Author: Ed Cox

You have to admire David Cameron’s persistence with the Big Society theme. Behind the scenes at the Conservative Party Conference it was treated with considerable mirth with ministers apparently referring to it as “BS”. At the ippr north fringe event, there was less scepticism as Nat Wei made a strong case for the role Big Society played historically in the industrialisation of Northern cities and pointed out its potential for future economic and social transformation.

Although the concept of ‘Big Society’ seems ever more elastic, new evidence of the importance of community dynamics in the pursuit of economic development is coming to light. In a new report published today, researchers compared three ‘matched pairs’ of deprived neighbourhoods in Liverpool, Wakefield and Middlesbrough and analysed why some areas improved their prospects over the past decade while others lagged.

The study controlled for issues such as ethnicity and housing tenure,  and three factors came to the fore in explaining why some neighbourhoods improved and others did not. First, the extent of ‘residential sorting’ – the impact of people moving in and out of an area. Second, the relative success of welfare-to-work programmes in linking local residents with jobs in the wider area. But thirdly, and significantly, it was the internal and external relationships that characterise the neighbourhood which seem to make a big difference as to whether people were more or less likely to travel any distance to get a job.

In improving neighbourhoods, higher levels of informal community activity, strong leadership and wide travel horizons were clearly associated with people’s outlook on the world of work and their propensity to travel to nearby job opportunities. By contrast, lagging neighbourhoods seemed characterised by more defensive and inward looking community identity, lower confidence and aspiration and less likelihood to travel out of the neighbourhood to find work. Whilst it is difficult to determine the relationship between cause and effect, in simple terms it would appear that the big society has an important contribution to make to tackling economic deprivation.

Some examples illustrate the case. Speke and Croxteth in Liverpool are considered to be two of the most deprived neighbourhoods in England. Speke has been the site of remarkable investment, including at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, Jaguar Land Rover and a number of new retail and business parks, and yet even with so many jobs on the doorstep, levels of deprivation have grown. Residents talk of the neighbourhood having an ‘island mentality’ and this is one of the factors which makes it difficult for people to benefit from the new opportunities created by investment.

Croxteth on the other hand, despite its negative reputation, has seen significant improvements for the local population without as much nearby investment. A key to Croxteth’s success seems to stem from such initiatives as its community-run ‘communiversity’. Not only does this local initiative build skills and offer apprenticeship-type opportunities, but its very existence appears to provide leadership and generate a sense of shared confidence in the area which then ensures any local investment is turned into local opportunities.

Traditionally, community development and economic development specialists might not have been comfortable bedfellows, but perhaps this needs to change. Whilst the report shows that improvement in Northern cities has depended heavily on economic growth, a rising tide does not lift all boats and more strategic approaches to economic development must be complemented by carefully targeted intervention at the micro-level. If Big Society is a call to arms, then perhaps it needs to call Local Enterprise Partnerships to take very seriously the quite specific needs and dynamics of its poorest neighbourhoods.

The report Rebalancing Local Economies has been produced by ippr north, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Northern Way.

Author: David Maddox, Westminster Editor

Full report here

A SCOTTISH-style right to buy land will be extended to communities in England under radical proposals to turn Britain into an “asset-owning democracy” being endorsed by the coalition government.

The minister for decentralisation, Greg Clark, will tomorrow formally introduce a report – To Buy, to Bid, to Build Community rights for an Asset Owning Democracy – by the centre right think-tank ResPublica, which will call for legislation giving communities across the UK the right to buy local assets and land.

It will offer ten ideas for unlocking ownership for the less wealthy, arguing that it will transform the life chances of many and provide a much needed boost for many parts of the country. The proposals are also seen by the government as a key part of realising David Cameron’s “big society” vision.

Inspiration has been provided by the success of the Scottish Parliament’s land reform laws, which have provided a stimulus to many formerly moribund rural and island communities, such as Gigha, Knoydart and Assynt where decades of population decline has been reversed by community buy-outs.

The report’s co-author Phillip Blond, whose Red Tory book formed much of the thinking behind David Cameron’s “big society” and the Conservative manifesto, will argue that after a decade of booming state investment and welfare spending under Labour, “meaningful assets and market entry have become the preserve of the rich.”

Blond and his co-author Steve Wyler take their cue from the 2003 Land Reform Act (Scotland) passed by MSPs which allowed communities to buy up vast tracks of land north of the Border.

The report argues that buy-outs have led to entrepreneurship in Scotland in communities where people have a stake in the assets.

It notes: “in Scotland especially, there has been a rapid increase in community energy experimentation, including community owned wind power, ground source heat pumps, biofuels, anaerobic digestion, hydro-electric schemes, solar power, etc.”

But while the report is mainly aimed at spreading the ideas of the Land Reform Act to other parts of the UK there is also advice for Scotland to improve what it has got.

The report describes the buyout process in Scotland as “too cumbersome” saying it needs to be more streamlined.

A source close to Blond said: “We like what has happened in Scotland but it is not the model for England because it is too complicated.

We think that the Scottish Parliament should make it easier for community buyouts to happen, then it could spread principle to urban communities as well.”

Author: Lesley Riddoch, The Scotsman

WHAT do the Tories actually mean by localism? Scots may never know, since all things local are devolved. But maybe we should.

A bonfire of quangos and regional planning could knock local heads together in England, reintroduce common sense to public life and end a long history of top-down governance. Or it could create a free-for-all where the strongest local voice wins and a patchwork replaces national standards of social provision.
 
The Tory MEP Daniel Hannan recently made the case for localism in this paper: “Give councils more power and you will attract a higher calibre of candidate, as well as boosting participation at local elections.
 
“In Britain, local authorities raise 25 per cent of their budgets and turn-out is typically around 30 per cent. In France, those figures are, respectively, 50 and 55 per cent; in Switzerland 85 and 90 per cent.”
 
Interesting comparisons – and not just because Gallic councils raise more cash and enjoy higher voter turn-out. They also have tiny units of local governance compared with big, remote, clunky old Britain.
 
France has 22 regions, 96 départements and 36,000 communes with an average population of just 380. The Swiss have 7.6 million people in 23 cantons and 2,900 communes with an average population of 2,600.
 
Norway – same population as Scotland – has 431 municipalities responsible for primary and secondary education, outpatient health, senior citizen and social services, unemployment, planning, economic development and roads.
 
The average Norwegian municipality has 12,500 people – the average Scottish council serves 162,500.
 
North or south, Baltic or Mediterranean, most European states are micro-sized at their local tier. That means more councillors and more cost. It also means more connection, traction, trust, effective service delivery and involvement than our disempowering and distant “local” government.
 
Since the majority of MPs start as councillors, their early experience of community really matters. In municipal, small-scale, active and co-operative Norway, an expectation of local competence and involvement has informed national policy-making. The opposite has happened at Holyrood.
 
Politicians of all parties like the idea of involving local people, but in practice wouldn’t trust them to run the proverbial in a brewery.
 
So we are stuck with the biggest “local” government in Europe – too large to connect with actual communities, too small to achieve genuine efficiencies of scale. Kind of the mummy bowl size in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Betwixt and between.
 
Take Highland Council, which covers an area the size of Belgium with a population the size of Belfast. Councillors drive hundreds of thousands of miles a year to create a sense of connection through meetings, surgeries and local events. Despite such superhuman efforts, many remote communities feel largely negative, reduced to questioning, suspecting and vetoing whatever emanates from Inverness.
 
Meanwhile, Europe’s fastest growing city also lacks a dedicated council of its own. One size doesn’t fit all – in fact, it doesn’t fit very much.
 
Those who run Scotland’s overlarge authorities are on big salaries and a losing wicket. Many struggle valiantly to keep their ears to the ground. But the ground is simply too large. Ironically, this means more money spent on consultation, which then decreases confidence in community capacity because few locals bother to respond.
 
A recent Rotary event in Fort William was packed with retired planners, civil engineers, project managers and council chiefs despairing about the lack of vibrancy in their town. What had this talented, practical bunch done about it? Nothing.
 
Our disempowering, paternalist system of local government has stifled localism for decades – why should anything change now?
 
Local confidence, capacity and management skills come from running real assets and sweating over real decisions with real neighbours able to really help or really obstruct. Not from box-ticking consultation exercises.
 
So as life in Scotland looks set to become even more centralised in the name of efficiency, could it also become more localised at the same time? Should our current local authorities become the tier to scrap or – given Scotland’s penchant for failing to grasp the thistle – circumvent?
 
Prominent Scots have already been thinking the unthinkable.
 
Former Inspector of Constabulary Paddy Tomkins has called for a single police force in Scotland which communicates directly with beefed-up beat patrols. Labour’s education minister Peter Peacock has proposed scrapping Scotland’s 32 education authorities, allowing ministers in Edinburgh to fund headteachers directly.
 
Local police and municipal schools – why stop there? Why not ultra-local mini-councils à la Europe? Why not – because there’s no cash, no spare energy, no appetite for local government reform and no real belief that the massive distance between people and power in Britain actually matters. Happily, there may be an ad hoc solution.
 
Powerless community councils are so toothless they can’t legally own an asset. So development trusts have been set up to handle community orchards, lochs, pubs, libraries, bridges and wind turbines – and in the process a very practical, capable and focused set of people have been gathered together and let rip.
 
Community-owned or joint-venture wind farms will soon be netting millions (not peanuts) for their areas. Already in Fintry near Glasgow, community wind cash has paid to insulate homes and replace axed bus services.
 
It’s a silent revolution. There are 4-500 development trusts in Scotland – community-led, multiple-activity, enterprising, partnership-oriented and keen to move away from reliance on grants. Working with local housing associations, they could become a powerful force for local good.
 
Could they help to run Scotland? They soon will be.
 
Cost-cutting councils are already closing libraries and village halls. Development Trusts are ready to take them on – pigs in pokes excepted.
 
Joint procurement, shared backroom functions, local energy companies and district heating must become the norm in Scottish life, not the praiseworthy exception.
 
That can only happen if little and large combine powerfully to improve governance. Cometh the hour, cometh the community.

To access consultation click here

Consultation on the Scottish Government’s Draft Land Use Strategy

The land and how we use it literally shapes our country. It has seen communities grow and prosper, and provided food, water, energy and spectacular natural landscapes over the centuries. In short, it helps make Scotland unique. This is why it is so important that we plan ahead to make best use of it in the future.

This will be Scotland’s first national strategy for land use – so it’s vital that we get it right. We want to hear the views of everyone across the country, because everyone has an interest in the land.

Sharing knowledge and working together is key. History also offers lessons of where things can go wrong – from Highland peat damage to the Lowland legacy of industrial dereliction. Now we face new challenges from climate change and other modern-day pressures. In response, we need to harness the land’s potential fully, to create a prosperous and sustainable low-carbon economy, and at the same time improve our environment, our biodiversity and our wellbeing.

There are roles for Government, other bodies and the people of Scotland. Together we will develop a national framework of key principles to inform decisions taken locally about the land.

We can all help to shape our land for the generations to come.
Consultation on the Draft Land Use Strategy is Now Open

Be part of the discussion: email or post your submission via the contact details on the left, or phone us if you require further information.

We would appreciate early responses by end of November 2010. Responses will be accepted up until 17 December 2010, when the consultation closes. We regret that responses received after that date cannot be considered.

Please could you return the Respondent Information Form with your comments to allow your response to be handled in the appropriate way.

Hard copies of all documents may also be obtained via the contact details on the left.

What Else is Happening During the Consultation

Scottish Ministers and officials are attending and supporting a number of stakeholder events, including those listed on the left. If you would like a member of the Land Use Strategy team to speak at an event during the consultation, please get in touch with us.

The Scottish Government has just completed a consultation on Speak Up for Rural Scotland – how to maximise rural Scotland’s contribution to sustainable economic growth. We will consider responses to both consultations to offer a consistent approach to shaping the future of land use and of rural Scotland.

For think piece click here

From the bottom up

The Big Society may not have been a big success as an election slogan, but it has tapped into a powerful tradition of mutualism, co-operatives and the social economy – a tradition which straddles different ideological standpoints.

Bottom-up and community-led activities which so often bubble along under the radar are receiving new public recognition. This is in part because we are on the threshold of political change and deep economic restraint; a time when we are both reflecting on the record of the last 13 years and searching for alternative approaches. While Labour can chalk up significant successes of social progress, it is clear that both centralised state activity and unfettered markets are flawed when it come to achieving deeply embedded social change.

Author: Brian Donnelly, The Herald

It is reminiscent of the industrial co-operative societies that formed the core of communities living through the hard times of yesteryear.

Hundreds of people from all walks of life have put their cash in for a slice of Scotland’s first community bakery, two years after their local shop closed its doors.

The Dunbar Community Bakery enterprise, whose 250 members have each bought shares worth between £50 and thousands of pounds, has bought a shop in the town’s High Street and is aiming to open an artisan bakery selling bread made on the premises by early next year.

Residents of the seaside town have welcomed the new venture, which will be housed in an old newsagent in an 18th-century A-listed building.

Agnes Arthur, 67, said it would mean a return to an old tradition for her family.

The sooner the better. Anything that can help the High Street is very welcome.

Peter Whitecross, Whitecross butchers

“We could get our fresh-baked bread and then go a few doors down for bacon from the butcher like we used to,” she said.

Peter Whitecross, of Whitecross butchers, said: “The sooner the better. Anything that can help the High Street is very welcome.”

One shopper on the High Street, Margaret Johnston, said: “We had an excellent baker before and there’s been talk about this for a long time. Whether they’ll be able to manage it in this climate I don’t know.”

But resident Sue Guy, 47, said: “It is going to be fantastic. I have bought a share and I bought one for my 11-year-old daughter Farlan. I liked the idea of her growing up as part of this.”

The entire start-up costs will be about £180,000. A potential £120,000 in grants is in the pipeline, and £12,000 in funding from organisations that support social enterprise has already been obtained.

Shareholders have pledged £34,000, leaving a target of about £14,000 still to be secured.

The enterprise has already applied for planning permission to open its bakery, with plans for a new production area at the back of the building and a shop with a small cafe at the front.

Robert Powell, secretary of Dunbar Community Bakery, said bread baking classes were also planned as another way to ensure the venture helps to bring the heart back to the High Street.

He said: “The idea is not just to bake bread. As well as being a modest employer of seven or eight people, we would try and revive the High Street.

We would also hope to be a social employer for people with disabilities.

“Shareholders so far include people from all walks of life – business people, farmers, blue and white-collar workers, people who have holiday homes here and even one or two who have emigrated.”

The enterprise was the brainchild of the Sustaining Dunbar green community network, which said that while other shops may provide baked products, none offer bread baked in-house on the High Street.

Jane Wood, chairwoman of the bakery’s management committee, said: “We are delighted to have signed a long lease on 60 High Street.

“We have submitted plans to convert the flat roof extension at the back into a bakery production area. There will be a shop with a small cafe at the front.”

More than half of Scotland’s high street bakeries have gone out of business over the past 20 years due to competition from the supermarkets and out-of-town shopping malls.

Local MSP Iain Gray, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, said: “This is a great example of what can be achieved when people pull together for the benefit of the community.”

The CRNS has changed its name and from today will be known as the Community Resources Network Scotland (CRNS).

Formerly the Community Recycling Network for Scotland, the organisation decided on the change to reflects the diversity of its membership and the underlying principles of zero waste – that there is no waste, only resources. It also captures the growing awareness of waste as an increasingly valuable resource.

Pauline Hinchion, chief executive of CRNS, said: “The new name better reflects the wide variety of resource management activities that our members deliver. We’re not just about recycling; we’re about reuse, waste prevention, education & awareness, composting and creating energy from technologies such as anaerobic digestion.

“It builds on our belief that there are benefits to communities if they become more resource efficient, and that communities have a big role to play in a strong resource economy.”

The name change follows a review by the CRNS Board and an extensive consultation process over the last twelve months with the membership. This process has also seen emergence of new vision and mission statements for the CRNS, which can be viewed on the CRNS website launched at www.crns.org.uk

For further information, please contact Susan Wright, media and communications manager, on 07887 752831 or susan@crns.org.uk

For more information on the CRNS, please visit www.crns.org.uk

Author: Damien Henderson, The Herald

COMMUNITY groups are to be given a greater role in running their own bus services as part of a plan to save millions of pounds currently paid to private firms to run “lifeline” routes.

Council-run body Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) says securing greater involvement from the public will be vital as part of an efficiency drive designed to protect vulnerable and isolated communities from cuts in public transport.

A number of charities and voluntary groups in the west of Scotland have already been given funding to provide transport to hospital or other public services that would otherwise not be provided by private bus companies.

They include the British Red Cross Society, which is working with SPT to deliver door-to-door bus services for elderly and infirm residents on Arran, and Coalfield Community Transport, which provides accessible and affordable transport for former mining villages in East Ayrshire, as well as groups in Glasgow and East Dunbartonshire.

As part of its plan, SPT has purchased 57 buses which, unlike council fleets, can be reconfigured to transport disabled passengers to and from hospital, take children on the school run and deliver bus services at off-peak periods when commercial operators are unable to make money.

“We currently pay a lot of money to bus companies to provide socially necessary services and there has to be a way of cutting that expenditure in order to protect those services”  Jonathan Findlay, SPT chairman

It is hoped the approach will mean councils are less reliant on private operators to deliver subsidised services and prevent the waste of having school buses – and drivers – sitting idle for most of the day between school runs.

Arrangements will differ from group to group, but typically SPT will provide the bus and the individual organisation will be required to provide its own driver and cover any subsequent running costs of the service.

Jonathan Findlay, chairman of SPT, said the changes were necessary as he warned that bus users were facing a “perfect storm” as private firms cut routes that struggled to make money and councils were forced to cut subsidies for “socially necessary” services.

SPT currently pays £10.1 million a year – just more than one-quarter of its budget – to subsidise bus companies so they can operate commercially non- viable routes and pay for demand responsive services for communi- ties that would otherwise not have access to public transport.

The 12 councils in the SPT area currently spend £28m a year on school buses but many have been forced to withdraw or reduce the service they offer.

In an interview with The Herald, Mr Findlay said the bill would be far higher if councils were left to provide the services themselves but said there was room for efficiency savings.

“I’m very interested in investigating getting a greater level of involvement of the community, particularly where commercial services have been withdrawn,” he said.

“We currently pay a lot of money to bus companies to provide socially necessary ser-vices and there has to be a way of cutting that expenditure in order to protect those services.”

Speaking nine months after his appointment, following an expenses scandal that saw the resignation of SPT’s chair, vice-chair and chief executive, Mr Findlay said he was presiding over an organisation that was “leaner and more focused on its core objectives”.

That has included halving the number of directors and working through the organisation department by department to implement reforms.

Author: Paul Salveson, Regen.net

Railways haven’t been viewed as fertile territory for community enterprise, but things might be starting to change. The Government is reviewing its policy on rail franchising, and there is growing interest in testing out ‘micro-franchising’ – an idea developed in the 1990s based on continental European experience, where small networks of local railways are franchised by a county or regional authority.

The approach adopted over the last few years has been to go for bigger and bigger franchises that end up losing focus and lacking entrepreneurial vision. As things stand, the franchise process is the exclusive preserve of the big multi-national transport groups that can afford to spend millions on their bids. It’s interesting that the most popular train companies are either small operators like Grand Central, Hull Trains, and Wrexham and Shropshire, or relatively small franchises like Merseyrail and Chiltern Railways.
 
If the Government decided to give “micro-franchising” a try, there would be opportunities for co-operatives, or other types of social enterprise, to enter the rail market. The Government should cascade responsibility for franchising local rail networks – perhaps comprising three or four routes which form a clear geographical network – to county councils, consortia of local authorities or, in metropolitan areas, the passenger transport executives (PTEs). This already happens in Merseyside, where the Merseyrail franchise is managed by the PTE.
 
This approach would fit with the Government’s ideas on localism and the Big Society. Local community bus services have been delivered by social enterprises for years and a lot of expertise has been developed. If the community transport sector went further and developed railway expertise it could bring the sort of innovation to local rail that it has demonstrated in the road transport sector. There is already a co-operative business in the south-west – the Go Co-op – formed to develop “open access” rail operations. There is no reason why it couldn’t bid for rail franchises if the size was right and small operators were incentivised to bid.
 
A local social enterprise running a small, area-based franchise would generate local jobs both directly and indirectly – by local purchasing and promoting the area as a tourist destination. There is no reason why it could not also run feeder bus services and provide other complementary services including bike hire and travel agency services, and use stations as convenience stores selling local produce.
 
Paul Salveson has worked in adult and community education and the railway industry. he founded the Association of Community rail Partnerships in 1997 and was awarded an MBE “for services to the railway industry” in 2009. He runs his own consultancy specialising in railways and community engagement – The Railway Doctor 

SNP Manifesto proposals – a consultation

We propose a Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill to strengthen communities across Scotland. It will include a new streamlined route to enable community purchase of under-used or unused public sector assets and options to enable communities to deal with derelict and dormant land and buildings in their midst. We believe that for many communities the transfer of a viable asset can provide the catalyst for a wide range of community activities and enterprises.

Scotland needs a National Litter Strategy and SNP MSPs and Councillors will host local and national litter summits so we can hear peoples views on a range of measures, including actions that we know work elsewhere. For example ‘Adopt a Highway’ from the USA, Street Champions from England or Helsinki’s Spring Clean Festivals which bring together communities and volunteers alongside the public sector.

And alongside this action on community asset transfer, we also seek your views on the creation of a series of Local Endowment Funds, starting with Scotland’s most deprived communities as a means of delivering a long-term income stream for community led initiatives.

A number of organisations have made representations to us about the potential benefits of Social Impact Bonds. These draw in non-governmental, upfront investment to tackle and reduce specific social problems, with investors paid back from the medium term savings to the public purse. We believe Social Impact Bonds are a potentially powerful tool, creating a financial mechanism that will test the premise that social investment today can deliver financial savings in the future. They also have the potential to draw in private and third sector investment at a time of pressure on public sector budgets.

We are looking to identify three pilot projects that would benefit from investment through Social Impact Bonds. Projects would be ones that require substantial up-front investment, and which then would reduce ongoing costs to the public sector. These could focus on health, justice, poverty or climate change and would be designed to deliver significant benefits for the communities involved.

We are also examining ways of supporting and encouraging new sources of finance and credit for both small businesses and community enterprises. We will work to support the expansion of Charity and Social Banking, including Credit Unions and the provision of micro-finance for emerging enterprises. And we will work to deliver a significant expansion of social enterprise and co-operative businesses and services.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on a range of creative ways to fund new housing development, at a time when public funds are extremely limited. We will be setting out our ideas on housing at a later stage.

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