Blog from Barcelona

The Scottish Parliament has been asked to make it easier for people to grow food on land left unused by public bodies and private businesses.

Under the proposed Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill, allotmenteers should be allowed to turn underused spare ground into collective farms.

The benefits are manifold. The gardens will provide cheap food in hard times. Working the land will give the under-employed useful and enjoyable tasks to pursue. Health and esteem will be improved. A spirit of community fostered.

For once, I know a little whereof I speak. I have just been out in the allotment getting in an early harvest of curly kale. This is over in Barcelona where I have become a part-time protest gardener, or hortelano indignado as we call it here.

A year ago a group of locals took over a plot of land which had been earmarked for a block of flats before the property market collapse. The really good bit is that the unused land belongs to one of the big banks.

Our fellow hortelanos are growing all sorts of lovely stuff such as peppers, figs and melons. Under instruction from Her Outdoors we put in a crop of curly kale, much to the amusement of the natives.

I overheard the following conversation: “That green stuff looks interesting. Is it edible?” “Not really, but my grandma used to make me eat it. It’s the Scottish people who are growing it.”

We are not sure what they will make of our next venture which is to grow turnips, a rarity in these parts, and corner the expat neeps market during the Burns supper season.

The curly kale is, of course, a delicacy and it will be a different matter when it is served pan-fried with pancetta and pine nuts at the next community food fiesta.

The protest garden is not just about fruit and veg. It is a meeting place and a forum for the anger at high unemployment, inadequate social security benefits, and the seemingly unlimited funding of dodgy banks.

It is about solidarity. The residents of the old folks home across the street are wheeled in regularly to inspect the produce. It’s a haven for children.

The garden has a poetry and music group which is odd but nice of a balmy evening when watching the curly kale grow.

A blog by A. Armstrong   –  Big society withering on the poorer branches? 

In this week’s East Fife Mail (circulation 10,621), two contrasting stories epitomise current mores.  

“Few communities can match ours when it comes to caring gestures” boasted the front-page lead.  Within hours of publishing a story about an injured puppy with two broken legs, over £1,600 had been raised for its veterinary treatment by SSPCA.   Local woman, Kelly Dewar described the reaction of local people as `just fantastic” and hoped to raise more. 

On other pages of the same paper, less upbeat reports noted the closing of two community institutions.

Leven Community Council, which has run for around 35 years, is to fold.  Declining attendance, too few people willing to become office-bearers,  general apathy combined with cuts in funding were the contributory factors cited by Secretary Jack Carrie.   

“It’s just accepted that if something needs done, somebody else will do it.  Plenty of people complain but they’re not willing to put themselves forward to help”. 

Elsewhere, the Leven Ladies Social Services Club held its last meeting, dwindling members meant it is unable to raise sufficient funds to pay its rent.  The Community Cinema, established around 2 years ago, also faces imminent closure mainly due to financial constraints.

These types of stories become more common.   Last week the respected Kennoway Area Tenants & Residents Association staved off closure by persuading one well-known local figure to step in as temporary secretary.   No community council now functions in Levenmouth (population 34,000 and, with the highest concentration of deprivation in Fife), while other community associations such as Levenmouth Communities Regeneration Group and a host of others have fallen by the wayside in recent times.

Do these contrasting stories illustrate the mentality of modern Scots?   People can still be sympathetic and kind-hearted, many individuals put in many hours of unpaid work to help worthy cause near or far from home, some might even take part in one-off fundraising exercise (even essentially unproductive walks and runs).   But society has become individualised round here – people engage by voting on television programmes like X-Factor, Strictly, they donate by transferring funds to the latest worthy charity appeal (with a bias towards animals) – they largely make gestures.

It seems only a rapidly dwindling band is prepared to invest much of themselves in community endeavours.    Has time and efforts become such scarce commodities that too few can spare too little?   Or is that modern society just doesn’t `get’ the role of civil society at the grassroots and see no relevance to their lives or aspirations?   Has their experience with other community institutions such as churches, local sports clubs, co-operative society , maybe even libraries and shops become such a distant memory that this tendency is visibly decaying before our eyes ?.    

Less than half voting for elected representatives is common so some are already disengaged.  For the rest, perhaps their community role is essentially getting the council to `sort something’. 

In a week following the sad attempts to reinforce a traditional idea of community through organising some artificial events (mainly in southern England to be sure), is this notion in terminal decline in Scotland?      

Mobilising volunteer involvement for local good work is a universal challenge – after 5 years of experience involved in a relatively effective civic-environmental group here, we know it’s a greater challenge in the more deprived corners of the country.   Our existence is precarious.  Despite many efforts to reach out in different ways to the local community, it’s the same small handful of individuals who keep the show running.   From conversations with others, we suspect it’s considerably easier to engage others in leafier or better-heeled communities.

Forget David Cameron’s vision of an active Big Society, what we’re seeing is the realisation of Margaret Thatcher’s paraphrased belief that `there’s no such thing as community`

Nicholas Gubbins, CEO of Community Energy Scotland responds to TFN’s article Winds of Change

To the editor of TFN

In his important centre-spread on community renewable energy projects (Third Force News –  15th June) Robert Armour could have included the increasing list of great achievements by community groups across Scotland, to give a bit more of a balanced picture.

It is true that revenue generating community energy projects are challenging and should never be taken on unless group members are prepared for at least several years of work.  But on the other hand, for those communities who have that determination, there is the opportunity of securing a very significant long-term revenue, wholly owned and controlled by the community. And we at Community Energy Scotland will provide help throughout the whole process.

Within the last 4-5 weeks two community energy projects have moved significantly forward from project development to financial agreement which means that they will soon construct and join the 8 large community-owned projects already built and generating renewable energy across Scotland. 

One is on the Orkney island of Eday, where a 900 Kilowatt wind turbine will be built which will be wholly owned by the Eday Partnership,  joining 5 other Orkney Island communities, each of which has successfully installed their own community wind projects totalling around 5 Megawatts.  

The other project is a new ground breaking joint venture wind farm between a local community group, Soirbheas, near Drumnadrochit and a local farming family, with the community having a 20% stake in this wholly local 11.5 Megawatt windfarm. 

In Neilston, referred to in the article, the community trust has bought in to a commercial development which will now provide £400,000 every year for a whole generation. These projects take time and effort – but the returns are definitely worth it. 

It’s right that the planning process can be truly tortuous and no-one should expect communities to get an easy ride. On the other hand, so far, all community projects where CES has been involved and which have applied for planning consent have been approved. That’s a total of 35 projects so far. On the Western Isles, there are 8 community wind farms that have secured planning consent, 6 of which we expect to be up and generating by this time next year – that’s 19.5MW of Western Isles community-owned power alone!

It’s not a bad thing that there are dozens of projects pending – it’s an active and developing sector. But its  not the case that many others have failed, or that only a fraction are expected to become a reality or that for every successful project there’s a tranche of unsuccessful projects. It’s most unfortunate that the PEDAL / Greener Leith project mentioned cannot proceed but it did face a particular problem that proved insurmountable in that location, and, nationally, it is by far the exception rather than the rule.

It’s also important to distinguish between community-owned projects  and  private projects offering community benefit arrangements, where communities receive smaller and discretional proportional payments. Community Energy Scotland is currently drawing together a register of community benefit arrangements on behalf of the Scottish Government and expect that this will provide greater transparency on community benefits to all involved. We are also facilitating communities to take forward joint venture arrangements with commercial developers so that communities do get a chance to play an active part in projects local to their area. 

When the income from a community turbine starts mounting up, communities have the chance to decide on the range of activities which can be funded and also on individual applications.  On the Isle of Tiree there have already been three rounds of grants for community projects covering a vast range of actions all funded by their own  very productive 900kilowatt turbine called Tilley.  Tiree Community Development Trust has granted over £138,000 for social care, heritage, arts, youth and education projects which have a wide benefit on the island.  The community now has its own source of revenue to improve opportunities on the island without having to go begging for funding. Bagpipe tutors and pony club tutors have been brought to Tiree, work is underway to develop a plan for a progressive care centre, community buildings have been purchased and upgraded, the church has been helped to buy its own small wind turbine and improvements to  slipways and boat facilities have also been awarded funds. There’s a new playpark too, whilst the Tiree Agricultural Show has been improved and the Tiree Feis, a traditional festival which attracts many additional visitors can now be enhanced.  What’s clear on Tiree is that it is vital to bolster the social and economic fabric of the island. Every grant supports a community activity which enhances opportunity, employment and economic prospects.  Tiree is like Scotland in microcosm.  Imagine if every community had their own income generating wind turbine! 

Finally, its our view  that the 2020 target of 500MW community local generation is challenging but certainly on track and that the Scottish Government is taking real action to support community energy development. Community Energy Scotland alone is currently supporting around 200MW in development. Where else is there a scheme like the Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme, which offers unsecured loans for high risk (pre-planning) costs that can be written-off in the event of a project failing to gain consent, along with a wide-ranging advice service and technical support?  

There is real interest and enthusiasm across the world in our approach in Scotland- indeed our approach was strongly endorsed several times recently by the OECD at its  launch of its investigation into Linking Rural Energy to Rural Development, and closer to home Wales has recently established Community Energy Wales to help facilitate Welsh communities to follow the lead of Scottish communities.  

Sure, this is a challenging arena, there remain significant issues to crack and it has it’s fair share of frustrations. But community energy development remains a very potent opportunity to achieve radical, bottom-up community development whilst strengthening the third sector in Scotland. Don’t let’s blow it. 

NICHOLAS GUBBINS

CHIEF EXECUTIVE

www.communityenergyscotland.org.uk

Citizen spotlight shines on West Lothian Council 

Extract from Governance International website.

Citizen Inspections: 

The project aims to achieve three primary outcomes: 

• better designed services that meet customer needs and preferences;

• community inclusion;

• and a greater level of co-production between the council and the people living in West Lothian.  

The initiative was launched because the Chief Executive championed it as a way to strengthen customer focus throughout the organisation and as a practical mechanism to involve customers in review and redesign of services. 

West Lothian Council has a strong sense of the community in which it operates and has developed multiple and varied forms of consultation and engagement over the years. It has also been striving to find new ways to engage citizens in the process of delivering and improving services.   Since 2005, West Lothian Council has collected survey data (as part of a standardised approach across all services) on customer satisfaction levels with council services, in particular related to the quality, choice and accessibility of service provision.  This type of data has been valuable as a useful indicator of the local council’s ability to meet the basic needs of customers. However, its use was limited because it restricted customer involvement to commenting on and providing feedback on services received.  The council wanted a more involved form of engagement, where the customers actually directed improvement activity.  

In 2011 the council reviewed the corporate approach to community engagement as part of the development of a new Improvement Strategy, and as part of its overall strategy to be a progressive and inclusive council.  This identified the customer-led inspection (CLI) process as a new engagement method, involving customers in challenging and reviewing services. 

The aim was to complete two citizen-led inspections in the summer of 2011 that would: 

1. give citizens a voice in the shaping and prioritisation of services;

2. inspire confidence in the community that West Lothian Council operates openly and transparently and is accountable for the services delivered and the use of resources;

3. manage the organisation’s reputation in the local community by engaging directly with citizens and involving them in improving services;

4. establish a two-way dialogue that will assist the building of a stronger, mutually beneficial working relationship between the council and the community forming a model that could be replicated across all service areas;

5. ensure priorities and decisions are driven by customer needs through a forum for the decision makers to hear alternative viewpoints.

West Lothian Council set up a project team of 2 members, led by a Depute Chief Executive as the project sponsor, each working part-time on the process.  Because it was delivered within existing resource, the two project team members were selected for their knowledge of this type of activity (one in customer participation, one in quality assurance), as opposed to bringing in dedicated resource.  It is anticipated that, as the project matures, the inspection team will increase their control and autonomy, with a corresponding reduction in the council resource required to deliver inspection activity.  At present each inspection requires around 8-10 FTE days from council staff.  This includes recruiting, training and supporting the team. 

It was clear to the project team that the process had to be robust and challenging, but also accessible and understandable for the citizen inspectors. Furthermore, the project team had to ensure that it could be replicated across the authority.  In particular, if public money was to be used to implement improvements from the inspection recommendations then it was important to ensure they were structured and based on facts. The project team developed a robust inspection process with a comprehensive inspector’s toolkit of materials, including the creation of an inspection framework, adapted from the EFQM Excellence model. This involved a 5-point rating system (1 unsatisfactory, 2 weak, 3 adequate, 4 good and 5 excellent). Citizen-led inspections were also capped at 6 days (not including training) to make it more convenient for the citizens and minimise any negative impact on service delivery.  For each inspection, timescales are agreed between the service and the inspection team to identify the best dates and times for both parties. 

Furthermore, the team at West Lothian Council created a bespoke 2-day training course to provide citizen inspectors with the skills, knowledge and capabilities to carry out the inspection and reporting activity effectively and the confidence to critically evaluate services. The training was designed to be engaging and participative, and focused on providing the inspectors with an understanding of the council; and knowledge of the inspection process, framework and scoring, report writing and how to deliver feedback. It also explained the inspection techniques available to them, such as interviewing; shadowing; mystery shopping; desk top audits; surveys and focus groups and site visits.  

At the early stages of the development of the CLIs, it was important that the areas to be inspected captured the public interest.  Therefore, following a difficult winter period and a challenging school placement process in 2010, winter maintenance and pupil placement were selected as the first inspections. 

The council was keen for inspectors to come from a representative sample of people from the community. As a result, it launched a multi-media information and recruitment campaign. This involved: 

• the creation of CLI pages on the council website;

• articles in the local media and council newsletters;

• Twitter and Facebook updates; direct mailings and emails to participants in existing forums and community groups, including the parent councils, tenants groups, older and younger people forums and the disability and race forums.

Interest built as information was cascaded through the different media.  There was a high volume of telephone and email enquiries and an open evening was held. The intention was to raise awareness across the community but it was recognised that the initiative should start from a low base to build experience and knowledge of the process, on the part of both the inspectors and the council. The recruitment generated 35 notes of interest/applications, from which 15 were placed on a Register of Interest.  From the Register, 8 people were trained, making 2 inspection teams of 4 people.  These 8 people ranged in age fromearly 30s to early 60s, with three-quarters being female.  There were representatives from 4 different towns in West Lothian, with 5 inspectors coming from Livingston, the largest settlement.  For future inspections, the council aims to ensure balanced representation on the Citizen Inspection register and particularly hopes to ensure more involvement from young people through greater engagement with the Youth Congress in West Lothian. 

The citizen inspectors are volunteers, receiving no payment and are only compensated for out-of-pocket expenses, such as travel costs.  

The winter maintenance and pupil placement services were fully engaged in the development of the process and welcomed the inspectors, giving them full access to any information, staff or sites that were requested. This open acceptance was in large part due to West Lothian Council’s strong culture of self-assessment and mature, honest critical evaluation of practice and performance.   

The two inspection teams completed their inspections in June and July 2011.  Across the inspection process the teams reviewed hundreds of pieces of information, interviewed Deputy Chief Executives, managers, staff, partners and customers, conducted on site visits and carried out research and online mystery shopping. The teams each produced a feedback report that critically evaluated the services, providing challenging scores and recommendations for future improvement. These reports have since been used to create improvement actions that make significant changes to service provision. 

Improvements to winter maintenance include increasing salt storage, developing new gritting routes with greater clarity on prioritisation of routes and developing a more effective communication strategy for periods of severe weather. 

The pupil placement process will in future involve a simplified pre-school admission policy and guidelines, improved quality of information provided to customers, strengthened links with the council’s contact centre and newly-developed customer satisfaction performance indicators (as the inspectors felt there was a lack of cost/efficiency performance indicators that were meaningful to customers, in terms of demonstrating that the service provides value for money). 

Open letter response from Scottish League of Credit Unions  to DWP’s  ‘Credit Union Expansion Project’ Feasibility Study Report 

To whom it may concern 

The Scottish League of Credit Unions welcomes the initiative to “examine the feasibility of expanding and modernising credit unions”. However, after much reading and careful consideration, we cannot support the overall position of the report as we believe the assertions contained within are based on misrepresentations of the credit union sector, including a serious misconception of un-sustainability. 

Furthermore, we believe that acceptance and progression of the report recommendations conflicts with the credit union co-operative operating principles of Democratic Member Control and Autonomy & Independence, and we therefore oppose the ‘case for investment’ and reject ‘the way forward’ as suggested in the report. 

As an alternative way forward, the Scottish League of Credit Unions invites the Secretary of State, who commissioned the report of the Project Steering Committee, to engage in further meaningful discussion in order that the future expansion and modernisation of the credit union movement is determined directly by credit unions and not conceived and imposed by stakeholder organisations. 

To aid such discussion, please see some questions/comments/considerations, listed in the sequential order as they appear in the body of the report, and on which we welcome and await your response. 

Kind regards 

Dermot O’Neill 

CEO, Scottish League of Credit Unions

One of SLCU’s members, Johnstone Credit Union has submitted a response to the proposals. Tom Kelly, who has managed this credit union since it was formed in 1979, makes a compelling case in favour of community based  credit unions . Read Tom’s response here. 

Guardian Newspapers, 20th June

The community activist credited with opening Iain Duncan Smith’s eyes to poverty and inspiring him to embrace compassionate conservatism has called on the minister to resign. 

In a sharp attack on Duncan Smith, Bob Holman sets out how far the work and pensions secretary has drifted from his commitment to tackling poverty, and urges him to leave office. 

Duncan Smith’s visit to the Easterhouse estate in Glasgow in 2002, when he was leader of the Conservative party, sparked his determination to tackle societal breakdown. Holman took him around the estate’s community project, staffed by unemployed volunteers. The occasion became known as the Easterhouse epiphany and in 2003 Duncan Smith announced he wanted the Conservatives to become the “party for the poor”. 

“It is fully recorded that he was shocked by its social conditions. Less well known is that he responded to poor people in a positive manner,” Holman writes. “He met families on low incomes who coped well with their children … I thought him a decent man.” 

In 2004 Duncan Smith set up the Centre for Social Justice thinktank to analyse the roots of poverty and come up with strategies for addressing it. “More than anyone else Bob Holman has opened my eyes to the problems and pockets of poverty across the UK,” Duncan Smith wrote in an introduction to a CSJ report. 

Since becoming minister, Holman believes Duncan Smith has been constrained by the pressure to make cuts. “Within two years he was claiming that poverty was not directly due to a lack of money but was the result of bad parenting, drug and alcohol addiction, laziness, and the breakup of families,” Holman writes. 

“When I went to Westminster last year to challenge him, he acknowledged that he was under pressure and had to make trade-offs and compromises. My understanding is that to divert blame away from his policy failures he directed it at the poor themselves.” 

He suggests that Duncan Smith should resign and “become a campaigner for the end of poverty”. A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said there would be no comment.

Press release from Scottish Community Foundation, 19th June

Resilient Scotland Ltd has launched Start & Grow offering grants and loan packages of up to £60,000.  Community organisations already trading or wanting to develop enterprising activity are eligible to apply. They must be from one of the 13 designated local authority areas that have been identified as communities most challenged by economic circumstance and most in need of additional regeneration efforts.  A full list of these areas is listed below.

This new fund comes from JESSICA (Scotland) Trust, a £15 million independent Trust Fund established by the Scottish Community Foundation with an endowment from the BIG Lottery Fund. It is designed to help stimulate growth in disadvantaged communities most affected by serious economic decline and market failure, helping them to become stronger and more sustainable through their own efforts.

 The work of the Trust is being managed by the Scottish Community Foundation who report to the Board of Resilient Scotland Ltd, corporate trustees for the Fund. Start & Grow is the first community regeneration investment programme run by Resilient Scotland Ltd. Start & Grow will be open for two years, and the application process will be managed in conjunction with Social Investment Scotland (SIS).   

Community organisations interested in applying should firstly complete an eligibility checklist, which will be available on the Resilient Scotland website (www.resilientscotland.org.uk). This will take community organisations through a series of simple questions to see if they meet Start & Grow criteria.  

If applicants answer ‘yes’ to all questions they will then be directed to call the Resilient team to get an application form. The team will take forward the assessment process and final decisions will be made by Resilient Scotland’s Awards Panel.

Alastair Davis, Chief Executive of SIS, said “we are delighted to be working with Resilient Scotland on this exciting new initiative, combining our expertise with the reach of the Scottish Community Foundation. We will work closely with organisations to develop a funding package that will support their exciting enterprises.”

Ella Simpson, Resilient Scotland Ltd, Chair added, “The ownership and development of assets by communities is increasingly seen as a key means of improving the economic, environmental and social future for the people of Scotland.  Resilient Scotland aims to use the JESSICA fund to nurture resilience by investing in and building the capacity of enterprising community-led organisations in some of Scotland’s poorest areas.  The idea is to help develop sustainable enterprises, services and facilities.”

 “We welcome applications from existing and new social enterprises that can manage a mixed loan and grant arrangement, helping them to sustain their efforts and achieve lasting impact in Scotland’s communities.”

For further information please contact the Resilient team on Tel: 0131 524 0300 or email: resilient@scottishcf.org.

Extract from Nudging Citizens Towards Localism?

By Peter John, Liz Richardson

Times are tough for public policy-makers. Government faces many pressures. Public health outcomes are unsatisfactory. Improved parenting could make a real difference to children’s opportunities in life. Many communities suffer from a weak sense of cohesion. Care and support services for the growing numbers of older people are unsatisfactory. On the other hand, improving services to meet these objectives would cost money, which is in short supply.

In this context, behavioural change policies look increasingly attractive. If we can use the resources of social psychology and related disciplines to influence people’s choices, the way may be open to securing real improvements without expensive interventions. ‘Nudge’ – i.e. achieving behavioural change by persuasion from government and other bodies – is a popular theme in policy debates. 

In this report, Professor Peter John from UCL, with help from Liz Richardson from Manchester University, has examined the effectiveness of the nudge approach, informed by interviews with policy-makers in a range of central government departments and local agencies, and parliamentary reports. The conclusions emphasise that, despite the enthusiasm and the frequent references to behavioural change in the official literature, there is insufficient knowledge about what works and what doesn’t in practical contexts. The implementation of nudge policies to promote positive choices across a broad range of areas from smoking and diet to sorting rubbish, from good neighbouring to cutting down car use is patchy.

The report focuses on the use of nudge to encourage citizens to take more responsibility for meeting local needs themselves. It provides an independent view of the evidence and comments on the current government’s interest in localism and decentralisation. It points out that the best way to pursue nudge policies is exactly the kind of issue that lends itself to local experimentation and to properly randomised trials. There are real opportunities to improve understanding of the kinds of behavioural changes that would help us achieve policy objectives at relatively low cost by systematically investigating the outcomes of local initiatives.

This report commends the work of the Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team. It argues that we need more experimentation and more randomised controlled trials so that behavioural change policies can be properly assessed and can be converted from a fashionable idea to a practicable way of achieving policy objectives.

Executive Summary

Do policies designed to create desired behaviour changes on the part of citizens need concerted action by central government to ensure their effective delivery? Or is there a need for a more decentralised approach whereby the centre sets the guidelines, but other agencies, the voluntary sector and citizens decide policies and implement the changes needed? This report reviews the arguments for and against these different approaches to implementing policies that promote behaviour change, paying particular attention to the possible tension between national policy objectives and theapproach of decentralisation and the ‘Big Society’. Greater decentralisation

of power could inhibit the government from achieving its objectives, but on the other hand decentralisation could encourage a more legitimate and selfsustaining form of behaviour change. Therefore a key question addressed here is: has the government arrived at an uneasy compromise of not acting enough to push policies through but not fostering sufficient decentralisation to energise localities?

This report comes to the following conclusions:

 1. The claim that behaviour change could be implemented by strong central action as implied by the findings of the House of Lords Science and Technology Sub-Committee I report, Behaviour Change (2011), still needs much more evidence to support it. There is relatively little robust knowledge about the extent to which citizens will change their behaviour as a result of greater central direction and effort. Governments need to know more about the workings of the policy instruments at their disposal to achieve desired behaviour changes.

2. The House of Lords report claims that there has been a patchy response to the behaviour change agenda across Whitehall. This report supports this view, but also finds that there are examples of good practice and the collection of robust evidence through randomised controlled trials, which have been promoted by the successful work of Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insights Team. This report for the British Academy recommends extending the work of the Team beyond its current two-year term.

3. The level of expertise and use of behaviour change interventions in local government and the voluntary sector are also patchy and confined to a few innovator authorities and organisations. Local government is often held back by too much focus on strategies and not enough attention to action and delivery. The report recommends

nudging local policy-makers so they become more innovative in their approach to behaviour change policies.

4. The decentralisation reforms introduced by the Localism Act and measures to promote the ‘Big Society’ also rely on behaviour changes for their effective implementation. These causal linkages have not as yet been fully taken into account by central government in its provisions for the implementation of the legislation. This report

recommends that more research should be undertaken on the best means to encourage more engagement of citizens.

5. Policy-makers need to pay more attention to the exact relationship between central direction, local autonomy and citizen input to decision making. Such attention would lead to a self-sustained improvement in policy outcomes, which would then be regarded as legitimate by the citizens who have a say in how these policies

emerge. The report recommends more interventions that, as well as nudging citizens, encourage them to ‘think’.

6. It is not clear at the present time what the impact is of other changes to central tools of implementation, in particular the abolition of Central Office for Information (COI). The report recommends an evaluation of the abolition of COI.

7. The implication of this report’s findings is that – in the short-run at least – it is likely there will only be moderate changes in citizen behaviour, both from central direction and from decentralised methods of delivering services and collective goods. The chief reason for this is the lack of knowledge about the exact relationship between government actions, citizen behaviours and effective public outcomes.

8. To remedy the gap in evidence, the report makes the case for more experiments, in particular randomised controlled trials, to find the best means to encourage behaviour change and citizen participation in public decisions. Such research would encourage a virtuous circle of better-guided central government policies (in order to provide the general regulatory framework), greater decentralisation to local agencies and community groups, and more effective mechanisms that stimulate the desired behaviour changes.

MY COMMUNITY RIGHTS

Taken from the ‘right to challenge’ page of a new support service run by Locality – DTAS’ sister organisation in England

The Community Right to Challenge is expected to come into effect on 27 June 2012. It enables communities to challenge to take over local council services that they think they can run differently and better. The Right to Challenge could be used to run a wide range of local council services.

Some examples of community groups already providing local services include:

Fresh Horizons – who run an efficient library service in Huddersfield, combining this with advice and credit union services and in the future a cinema.

Himmat – delivers services for young people in Halifax, it has been awarded contracts to run probation services and a Youth Offending Team dealing with kids most at risk.

A challenge will be considered by a local authority and may be accepted or rejected, but if it is accepted does not mean you will necessarily get to run the service as the council would have to run a tendering exercise which anyone can bid for, including the private sector.

Support and advice

Get further support through the website and learn from others in the case studies section.  Still have questions? Contact us via the advice service.

Resources will be added to the website in June including the launch of the grants programme and Contract Readiness Checker.

We also welcome enquiries from local councils needing guidance on the policies and how best to respond to Expressions of Interest.

Other guidance

We can assist with the running or bidding to run of public services even if you are not planning to use the Community Right to Challenge mechanism itself.

Margaret Wheatley (extracts from her website)

For many years, I’ve been interested in seeing the world differently. I’ve wanted to see beyond the Western, mechanical view of the world and see what else might appear when the lens was changed. I’ve learned, just as Joel Barker predicted when he introduced us to paradigms years ago, that “problems that are impossible to solve with one paradigm may be easily solved with a different one.”

I’ve been applying the lens of living systems theory to organizations and communities. With wonderful colleagues, I’ve been exploring the question: “How might we organize differently if we understood how Life organizes?” It’s been an exploration that has helped me look into old patterns and problems and develop new and hopeful insights and practices. It has also increased my sense of wonder for life, and for the great capacity of the human spirit.

I’ve been a speaker, consultant, and writer since 1973. I’ve been inside most kinds of organizations – from the Girl Scouts to the U.S. Army, from Fortune 100 companies to small town churches– and lived and worked in many different cultures and countries. I love the diversity, and I love even more the realization that around the world, we share a common human desire to live together more humanely and more harmoniously.

My questions, observations, and ideas always appear as articles or talks. You can browse through most of my articles, and learn about videos and audio tapes, on this website. My hope is that your own sense of wonder will compel you to continue exploring the world with new eyes. We need many pioneers and explorers now.

I invite you also to come learn about and join in my work with The Berkana Institute, which I co-founded in 1992. 

For more information about Meg Wheatley’s  latest book  – 

WALKING OUT AND WALKING ON Click here

Walk Outs are people who bravely choose to leave behind a world of unsolvable problems, scarce resources, limiting beliefs and destructive individualism. They walk on to the ideas, beliefs and practices that enable them to give birth to new systems that serve community. This is the story of an emerging movement of pioneering leaders and communities around the world who are self-organizing to create healthy and resilient communities.

In Walk Out Walk On, authors Meg Wheatley and Deborah Frieze invite you on a learning journey to seven communities around the world to meet people who have walked out of limiting beliefs and assumptions and walked on to create healthy and resilient communities. These Walk Outs Who Walk On use their ingenuity and caring to figure out how to work with what they have to create what they need.