Author: Michael Blakley, Edinburgh Evening News, 30 September 2011

A PUBLIC consultation costing £10,000 into plans for an outdoor swimming pool, arts village and garden festival at Edinburgh’s waterfront is to go ahead – despite the city council today announcing it has sold the land to someone else.

Council-owned development firm Waterfront Edinburgh has sold the historic Walled Garden site in Granton – which community groups wanted to use for the Granton sur Mer project – to THI Healthcare Development for £1 million.

The company has confirmed it will use the 3.5-acre site off West Shore Road that includes the walled garden to create a care home for the elderly.

But the Granton Community Partnership (GCP) – the group behind the Granton sur Mer project – has refused to concede defeat on its vision for the site and will launch a public consultation, funded by a £10,000 lottery grant from Awards for All, on Monday.

The consultation will include two advertising billboards near the walled garden site reading “Land gifted to the community”, which has led to city leaders accusing the group of lying to the public.

Ross McEwan, project manager at Art in Architecture, which is leading the GCP, said: “We are being provocative by saying they have gifted us land.

“They have told people there is a planning application in for a care home when there isn’t so if they can do that then we can do this.”

And he insisted that he won’t give up on his hopes for the site as the sale to THI is subject to it gaining planning consent.

He said: “We will carry on because this is subject to planning and, if anything, this makes us even more determined.

“Their plans are completely inappropriate for that site and will not do anything to progress the regeneration of the waterfront. If anything, it will regress the regeneration of the waterfront.”

It has been claimed that the Granton sur Mer project could have attracted up to 250,000 people a year to the area.

But Cllr Tom Buchanan, chair of Waterfront Edinburgh, criticised the group’s claim about the land being gifted.

He said: “That is not provocative – that is telling a non-truth. I can be provocative in saying something but I would not put out an advert that is telling an untruth just to get a reaction.”

He also said that the council has “a legal duty” to secure the best value for the site.

THI is currently drawing up plans for a site and will have to submit a full planning application.

Carl Lewis, chief executive of THI Healthcare Development, said: “THI is proud to be able to bring life back into the Walled Garden site through its regeneration proposal for this and the adjoining site and thereby to be a part of the regeneration renaissance of the Edinburgh Waterfront.”

Easdale Island was once the centre of a thriving Scottish slate mining industry, so it is only fitting that one of the disused quarries forms a perfect arena for the World Stone Skimming Championships.

The Championships were started in 1983 by former Easdale resident Albert Baker, and then lay fallow until they were resurrected in 1997 by Eilean Eisdeal as a fundraising event.

The championships are held every year and now attract over 300 contestants from around the world and many spectators. Anyone of any age and any level of skill can enter the championships. 

Each competitor is allowed 3 skims using specially selected Easdale slate skimming stones. For a skim to qualify the stone must bounce at least twice – it is then judged on the distance achieved before it sinks. 

The World Stone Skimming Cup is presented to the over-all winner, and the Sea-fari Salver for the best women’s skim. There are also slate medals going to the best junior skim and 2nd and 3rd runner-up in each category. 

2002 saw the launch of a new award, ‘the Bertie’, named after Bert Baker, the event’s founder. This is presented to the Easdale Islander who skims the furthest. In 2008 the Old Tosser category was introduced for those entrants who have reached the experienced and veteran heights of no longer being in their 50s. 

The competition is accompanied by children’s entertainment; a barbeque; craft stalls with music throughout the day. On the preceding evening the Community Hall hosts a pre-skim bash with live music. 

Official Rules of the World Stone Skimming Championships

• Skimming stones must be no more than 3 inches in diameter and formed naturally of Easdale slate

• To qualify, the stone must bounce at least twice before sinking and stay within the designated lane as marked by the buoys

• Skims are judged on the distance thrown rather than the number of bounces

• The judges’ decision is final

World Stone Skimming Championships website at www.stoneskimming.com

The competition is split into Ladies, Men, Junior Boys and Girls and Under 10s Boys and Girls categories. There is also the Old Tosser category for those entrants who have reached the experienced and veteran heights of no longer being in their 50s!

Community Energy Scotland’s Annual Conference and a free training day for community groups will be held on the 25th and 26th October 2011, bookings are now open!

Earlier this year the Scottish Government announced ambitious targets which if realised could revolutionise the role of the community sector in both energy generation and socio economic development. The target 500MW of community owned renewable energy generation by 2020 has the potential to plough £1.5 billion over 20 years into direct community control,  that could be reinvested in local community facilities and services.

Whilst renewable energy generation has a large role to play in reducing our reliance on fossil fuels we cannot forget the crucial role of both energy reduction and substitution in achieving truly sustainable communities. Community Energy Scotland’s annual conference and training day this year will centre around the three topics of energy generation, reduction, substitution and set the path for achieving 500MW of community owned renewable energy generation by 2020.

During the conference you will be able to gather ideas, information and inspiration from communities with practical experience of project development. You will have the opportunity to pose questions to panel members with specific skill sets to guide your development and take advantage of networking in our exhibition area. For more information on the conference click here

The free training day for communities is entitled “Reaching your community target – reducing demand, financing generation and maximising your social impact”. For more information on the training day click here.

Author: Scottish Community Alliance, October 4th 2011

Background

The Scottish Government acknowledges that current approaches to regeneration have either failed to deliver the desired outcomes or are now severely impaired due to the fundamentally changed economic circumstances within which regeneration has to take place. Despite the substantial sums that have been invested in a variety of regeneration initiatives over a sustained period of time, the key indicators of social and economic disadvantage that triggered this investment in the first place have shown little signs of improvement.  

The conclusion to be drawn from the evidence of the past thirty years is that top down, physical regeneration does not, of itself, create long term and sustainable solutions.  The assumption that appears to have underpinned previous regeneration strategies is that it is the job of government, both national and local government working together, to resolve the complex sets of challenges facing our most disadvantaged communities. It is this assumption that now needs to be laid to rest if the challenge of how to deliver community-led regeneration is to be met.

What is community-led regeneration?

Community-led regeneration means that the emphasis in the shape and direction of the regeneration process shifts from being determined principally by external stakeholders (local government, public agencies) to being determined principally by internal stakeholders (local people).  Regeneration strategies in the past have typically incorporated some degree of community involvement with the aim of providing local people with an opportunity to feed into the process and to have their voices heard. Essentially, the role of the community in previous regeneration strategies has been consultative and passive.  Community-led regeneration demands a much more proactive contribution from the local community and as such it is not necessarily an approach that will suit all communities. 

Community-led regeneration can take many different forms and these will be determined by local context.

However, where community led regeneration occurs a number of features are likely to be observable in each instance:

• one or more local organisations playing the role, or with the potential to play the role, of a community anchor (providing a degree of local leadership and offering support to less formal types of community activity)

• significant assets under community ownership or control

• community owned enterprises generating an income stream

• a locally conceived community plan or ‘charter’ which identifies the short, medium and long term priorities for action as determined by local people 

• a level of engagement with external stakeholders which reflects a sense of genuine partnership and mutual respect

• an absence of top down, unilateral public sector-driven initiatives

Community led regeneration requires significant culture change on all sides. Communities need to realise that the public sector is no longer in a position to meet all of their needs or to ‘resolve’ many of the problems that they face. Public sector agencies need to realise it is neither appropriate nor realistic for them to imagine they should seek to be doing this.  In essence, community-led regeneration requires the relationship between the state and communities to be recalibrated so that there is a much greater sense of mutual respect and equality of status.

Existing models of community-led regeneration 

Examples of community led regeneration can be found in many different parts of the country –  from the island based community buy outs where local people have assumed control over virtually every aspect of community life (Isle of Eigg, Isle of Gigha, South Uist) to more urban communities where various combinations of development trusts and community based housing associations have acquired control and ownership over a wide range of assets and enterprises and where local people are now instrumental in shaping their own futures (Renton, Neilston, Easterhouse).   While all these communities are prime examples of community led regeneration they all share a story in common which describes many years of struggle in order to get to the stage of development that they are now at. In particular, all the community leaders involved would, in part at least, ascribe that struggle to varying degrees  of opposition encountered from across a range of external stakeholders. While there may be some merit in the argument that the process of engaging in a struggle of some sort can forge a deeper level of commitment in the long term, the fact remains that community led regeneration has evolved as it has in spite of the attitude and behaviour encountered from external stakeholders –rather than because of them. 

Successful community led regeneration should not be as difficult to achieve or as costly in human terms as it has proved to be in many cases.  Nor should the whereabouts of the successful examples be as randomly haphazard and dependent on the fortuitous presence of key individuals or local circumstances.  If the new regeneration strategy places an emphasis on community led regeneration, it will be essential that a more systematic and strategic means of achieving this is identified which can also reduce the length of time that the process takes.

Investing in community-led regeneration

If the Scottish Government is committed to a regeneration strategy that is community led, then investment will be required to bring this about.  It is worth noting that several existing policy initiatives which the Government is already committed to are also geared towards communities taking on more responsibility and control over what happens at a local level :

• Encouraging the transfer of public assets into community ownership 

• SG investment in the new DTAS service to support community ownership

• Commitment to legislate to make it easier for communities to access under used public assets (Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill)

• Renewable energy roadmap

• New target for community owned renewable energy of 550 mw by 2020

• Christie Commission – Future Delivery of Public Services

•     Focus on communities – the need to build autonomy and relience

•     Focus on prevention –  enhanced role for community transport providers, and others???

• Zero Waste Scotland

• Targets for community recycling and reuse

• Other policy links in the fields of community horticulture,  greenspace development and woodland management,  community health initiatives etc

However, the successful implementation of all these policies is contingent on communities having a sufficient level of capacity and local organisation in order to respond. As argued elsewhere in this paper, experience tells us that the required levels of capacity do not necessarily exist in every community – indeed in the areas of most severe disadvantage and where the regeneration challenges are greatest, the required levels of local capacity and organisation are less likely to be present.

A funding proposal is presently being worked up for submission to Scottish Government based on the principles and rationale as set out in this paper.

October 4th 2011

Author: John Plummer, Third Sector Online, 23 August 2011

The Office for Civil Society has been criticised for changing the wording of the Big Lottery Fund’s additionality principle.

The new version, included in a consultation document issued yesterday, removes the line that ‘lottery funding is distinct from government funding’. The consultation is about the new ‘policy directions’ the OCS is proposing to give the BLF.

It immediately sparked concerns that the government had missed a chance to provide greater clarity on the definition of ‘additional’ and had instead further muddied the waters around the independence of lottery funding.

Additionality – the principle that lottery funding should be additional to government spending, rather than a substitute for it – has been at the heart of the National Lottery since it was created in 1994.

The BLF’s latest annual report defines it as: “Lottery funding is distinct from government funding and adds value. Although it does not substitute for Exchequer expenditure, where appropriate it complements government and other programmes’ policies and funding.”

The draft policy directions, issued following the government’s decision to transfer responsibility for the BLF from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to the OCS, propose a new wording of “additionality and complementarity”.

It says: “The development of programmes and funding of projects should complement and add value to the plans of action and activity of other funders and parties working towards the fund’s goals, including government funding.”

Jay Kennedy, head of policy at the Directory of Social Change, a training provider that lobbies on behalf of small charities, said the description “doesn’t match our understanding of additionality, which is that lottery funding should not be a substitute for mainstream government funding”.

He said the government had missed an opportunity to provide greater clarity on additionality by publishing a “fuzzy” statement that did little to clarify how lottery and government funding should be distinct.

Kennedy also said he was concerned that the document lists one of the BLF’s potential funding priorities as “strengthening and increasing the capacity of the social investment market”.

He said: “We absolutely don’t think this should be the BLF’s role. The BLF might wish to develop social investment-type products and work with other funders doing that kind of work if it saw that those delivered good outcomes.

“But saying they should be involved in building the market sounds suspiciously like the mission of the Big Society Capital.”

He also criticised the OCS for asking organisations to limit their consultation responses to a maximum of 400 words, saying the DSC would ignore it and write more.

Roberta Blackman-Woods, the shadow minister for civil society, said she was concerned the directions “will result in yet more uncertainty for the voluntary and community sector at a time when funding and resources are being reduced as a direct result of government cuts”.

She added: “I am particularly concerned that the government’s new policy directions might narrow the criteria for those seeking funding from the BLF and result in further restrictions on the funding available to voluntary organisations.”

The current chair of the BLF, the former Conservative MP Peter Ainsworth, said in an interview with Third Sector in June that he supported the additionality principle.

“There has been a tendency in recent years for the lottery to be used almost like taxpayers’ money,” he said. “It isn’t taxpayers’ money: it’s there to plug holes that the government would otherwise struggle to fill. Lottery money is additional.”

Ainsworth said in a statement yesterday: “Now more than ever, the BLF must be responsive to the evolving needs of the communities we serve.

“I anticipate that pressure on lottery budgets will continue to increase and we want to ensure we intelligently address the needs of our communities and those most in need.”

The consultation closes on 18 November.

Author: Civilsociety.co.uk, Vibeka Mair , 26th September 2011

The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has warned that the Big Society agenda will fail as civil servants do not have the skills to implement it, and there is a reluctance to do the reforms. 

PASC MPs make the warning in the report Change in government: the agenda for leadership which says the Big Society policy needs  ‘a more transparent and flexible civil service with a new role of commissioning public services from charities, social enterprises, mutuals and private companies’.

However, the PASC, which has been taking evidence on the Big Society over the past year, finds Whitehall lacks these skills and little effort had been made to equip civil servants with them. 

The report also says government has ‘failed to recognise the scale of reform required’ and says as a result the Big Society agenda will fail. 

The PASC says it is essential that the Cabinet Office take leadership of the reforms and coordinate the efforts in individual departments and across Whitehall as a whole. 

“The scale of the challenges faced by the civil service calls for the establishment of a world class centre of Government, headed by someone with the authority to insist on delivery across Whitehall,” says the report. 

Community Transport Association have been carrying out a survey to establish a clearer picture of the scale of the sector in Scotland and of what the key issues are for community transport providers on the ground.

The headline figures set out below demonstrate the contribution of the sector and its contributory importance to all of the Scottish Government’s strategic outcomes

Key findings so far:

• The value of community transport in Scotland in terms of combined turnovers is around £10m.

• Of this around £3m is grant aid from public agencies and the rest is earned income from fares, hires and contracts.

• At least 2,500 people volunteer for community transport giving at least 280,000 hours of their time each year. If this work was paid for it would cost at least £1.65 million per annum based on the current minimum wage rate.

• The community transport sector provides over 3.5 million passenger journeys each year in Scotland.

• The community transport sector employs over 400 people.

• 22 operators now have section 22 permits. 11 have Operator Licences.  Most of the sector operates under Section 19 permits.

• The community transport sector has a fleet of over 900 vehicles of which one third are small buses and two thirds are cars or MPVs.

• Over 80% of community transport users are older and disabled people. 

• The main purposes for which community transport is used are social outings, attendance at day care centres, shopping and access to health appointments.

• Over 60% of community transport operators formed during the years when Government support was available.

• 30% of operators are able to plan their businesses for more than one year ahead. 70% of operators can currently plan on a year to year basis only.

“No other country has mapped its Greenspace in this way.”   A blog by Andy Wightman, 14th September 2011

Today, an organisation called Greenspace Scotland launched what they claim is a world first in mapping the location, extent and type of greenspace across all of Scotland’s urban settlements. “No other country has mapped its greenspace in this way”. In December 2006, the Scottish Executive provided £298,000 for this project (actually for three projects – it is unclear how much of this was allocated to the mapping). The interactive map is impressive and allows users to look closely at greenspace of all types across Scotland.

However, the real power of such information lies in the ability to interrogate, analyse and combine this data with other data. There are many simple tools available for this and a growing international community of citizens harnessing such data for the public good (the OpenStreeMap and GeoCommons projects are good examples)

Greenspace Scotland tell us that this “world first” map can be made available in GIS (geographic information system) format as raw data so that people can actually use the data rather than simply look at it. The GIS data is useful because, in the words of Greenspace Scotland,

The full GIS data provides an incredible resource for planners, policy makers, researchers and greenspace managers. It can be used to support cross-boundary work on green networks, planning and regeneration; and when combined with other datasets on, for example, health and deprivation, can be used to support decision-making, prioritisation, policy development and research. It can also help target resources and investment to areas with low levels of greenspace

Excellent. I happen to be interested in who owns all this greenspace, how much of it is common good land etc and so I ask for a copy of the data. At this point it becomes clear why Greenspace Scotland claim that “no other country has mapped its greenspace in this way” (my emphasis).

I am refused on the grounds that only those who have an Ordnance Survey MasterMap licence are allowed to get hold of this data. Unfortunately, the OS MasterMap data licence costs many thousands of pounds. The restriction is due to OS licensing conditions on the open distribution of “derived data”. I have been here before with the whoownsscotland project. I have the t-shirt and the scars of this encounter.

“No other country has mapped its greenspace in this way” Lets then take a look at how others have done it.

Take the City of Boulder, Colorado, for example. I can view an online map with information on planning, greenspace, flooding, transportation, landownership and lots more. (Click on eMapLink here). Alternatively, I can download the raw GIS (geographic information systems) data and interrogate it.

Indeed, for any number of cities in across the world, I can download high quality GIS data and undertake research and analysis. If, however, I want to analyse the pattern of greenspace in my own locality in North Edinburgh, I can’t.

“No other country has mapped its greenspace in this way” 

Full report can be accessed here

“It is invaluable to the community”. This is how one visitor described Gorgie City Farm in Edinburgh, its work with children, young people and disadvantaged adults, and the huge benefits it has on people’s physical and mental health, community cohesion, the local economy and the environment. There is a great deal of qualitative research1 to support these claims, but unfortunately very little quantitative evidence. Funders and policy makers are increasingly looking for figures to match the facts, so Social Return on Investment (SROI) has been developed as a way to try to value the “invaluable”. 

SROI puts a financial value on the impact of an activity that otherwise may not be given value and therefore may not feature in decision making. (For more details on the background and principles of SROI see Appendix b). This SROI analysis has shown that the Community Garden Project at Gorgie City Farm benefits a wide range of “stakeholders” (including volunteers, visitors, the NHS, the local council and the environment) and that for every pound invested in the Project by funders, £3.56 of social value is generated. In other words, the value of the investment is more than tripled. 

This value is likely to be an understatement, as we have been cautious in our calculations. For example, several Outcomes and stakeholders were excluded from the analysis, and it is likely that financial proxies have underestimated the value of some Outcomes (see the Audit Trail section for more information.) 

However, SROI is about much more than just the investment ratio. This analysis has been a useful exercise for the Community Garden Project. For example, the staff have discovered facts they didn’t know before, including the wonderful news that one of their volunteers had completely stopped taking their anti-depressant medication as a result of being at the Farm. The SROI analysis has also been beneficial for Gorgie City Farm as an organisation, to recognise the value of the Community Garden Project. When the Community Garden Project started in 2005, some staff were sceptical: ”it’ll never work – people are only interested in the animals!” As you will see from the results of our surveys and quotes from visitors, volunteers and other service users, this analysis has proved that this is just not the case.

Author: The Scotsman, 15 Sep 2011

Scotland’s 150 credit unions (CUs) are a considerable success story. Set up to provide financial services to people denied credit facilities by high street banks, because they were unemployed or on very low wages, they have flourished to the point where one in five Glasgow residents is a member of a credit union. 

Since the banking crisis, membership of Scottish CUs has grown by 16%. This is a consequence of the economic downturn on household budgets as people lose their jobs or have working hours reduced. But that is only part of the reason. The appeal of the CUs’ old-fashioned, no-frills approach increased as distrust of mainstream banks grew with the bail-outs for Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS. 

Nevertheless the credit unions themselves must deal with the banks. The question is on what terms. As not-for-profit organisations they fall between being a business and a charity, thus causing the banks to make a decision on what rate to charge for handling their accounts.

That appears to vary across both banks and credit unions. Until now some CUs have benefited from free banking but are now facing unexpectedly high charges. 

In the case of the Discovery CU in Dundee, in discussion with RBS about tariffs, these could be up to £800 a month. 

Another CU in Johnstone, also having to pay fees for the first time, has been offered a 50% reduction on the standard business tariff by the Clydesdale Bank. The Bank of Scotland has always levied a charge but at a reduced rate. 

CUs, whose members have a common bond such as living in the same community, operate on trust and have attracted a wide range of savers who feel the taxpayer-backed banks have failed to demonstrate a commensurate sense of social responsibility.

As a result of Government pressure, the banks now offer similar services through basic accounts to people who were previously excluded. 

This inclusive move will have been negated for many by the decisions by RBS, 83% owned by the taxpayer, and Lloyds, with a 41% Government stake, to prevent basic account holders accessing their accounts through ATMs of rival banks, including, in the case of Lloyds, those in the same group such as Bank of Scotland.

New legislation is expected to enable CUs to expand considerably next year. They will no longer have to restrict membership to people with a common interest, will be able to pay interest on savings and provide services to community enterprises and businesses. 

The banks can play a responsible part in this much-needed diversification of financial services by recognising the social inclusion provided by credit unions and charging them a fair rate.