and Heriot Watt University have been working with local organisations and residents on a series of interlinked projects using local social history to encourage people to learn about their area, share memories and reflect on what could be achieved in the present.  As well as the pole, there are now also the Code Books produced by the Wester Hailes Health Agency.  These pocket sized books have a series of local history walks around the different neighbourhoods of Wester Hailes with QR codes to link to further information.  There are also plans to have a series of wall plaques again featuring QR codes that will enable people scanning them to see images past and present of the neighbourhood they are standing in.

To see photographs of the totem pole and a short video click here 

Just three weeks ago, a community looked on in horror as a garden they had collectively built from scratch was destroyed without warning.
The ‘guerrilla garden’, which had popped up on the banks of the Union Canal, was nurtured over a five-week period by friends, acquaintances and strangers.
But their project was cut short by the City of Edinburgh Council, who said the disused spot of land in Shandon had been slated for wildflowers and a bench.
Now a similar project based in the nearby Fountainbridge area aims to appropriate empty space to engage community members, build local relationships and, of course, create a garden.
But in a bid to avoid a similar fate to that of their neighbours, founders of ‘The Grove’ have come up with a novel solution.
“We realised that the garden needs to be mobile, an idea we really struggled with in the beginning,” said Susanne Müeller, a member of The Grove’s four-person steering group.
“We know how community gardening works but we haven’t seen people mobilise their garden.
“We came up with the idea that the whole garden could live on palettes – the idea of moving something on palettes has been quite well researched so we thought it can’t be that hard.
“It could be quite a unique thing and I think that could be an asset to have something that is that niche. You can always find someone who can borrow a forklift to move it and this way the garden’s not at risk.”
Over recent years Fountainbridge has been characterised by gaping building sites and construction work taking place in the area, namely caused by the demolition of the Scottish and Newcastle brewery.
 
Part of the former Scottish and Newcastle site at Fountainbridge.
Two years ago, the Fountainbridge Canalside Initiative (FCI) was established to ensure that a viable and sustainable community-focused solution was developed in the area.
Now The Grove’s steering group, in association with FCI, are bidding to transform just a tiny corner of the plot, adding to work already carried out to improve the area.
The proposed area, located next to the 600-home Springside initiative which has been built on part of the Scottish and Newcastle site, would be available to community gardeners until developers Grosvenor decided to use the plot, at which point they would transport the garden to another place.
“Together with the FCI we identified the open land and started talking to Grosvenor, who said they would be happy to use as a meantime development,” said Susanne.
“I don’t think the community feels a negative impact from Grosvenor’s work, but the fact that it doesn’t have any impact isn’t good either. Sometimes people are confused by seeing a lot of open land; you can’t make anything with it.
“We want to turn the area into something the community can embrace.”
Unlike Shandon’s Trees Not Trash, which was based on a neighbourhood beautification scheme run in Brooklyn in New York and was created without permission from the council, The Grove will be made in partnership with Grosvenor.
The Grove’s steering committee say the property group, which is responsible for the 140,000 sq ft development, has already promised to provide the ground works and fencing required, as well as supporting the purchase of planting, storage, security and shelter.
“Obviously we are speaking to the developers, we couldn’t work with them without getting the right permission,” added Susanne.
“But I live in Harrison Park and I saw the impact of the guerrilla garden. It was like a magnet for kids, they would come over from the playground and just sit there and get involved – you don’t normally see that.”
Now Susanne, a social scientist who moved here from Germany three years ago and works for a renewable energy company, will join with the steering group to collect ideas from the community in a special meeting on December 10.
The event is aimed to shape the future of the garden, what it would include, and the way in which it would be used.
“I’ve always been interested in bringing communities together and seeing through sustainable practicing,” added Susanne.
“I realised this could be amazing, there’s nothing like this in the area. We said we want to make sure it’s inclusive and also to make sure the surrounding community is kept informed about what’s actually happening on the site. At least this is one development that they can actually engage with.
“People are extremely interested but we really want them to decide what they actually think. The most important thing now is to get the community to sit in the meeting to see if it still resonates – the most important thing is to meet the people.”
Pat Bowie, chair of the FCI, is also on The Grove’s steering group, and thinks that the initiative could be developed elsewhere in the city.
“We’re hoping it will be a great development in Edinburgh. Grosvenor is putting money into it as well, so it’s nice to actually have them on side,” she said.
“We want to be the body that keeps the links of communication between what’s going to be on that site and our community, so we can keep people up to date and they can have a say.
“I think there is a genuine willingness to work together on this, hopefully we got together at the right time.”
Robin Blacklock, from Grosvenor, who has been working with members of the public on proposals for a mobile garden, added: “It’s an exciting opportunity that we are investigating and we hope to be able to do something. We’re encouraged by the support the community have for it and we’re hoping to facilitate it in due course.”

SNP MSP Roderick Campbell lead a debate on the benefits of co-housing for older people in Scotland on 31 October 2012.

In his motion he cited some of the benefits as security and mutual support among peers, autonomy, people retaining control over their own circumstances, companionship instead of isolation, a sense of belonging and community and commitment and affordability through shared costs.

He announced to MSPs a new pilot project between the Vivarium Trust and Kingdom Housing Association which will build around 30 houses with residents deciding democratically what facilities they need.

Mr Campbell said in the current economic climate many housing options do not meet the needs of older people and he went on to say this model could offer a solution to many of Scotland’s pensioners.

Closing the debate for the Scottish government, Housing Minister Margaret Burgess welcomed the opportunity to discuss co-housing and said it was a model that should be looked at across the whole of Scotland.

To read more about the work of the Vivarium Trust click here

One in the south of Scotland…
SNP MSP for the South of Scotland Dr Aileen McLeod has welcomed the news that the South Rhins Community Development Trust is to commence community consultation under right-to-buy legislation, following the decision by the Northern Lighthouse Board to sell the 30-acre site and buildings apart from the lighthouse itself.
Dr McLeod commented: “The South Rhins Community Development Trust wants to keep this iconic site in community ownership and build on the good work that has been done over the past twelve years to turn the Mull of Galloway into a popular tourist destination.
“I hope these plans will gain the support of the wider community and allow the Trust to proceed with the community buy-out process.
“A great deal of good work has been done over the past twelve years and I am confident that the community has the skills and commitment to ensure the continuing success of the Mull of Galloway as a tourist destination, but in the future with many of its assets owned and managed by the community itself.”

And one in the north east…
A local community has given a resounding ‘Yes’ vote to plans for the transformation of an iconic lighthouse into a major tourism hub.
Voters in Lossiemouth were polled on if community buyout plans for the Covesea Skerries Lighthouse should go ahead, with the Moray electoral officer undertaking a ballot of every voter in the IV31 6 postcode district.
Hours after the deadline for returned ballot papers the result on Friday revealed an “astonishing” 94.9% of residents in favour of the Lossiemouth Community Company Limited (LCCL) taking the plan forward.
Now the group plan to press ahead with identifying funding sources for the estimated £300,000 required to purchase the lighthouse from current owners, the Northern Lighthouse Board.
Speaking for the LCCL on Friday a delighted Bernard Annikin said: “Under the terms of the Scottish Government’s community buyout scheme we had to show that we had the backing of the local community to purchase the lighthouse, and we felt the best way of doing that was to conduct this poll.
“In talking to people we were aware that they were in favour of this move, but even then we were astonished at the level of support the poll revealed. Almost half of those who could vote did so, which in electoral terms is not at all bad.
“With 2454 of them voting ‘Yes’ and only 130 saying ‘No’, there is a very clear message from the people of Lossiemouth on the way ahead. With that level of backing we know that we can progress with a great deal of confidence.”
Mr Annikin added that the intention now was to first secure ownership of the lighthouse and the LCCL will also consult with a variety of groups on how it will be used in the future. He said: “The main thing that has come through already is that people would like to see the lighthouse become a hub for all tourism activities in and around Lossiemouth.
“There are a number of groups showing an interest in joining us in this venture, including the RAF who may well establish a museum on the site.
“The poll has shown that people are prepared to work together on this and that is vital. We are looking at attracting perhaps 20,000 additional visitors to the area and that will provide a tremendous boost not only for the lighthouse but for all of the existing tourist attractions the area has to offer.”
Chairman of the LCCL is David Stewart, who added: “I am thrilled by the results of this poll which gives us a very clear mandate to proceed with our plans for the lighthouse.
“The LCCL has already looked at a variety of groups who would be able to assist the community in the purchase and that will now be our main priority. The Scottish Government withdrew the lighthouse from public sale and we will seek to ensure that it is under community ownership as soon as possible.
“These are exciting times for Lossiemouth and I’m sure that communities throughout Moray will be watching closely on how our plans progress.”

 
Dear friend,
 
Please support our Winter Destitution Appeal (Positive Action in Housing Ltd SC027577) for destitute asylum seekers and their families in Glasgow.
 
Destitute asylum seekers are not allowed to work or take benefits or homeless accommodation. Many have fallen into long term destitution and are now part of Europe’s growing population of “invisible citizens”.
 
In 2012, Positive Action in Housing (Scottish Registered Charity No SC027577) provided a hardship fund, food, temporary shelter and practical advice and support to 303 destitute asylum seekers. We provided 586 nights of emergency shelter (through our volunteers and hostels). We gave out crisis payments totalling £30,400 from the Hardship Fund. (We currently give out over £2000 every month).
Two thirds of those who needed help were “additionally vulnerable”. These included young women under the age of 25, the elderly, families, pregnant women, those with severe mental or physical health problems ,and  those who have suffered some form of trauma, for example, torture, rape, domestic violence or sexual exploitation.
 
In addition to our regular drop-in surgeries, we are holding a special Winter Surgery on Wednesday 19 December (10 am to 4 pm) to reach as many vulnerable destitute asylum seekers (and their dependents) as possible before Christmas and New Year, to provide continued emergency support and assist people out of destitution through advice and information. We will be giving out food, cash support, warm clothing and organising temporary shelter as well as providing a list of resources and general advice and information. We will be helping the young, old, women, children and those with physical and mental health problems. Hot drinks, soup and bread will be provided on the day. By delivering this Winter Surgery we aim to reach vulnerable destitute people (and their dependents) over Christmas and New Year. We also aim to keep contact with service users afterwards in order to provide continued support until they resolve their destitution crisis.
 
If you or your organisation are aware of someone from a refugee background who is destitute, potentially destitute or without cash support, or in danger of going hungry over Christmas and New Year, please provide their full details and circumstances and refer them to us asap by emailing home@paih.org. We will then advise you of a suitable time to send them to us for support.
 
We also welcome food donations of rice, pasta, oranges, tangerines, tins of soup (non meat), tea, coffee, biscuits, chocolates.
 
Please donate now
 
We are seeking financial donations from individuals and organisations towards our Winter Destitution Appeal, which aims to raise £15,000 by Christmas. ALL money donated will go directly towards providing humanitarian relief to destitute or potentially destitute asylum seekers and their dependents.
 
Individuals and organisations can donate in one of several ways:
 
1.     Give an online donation safely and securely at our Justgiving page .
 
Feel free to leave a message of support, for example, if you’re giving a donation in the name of loved ones instead of buying Christmas presents. Or be anonymous – it’s up to you. It doesn’t matter how small your donation, every little bit helps. If you’re a UK taxpayer, remember to tick the box to ensure your donation is “gift aided”, thus adding an extra 25% to your gift.
 
2.      Support our work regularly via standing order. Download the attached form (MS Word), complete it and send it to your bank.
3.     Send a cheque made payable to PAIH Ltd (mark the back of the cheque Xmas Appeal), and post to: Positive Action in Housing Ltd, 98 West George Street, Glasgow G2 1PJ
4.      Give a cash donation at our office Just email home@paih.org and we will arrange a suitable time for you to visit.
5.      Organisations can be invoiced for payment, just email home@paih.org with your contact details and the amount you wish to donate and we will invoice you.
6.     Send a text from your mobile phone: Simply text PAIH99 to 70070, with £2.50, £3, £5 or £10, or any amount you wish to donate. E.g., text PAIH99 £5 to 70070.
Thank you for all your support in the past and I look forward to hearing from you.
 
Many thanks,
 
Robina Qureshi
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
 
Positive Action in Housing Ltd is a Scottish Registered Charity SC027577
Registered office: 98 West George Street Glasgow G2 1PJ Website: www.paih.org
 
We wish to acknowledge the generous support of various charitable trusts and hundreds of individuals who support the Destitution Service pioneered by Positive Action in housing.
 
 
 
 
ABOUT THE LIFELINE PROJECT
 
When you’re stripped of your most basic human rights: the right to food, shelter, warmth and paid work, thinking about your future becomes impossible. You are living day to day, hand to mouth, and trying to find your next day’s meal or safe shelter.  The cycle of long term destitution, mental health problems and further family breakdown becomes inevitable.
 
The Lifeline project aims to bring stability to the lives of destitute asylum seekers and their families in a safe, confidential environment.  It allows people the necessary breathing space to reconsider their options in a supportive environment. The Lifeline Project provides befrienders, volunteers and advisers whose job it is to meet basic human needs of food, warmth, shelter and social networks in order to bring back stability and hope for a more positive outcome to their status in the UK by providing access to good legal support and the chance of often erroneous asylum decisions being overturned by judical review.
 
The Fund is paid for by private donations. Two thirds of those who we helped were “additionally vulnerable”: the elderly, children, pregnant women, young women under the age of 25, those with mental or physical health problems, survivors of trauma, for example, torture, sex trafficking or domestic violence.
 
Destitute asylum seekers are forbidden to seek work or access public funds or emergency housing. The Hardship Fund is paid for by private donations. Without this project, they would be left street homeless and exposed to exploitation.
 
The Hardship fund gives crisis payments to people all over Scotland throughout the year who are at risk of being destitute. We currently give out a total of £2000 every month in crisis payments to vulnerable people, including pregnant women, young people, families, elderly people and those suffering from severe mental health problems, HIV or diabetes.
We desperately need donations to allow us to continue this much needed humanitarian work.

Author: Jerry Mander, Resurgence Magazine, 1.11.12

Then there is the crucial matter of scale.  Most economists these days, the media at large and the general public do not make clear distinctions between large-scale domestic or global capitalism versus local, small-market capitalism.  The former operates in diverse, far-flung markets and regions, with extensive infrastructures, gathering resources or engaging in production and distribution, wherever on Earth they can do so profitably, especially after the boost provided by corporate globalisation after World War II.  Or else they franchise their activities broadly beyond their initial community.
Large national and global corporations – especially those whose stock is publicly traded – are obliged to see constant growth, constant profit expansion and the absolute primacy of short-term self-interest, no matter the social, political or environmental context or effects.  Making profits for shareholders is the primary, if not the only, legal and practical obligation of corporate structure.  If they do not succeed in that, businesses fail.
On the other hand, small-market local businesses have the option to operate in far different ways.  Private, small-scale, locally owned and oriented businesses that operate in single markets – especially those that are not listed by stock markets – are usually more directly involved in community life; their customers may also be personal friends or neighbours.  Such businesses can set priorities and retain options that large-scale capitalist enterprises cannot.  For example, privately owned, small-market businesses can opt out of any legal imperatives to continuously expand; nor do they have to pay dividends to anonymous or dominant shareholders.  This is also true of family or community-based businesses, as well as worker-owned and operated businesses, co-ops, and ‘not-for-profit’ corporations of various kinds.
Small enterprises will usually continue to seek profits, i.e. the excess of income over expenses.  But their smaller-scale and community-embedded ownership allows them at least the possibility to operate from entirely different hierarchies of value thatn their megacousins operating nationally or globally.  They can more easily avoid the intrinsic pitfalls that derive from serving the hungers of large-scale, growth-oriented, stock-market-driven enterprises.
This is not to say that smaller-scale businesses always behave morally or that they necessarily place the interests of community or Nature ahead of personal gain, but the smaller and more local that scale of the operation, the greater the opportunity for more pro-social, pro-community and pro-environmental values and an acceptance of limits to growth.
A family-run store, or a restaurant, or a local service business – even when it seeks a profit – is a very different entity from a national or global resource company or bank or manufacturer or hedge fund.  They are structurally and functionally different from large-scale or global capitalism, with mostly different motivations and drives – not really even cousins.
They should not both be called ‘capitalist’.  I think the word ‘capitalism’ should not be used to cover nearly the territory it now does.  If local entrepreneurs were the only ‘capitalists’ in the world, I would never have thought about this book.  They are not the problem

Author: Civil Society, 23.10.12 by Tania Mason

Sirs Stuart Etherington and Stephen Bubb outlined their differing views on the issue of trustee remuneration when they appeared before the Public Administration Select Committee this morning.
After Sir Stuart told the committee that the NCVO’s view opposing relaxation of the rules around paying trustees was shared widely within the sector, Sir Stephen muttered: “They are wrong”, to which Sir Stuart retorted: “I don’t think they are wrong Stephen, if that’s what you said.”
Sir Stephen had opened the debate on paying trustees by refuting the assertion by committee chair Bernard Jenkin MP that the issue was a “hornet’s nest”.
He said it has never been illegal for charities to pay their trustees, but the process of getting permission from the Charity Commission to do so is a “tortuous” one. Lord Hodgson’s suggestion of allowing large charities to facilitate payment without bothering the Commission is “entirely sensible”, he said.
 
Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, pointed out that three-quarters of his members did not think they would want to pay their trustees anyway, but 25 per cent could envisage doing so.
Asked by Jenkin what problem this suggestion by Hodgson would address, Bubb said it would increase trustee diversity, improve the skill level of boards, and boost trustees’ professional engagement with the role.
But Sir Stuart, CEO of NCVO, argued that the voluntary principle of trusteeships “goes right to the heart of charity”, and is of utmost importance in preserving public trust in charitable endeavour.
“It is the wrong time to introduce measures of this kind,” he said. “The existing measures are not tortuous or onerous, they are pretty straightforward.
“Ultimately it would have very damaging effects on public trust if charities could pay whatever they wanted with no checks or balances in the system.  There is also the slippery-slope argument, that there would be pressure on other organisations to follow suit.”
Etherington also rejected Sir Stephen’s stated reasons for supporting the change, saying there was no evidence that paying trustees would attract new skills to boards, nor that it would broaden the potential pool of candidates.
But Bubb went on to remind the committee that historically staff in charities were never remunerated, and that the move to paid CEOs and staff had not resulted in a loss of trust and confidence.
He added that those of his members that had attempted to get Charity Commission approval to pay their trustees had found it “extraordinarily difficult”. He cited the example of the RNIB, which pays its chair because he had to give up other work to take on the very demanding role.
“Why should we be able to say to these charities that they can’t pay their trustees if they want to?” Sir Stephen asked.
Committee chair Jenkin asked Bubb whether RNIB would want to pay its chair if it wasn’t such a wealthy charity, to which Sir Stephen said: “I don’t know”.
Jenkin concluded the session by saying: “Isn’t there something intrinsically special about the fact that the people who have ultimate responsibility for our charities do it as a voluntary effort, as citizens, often because they want to give something back?  Doesn’t paying trustees undermine that principle?”
Bubb responded that he didn’t think we would ever get to a point where most trustees are paid, and in fact the change that Lord Hodgson is proposing is “not a big change”.

Author: Research for Real, September 27, 2012

We know that multi-agency partnership working is difficult.
“Collaboration is by nature inefficient.  It is only sensible to collaborate if real collaborative advantage can be envisaged.  The strongest piece of advice, therefore, is ‘don’t do it unless you have to’”. 
Here’s a new set of reports that document the lessons from the Fife Alcohol Partnership Project.  There are lots of lessons from the overall approach likely to be of interest to others facing similar challenges across Scotland and the wider UK. It is likely to be of particular interest to members of Alcohol and Drug Partnerships, Community Planning Partnerships and all those with an interest in the public service reform agenda.
The reports are available on the FASS website.

“The project has worked out, but oh boy, it has caused pain.” – senior health promotion officer, health promotion partnership
“Decisions are made by the Alliance Executive, but they keep procrastinating over big decisions … you can’t afford to procrastinate over spending a million pounds.”  – information manager, retail property development alliance
“Multi-agency work is very slow … trying to get people moving collectively rather than alone is difficult.”– project officer, young offender community organization
“I am under partnership attack from my colleagues.” – operations manager, engineering supply chain
“The long catalogue of failed JVs—lcatel/Sharp, Sony/Qualcomm, Lucent/Philips—demonstrates the enormous difficulties in pulling companies like these together.” – a Gartner analyst quoted in the Financial Times, 10 December 2002, p. 8
Not everyone who works daily in collaborative alliances, partnerships or networks reports such negative experiences as those quoted above. Indeed the Financial Times (24 June 2003, p. 14) reports a Nokia executive as saying that their linkages are paying off. Others talk similarly enthusiastically about their partnership experiences:
When it works well you feel inspired … you can feel the collaborative energy.
However, very many do express frustration. There has been much rhetoric about the value of strategic alliances, industry networks, public service delivery partnerships and many other collaborative forms, but reports of unmitigated success are not common. In this article we explore the nature of the practice of collaboration, focusing in particular on some of the reasons why collaborative initiatives tend to challenge those involved. Two concepts are central to this exploration. The first is collaborative advantage. This captures the synergy argument: to gain real advantage from collaboration, something has to be achieved that could not have been achieved by any one of the organizations acting alone. This concept provides a useful ‘guiding light’ for the purpose of collaboration. The second concept, collaborative inertia, captures what happens very frequently in practice: the output from a collaborative arrangement is negligible, the rate of output is extremely slow, or stories of pain and hard grind are integral to successes achieved.
Clearly there is a dilemma between advantage and inertia. The key question seems to be:
If achievement of collaborative advantage is the goal for those who initiate collaborative arrangements, why is collaborative inertia so often the outcome?
To read a copy of the full article click here