Author: Rosie Niven

Connected Communities:  A report by the RSA

Building links around highly connected individuals can help to tackle isolation, unemployment and antisocial behaviour more effectively within a community, according to a report.

The success of UK government plans to train 5,000 community organisers and increase the membership of community groups depends on identifying the most influential people within any given community.

Analysis by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) of a community network covering more than 1,000 residents and organisations across New Cross Gate in London reveals two-thirds of people don’t know anyone who works at the local council, a third don’t know any employers and 40% don’t know anyone working in the local media.

But the research also shows the ‘most networked individual’ within a community is not always the usual suspect such as the local MP, councillor or community activist. Within New Cross Gate, one of the most networked individuals is the local pub quizmaster.

‘Familiar strangers’ such as postmen and dustmen appear to be under-utilised community resources, with more people recognising and finding value in who delivers their post than their local councillor.

Social network analysis can reveal opportunities to connect those who are disconnected, and ‘spread’ constructive social norms through these individuals whose behaviour is more likely to be imitated by those in their network, the report says.

Connected communities argues policymakers should have a better understanding of how social networks operate when making decisions that might reduce inequalities, combat isolation and support the development of resilient and empowered communities.

The RSA plans to test its findings over the next six months through small-scale projects and activities designed to take account of these networks.

Chief executive Matthew Taylor said: ‘From community safety to getting a job, social networks are the infrastructure of the Big Society. If we understand and exploit those networks then we can meet the challenge posed to us by austerity – achieving better social outcomes with static or falling budgets.’

The report’s author Steve Broome, director of research for the RSA’s Connected Communities team, said: ‘Visualising communities as networks helps us to see the assets they contain and how best to make use of them. We can make connections where there are none, and make better use of them where they exist.

‘And in replaying networks to people in communities we are better able to see our interdependencies, opportunities to collaborate, and realise that we influence a surprisingly high number of people directly and indirectly through our attitudes and behaviours.’

www.theRSA.org

Author: Simon Jenkins, Guardian

As TUC delegates swap dark scenarios and public approval of the coalition falls, it’s time for councils to join the ‘big society’ too

A tidal wave of protest is rolling towards the coalition government, roaring, foaming, darkening the sky, sucking every political argument into a lethal wall of water. This week delegates to the TUC, freed from decades of impotence, joyfully surfed its crest. Their boss, Brendan Barber, gleefully hailed “a darker, more brutish, more frightening” Britain ahead. Next month the Labour party will do likewise, chanting against the hardy hobgoblins of banking, tax-dodging and Toryism.

Each day a new cuts horror is declared by a breathless BBC. The disabled will limp down deserted streets. The sick will go untended. The Red Arrows will be disbanded. The police will be unable, they absurdly assert, to prevent another Peterloo. Britain no longer has a government, it seems, merely four horsemen from Apocalypse plc.

The argument has gone potty. If George Osborne were to achieve his entire cuts programme, total public spending will fall in real terms from £664bn today to £640bn (at constant 2008 prices) in 2015 – and actually rise in cash terms. This compares with £449bn at the end of Tony Blair’s first parliament in 2001. In other words, Osborne will take spending back no more than five years, to the mid-Blair era.

This is the measure of the spending splurge that took place under Gordon Brown at the Treasury. Osborne cannot hope to reverse all of this. Admittedly the makeup of spending must change, to reflect the soaring cost of debt (from £43bn to £66bn in five years). But even taking debt and fixed benefits out of the total, the Treasury is proposing no more than a five-year cash freeze on public services, at roughly £340bn.

Osborne’s much-vaunted 25% cuts option over five years is to protect his existing ringfenced budgets, such as the NHS. Even so, few spending departments or local councils will lose more over these five years than they won over the last. If every department froze pay and recruitment, there would be no need for anyone to lose a job. The cuts proposed by local councils, blamed on central government, are probably beyond what is needed.

For the TUC and others to portray all this as a return to the Great Depression, to an “era of unprecedented austerity” and to “fear stalking the streets” is ridiculous. The left would do better to focus attention on the 2011 VAT rise and the risk of a renewed “double-dip” recession in high street spending. The message of the cuts campaign so far is that organised labour is no longer concerned with the health of the private economy. It is a public sector lobby.

From David Cameron’s standpoint, all this is spitting in the wind. The Labour party, the TUC and many Liberal Democrats will take pleasure in blaming everything not on the past but on the present, on the Tories. In vain will Cameron plead that blame should lie with Brown and his Labour colleagues. In vain will he plead that a cut is not a cut when it is a freeze or merely a shift in priorities. His and Osborne’s post-election “softening up” is returning to haunt them. The coming winter is unlikely to see a festival of political reason.

Cameron is relying heavily on his deal with Nick Clegg to guard his parliamentary majority. The tactic has held so far, but the conference season and rising cuts hysteria will test it to destruction. The Labour movement may not be able to field big armies, but it will generate public sympathy over cuts and exploit the electoral vulnerability of the Liberal Democrats. Yesterday’s Times-Populus poll had three-quarters of respondents rejecting both the speed and the scale of the cuts, with those pessimistic about the economy rising from 8 to 33%.

The coalition needs to head for higher ground, and fast. Cameron must find some way of diverting responsibility on to others, much as Brown diverted blame for his domestic credit crunch on to “the world economy”. There is already talk of one such move. The fraud and cheating that infects social benefits is attributed to agencies having no incentive to police them. The government is thinking of handing two benefits, covering housing and council tax, to local councils to administer, with an annually declining cash budget from the centre, to force local staff to bear down on fraud.

By ending Whitehall direction, the government would insist that benefit rules and discretions would thenceforth be for local councillors to determine, such that the arrow of blame would not point entirely at ministers but be shared with local electors. The chief obstacle to such wise decentralisation remains the Treasury. Its aversion to wasteful spending is still exceeded by its addiction to control, however inefficiently administered from Whitehall.

Delegating housing and council tax benefit will do little to mitigate the coming storm. Somehow Cameron must harness a renewed stability of public finance to his belief in widening the political community, his “big society”. At present he sees this only in vague terms, with more “free” schools, social enterprises and volunteering.

If he truly means to redirect public services down to communities, he cannot avoid re-empowering elected local government, however distasteful he and his colleagues may find it. Across Europe and America, subsidiary democracy is sharing in the responsibility for curbing public spending. Only in Britain is blame entirely nationalised.

Already local councils, many of them with strong Liberal Democrat membership, have strode ahead of Whitehall in slimming their spending in anticipation of cuts. But they remain circumscribed by Treasury “silos”, preventing them shifting money between priorities. This enables them to blame the centre for even the smallest cut in a particular budget item, a blame they now broadcast with abandon.

If Cameron wants to diversify responsibility for public service cuts, he must properly uncap council taxes, as in any other civilised democracy. He must allow councils to ask their voters if, and how far, they want local services protected from cuts. If people want to keep open their museums, libraries, parks, sports clubs and day centres, that should be their local right. Cameron is foolish to accept the blame for closing them.

The hard times facing the public sector may be largely caused by Labour, but that is not how the public will see it. The acrimony against the cuts now ballooning over British politics offers Cameron little scope for his “cuts partnership” fantasy. He is going to experience hell over the coming year. He urgently needs to pluralise blame. He needs to shift it downwards.

Author: Chrisanthi Giotis , Social Enterprise Magazine

The official launch of the first Social Impact Bond pilot happened recently at the place that will make or break the concept – HMP Peterborough.

It is hoped that the re-offending rate of short-term prisoners leaving that prison will be reduced by 7.5 per cent thanks to intervention programmes run by civil society organisations, and funded through trusts and individuals who have invested in the Social Impact Bond (SIB).

Investors will only receive a return on their money, paid by the government, if the re-offending rate drops by the target amount.

Prisons minister Crispin Blunt will preside over the official launch. He said: ‘We want to actively involve individuals and voluntary and community organisations – not just in tackling crime and re-offending but in helping to keep people out of the criminal justice system in the first place.

‘This payment by results pilot is both innovative and imaginative. I am delighted to be launching it.’

Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke said: ‘As part of our radical approach to rehabilitation we are considering a range of payment by results schemes like the SIB.

‘The voluntary and private sectors will be crucial to our success and we want to make far better use of their enthusiasm and expertise to get offenders away from the revolving door of crime and prison.’

The government will be able to afford to pay investors returns of up to 13 per cent because of the money saved by keeping prison places down. The payment increases depending on how much the drop in re-offending exceeds the target of 7.5 per cent however the total cost of the project for the treasury is capped at £8m.

Social Finance, which invented and runs the SIB, expects to close the £5m investment fund by the end of the year. It has also received funding from the Big Lottery to help develop SIBs in other areas of social need.

MORI poll suggests more than half of Scots surveyed would be interested in setting up a community energy project

A new study has highlighted the appetite for community-led energy projects in Scotland.

Over half of Scots (51per cent), particularly those aged between 18 and 34, would be interested in helping to set up and run a social energy project, according to the latest MORI Poll.
 
The poll,commissioned by the Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition, also found that the majority of those surveyed (73 per cent) believe that the Government should provide financial support to firms looking to set up their own renewable energy schemes such as wind farms and hydro-electric generation.
 
Antonia Swinson, chief executive of The Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition, said: “These are significant findings, showing a real appetite for community-led projects and could have a considerable contribution to future economic sustainability of Scotland’s communities.”
 
Nicholas Gubbins, chief executive of the charity Community Energy Scotland, added: “This poll confirms our daily experience of working with hundreds of community groups across Scotland on their renewable energy projects.”

There is tremendous enthusiasm at community level. Scotland is leading the way in drawing in the benefits to communities from renewable energy.Its vital that we keep this momentum going. 

Independent Budget Review – Third Sector Roundtable.   A briefing to support the IBR roundtable discussion between representatives from the Third Sector and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance & Sustainable Development on the 22nd September 2010.

The Challenge

At the Comprehensive Spending Review on 20th October, we are expecting a wake-up call to a major downsizing of our public sector budgets. This will subsequently lead to a major shock to the Scottish Budget and we expect that the full reality of the austerity drive will hit all sectors early in 2011.

Nevertheless, for the Third Sector, the impact of the public expenditure reductions is already being felt. It has led to short-term panic cuts by public authorities – of so-called ‘non-essential’ services – and is already damaging our capacity to deliver. This comes just at a time in the current financial climate when the services that voluntary organisations provide to the most vulnerable are needed the most, and thus very much essential.

For our sector, the cuts are also exacerbating pre-existing funding constraints on our sector such as poor procurement practice, the move away from grants and a lack of parity for our sector in negotiating terms of contracts.

The Independent Budget Review has been a welcome development in helping Scotland to kick-start this debate. This briefing aims to cover the main points from a Third Sector perspective.

Points raised by the IBR: A Third Sector perspective

IBR:  Politicians and civil society need to engage in debate about transforming public service delivery in Scotland.

This is a clear call for the Third Sector to play a full and meaningful part in this vital discussion for the future form and function of Scotland’s public services. This must go beyond the tokenistic ‘place at the table’ for a third sector representative on a Community Planning Partnership.

It ought to include consideration of how co-production can become more widely practiced, how social impact bonds can lead a change to more preventative approaches and how “intelligent collaboration” between civil society and the state can replace commissioning as the means for securing delivery by the third sector of a much wider range of interventions.

IBR:  Ring-fencing budgets against cuts are not recommended

Social problems do not fit neatly under departmental headings. It will simply mean deeper cuts in other areas, and will also act as a barrier to reform. For example, we all now recognise that ring-fencing spending on the NHS would be short-sighted, as health outcomes (and costs) are heavily influenced by interplay with other interventions such as sport, education, transport and rehabilitation.

IBR:  Radical redesign in the way some services are provided may be required

A radical redesign of public services will be essential to meet demand and make public services sustainable. This will require a much greater focus on alternative models or approaches to delivering public services. We can no longer solely rely on the sticking-plaster approach of prisons, hospitals and institutional care.

A limited focus on shared services or tinkering with the system will not be adequate. The blocks to this, including structural barriers and institutional protectionism must be overcome. This is about culture change.

IBR:  The panel envisaged mainstream roles for the private and voluntary/ third sectors as collaborative partners in the delivery of public services.

This briefing provides some suggestions on how to take our sector’s role forward based on a set of clear principles.

Principles that should underpin the Scottish Budget

Coproduction – The main contention here is that we must do public services with people, not to people. An important concept in focussing minds on prevention is to think through the impact of service interventions. By putting communities and the organisations that support them at the heart of service design, planning and delivery (i.e. co-production), not only will difficult changes to our public services be better informed, but there will be greater buy-in from the users of these services themselves when difficult choices need to be made.

Prevention – Shared services and the efficiency savings agenda will not be sufficient to tackle the projected gap between demand and service supply. If we are to genuinely meet the needs of an ageing population, higher unemployment and increasing inequality during the age of austerity, then we will need to radically change public services to focus on prevention.

Learning from what already works – We are not starting from a blank sheet of paper here. There are already incredibly effective alternative approaches to public services delivered by a host of Third Sector organisations, often in partnership with public and private sectors. We need to recognise and identify these services, to learn from, replicate and scale-up what works.

Enabling people to help and support each other is a key element of the reform agenda.   Rather than seeing this as replacing public sector workers with free volunteers, the debate needs to be cast around how to encourage and support citizens who want to make a difference to their communities.  In particular we need to see older people and the unemployed as a resource.

An assessment of what the Third Sector can bring to the table

The Third Sector can and should play its full part in the design, planning and delivery of public services. It can bring a number of unique qualities to the mix. In particular, a focus on quality, trust and prevention:

Quality – Third Sector organisations often involves its users at all levels of the organization, including its governance. Not only does this ensure much more informed service design but by bringing members of the community together in this way it can also strengthen the communities’ resilience and social capital. Recent evidence on service gradings presented by the Care Commission suggested that the sector delivers higher quality care services than either the public or private sector.

Trust – A recent Mori poll shows that Scotland’s third sector is better trusted than local authorities, banks and the police . The strength of the Charity brand is universally recognised as a core asset and is a testament to the trust placed by the public in the Third Sector. The trust placed in the sector is critical to its unique ability to reach the most vulnerable in our society.

Prevention – Much of the Sector’s work is rooted in the community and is therefore close to the source of emergent problems. By encouraging mutual support, volunteering and a care for others and the environment, the sector helps tackle root causes before they become acute.

Listed below are examples of alternative models or approaches that the Third Sector can bring to the table:

• Community-based alternatives to health and social care reduce pressure on hospital beds and in-patient facilities by supporting community care, particularly in hospice outreach, home helps, support for carers, self-help and mutual support groups, and through the provision of community-led structured activities and sports. By 2031, numbers of those aged 85+ will go up by 144%. If we continue down current paths, by 2031 a new 50-bed care home would be needed every two weeks to meet demand
• Alternatives to custody and routes out of prison are diverting individuals from Scotland’s burgeoning prison population through addiction treatment programmes in communities, sector-led employability programmes, befriending and mutual support groups
• Tackling poverty and inequality – for example, credit unions, housing associations and co-operatives more generally play a major part in providing cost-effective solutions to tackling economic inequality and multiple deprivation in Scotland’s communities
• Most grass-roots sport is delivered through the third sector.  This plays an important role preventing ill health, but also in helping individuals develop life skills and confidence, and building community cohesion. 
• Developing skills and tackling unemployment.  Third sector employment initiatives build skills, particularly among young and long-term unemployed people; make use of existing skills, eg retraining people facing redundancy; and they provide direct community benefit
• Alternatives to waste.  The third sector plays an increasingly large role in the green economy, in areas such as renewables and recycling.  It does this through community-led renewable energy initiatives, recycling social enterprises and environmental volunteering projects.

Conclusion

Whatever our view of the cause, we are facing the most radical shake-up of the public budget since the post-war years, and this will require the most radical shake-up of our approach to public services that we have seen yet. Doing more of the same is not an option. We need think about how we will do things differently.

Unfortunately, a number of public authorities appear to think that alternative models or approaches of delivering services merely implies adopting different legal forms to do the same thing (LLPs, arms-length companies etc.) or simple reorganisation of internal departments. This simplistic and inadequate approach has not yet been challenged. We will need a much more radical conception of alternative models based on the principles outlines above.

A radical approach to public services requires a focus on co-production, prevention and learning from what already works. The Third Sector has a role to play in helping to bring its quality, trust and focus on prevention to the heart of this transformation.

Our interest in the outcome of the Scottish spending review and budget ought not to be characterised as defensive or protectionist.   The challenge to us is to work together more cohesively to champion new public service interventions which make a difference to the lives of the people we work with and to develop models which are scalable, cost effective and sustainable.

The challenge for the Scottish Government is to champion our case for parity of esteem for the third sector in the public service arena and to take whatever steps are necessary to enable our work to flourish

Edinburgh Tenants Federation (ETF) is the umbrella organisation for tenants and residents groups in Edinburgh and a Registered Tenants Organisation (RTO). In June 2010, Edinburgh Tenants Federation won the nationally acclaimed Frances Nelson Award for its pioneering work with City of Edinburgh Council to improve services for tenants with mental health difficulties in high rise blocks.

This work was also highlighted as a good practice example in customer excellence on the Cabinet Office website (www.cse.cabinetoffice.gov.uk).

The judges unanimously decided that Edinburgh Tenants Federation was the well-deserved winner in the umbrella tenants’ organisation category and were impressed by the Federation setting its own agenda, tackling a taboo subject and achieving change within City of Edinburgh Council to deal with such a difficult issue.

Betty Stevenson, Convenor of ETF was delighted with the Award, and commented “It’s a great honour to be rewarded for the hard work we’ve put in in getting the group to where it is. And it was the icing on the cake after getting recognition on the Cabinet Office website. This is a real boost for ETF in our 20th Anniversary year and shows that tenant participation really can deliver change in services.”

The Frances Nelson Award is a national good practice award in tenant participation run by the Tenants Information Service (www.tis.org.uk) in memory of Frances Nelson, a tenant activist from Dundee who passed away last year.
            
Edinburgh Tenants Federation is proud to share our work on influencing services for tenants with mental health issues.

Betty Stevenson, Convenor of ETF explains why… “A young man hanged himself from his balcony with a washing rope on a Sunday afternoon in full view of children playing below. Tragically, the onsite concierge had no contact details for the man’s next of kin, as the local housing office was closed. It was Monday before staff had any information about the man or his family circumstances.”

“Two passers-by witnessed the death of a tragic young mum as she jumped from a multi storey block window in full view of her child who was left alone in the house. When emergency services were contacted, the operator asked the Concierge Manager to establish whether the young woman was dead. ” 

These are just two examples of the tragic incidents which front line staff all too often have to face, and highlights the need for support for both vulnerable residents and staff in multi storey blocks.

              Following the tragic suicides, the Convenor of ETF, launched a campaign for better mental health services for tenants in high rises, and for improved support for concierges and frontline staff.

It took two years for the Council to agree to establishing a Mental Health Awareness Group (MHAG), but ETF wouldn’t give up. Bringing partner organisations on board was a first step. Tenants made sure the right experts, with the right level of decision making authority from a range of specialist agencies, the NHS and different departments from the Council came on board.

Tenants made sure that the starting point for discussions was the perspective of the people affected by the tragedy of suicide. What is it like to feel so low that you want to end your life? What is it like for neighbours and young children to witness a suicide? How does it feel being the concierge and being asked to establish if a young woman is dead with no preparation or training?

Most importantly, tenants asked what can be done to change the ways services are delivered to:
–  prevent suicide
– recognise the needs of and support tenants with mental health difficulties
– and ensure staff are equipped to deal with the tragedy if it ever happens again.

Now, two years on, the initial questioning by tenants has delivered real results.
Here are just a few:
• Practically, processes have been changed; concierge staff have an emergency next of kin contact number for every tenant in case of future incidents
• The Mental Health Awareness Group is now a successful multi-agency group leading the field of mental health awareness in Scotland
• 200 front line Council staff have been trained in Safe Talk (to help identify mental health issues and point tenants to support services)
• Applied Suicide Intervention Skills (ASIST) training has been delivered to selected ETF members and frontline Council staff (to provide immediate help to tenants displaying suicidal tendencies)
• Direct links have been established to specialist NHS staff
• Mental Health awareness campaign launched
• Mental Health Forums established
• Breathing Space and Samaritans key fobs issued to every City of Edinburgh Council tenant in high rise blocks. 

The approach ETF took has been recognised by the Cabinet Office as a Customer Service Excellence Good Practice Case Study and by City of Edinburgh Council’s Health and Social Care Committee as ‘groundbreaking’. But what is more important is that our work has made real changes to the lives of vulnerable tenants, and was led by tenants.
Contact us
If you would like to contact Edinburgh Tenants Federation about this case study, we would love to hear from you.

Edinburgh Tenants Federation
Norton Park
57 Albion Road
Edinburgh
EH7 5QY

Tel: 0131 475 2509
Email: info@edinburghtenants.org.uk
Website: www.edinburghtenants.org.uk

The Environmental Law Centre Scotland

The Environmental Law Centre Scotland is a charity that exists to provide legal help for people to help protect the environment. 
They are working to ensure that individuals and environmental organisations have the right to challenge decisions that will have a detrimental impact on the environment. They believe that neither lack of information and expertise, nor excessive costs should prohibit people from getting environmental justice.

Earlier this year, they were successful in gaining the first ever order, in Scotland, to cap the legal costs of an Ayrshire resident, who is challenging the decision to construct a new coal fired power station at Hunterston. Now they are making submissions to the Rules Council of the Court of Session to press for better access to justice for individuals and community groups. 
However in addition to helping people to challenge decisions, the law centre also want to know about the need for legal advice when communities are trying to bring about positive change in their environment and whether existing services are adequate for groups.
The aim of their research is to understand the barriers and challenges that community organisations or individuals may have found using legal services when establishing their sustainable development, environmental or community projects. They are carrying out a survey to help with this research and would like to invite people to complete it.
People can access the survey by clicking onto the link below.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TLKR7RX

As an added incentive they are holding an optional prize draw of a bottle of fair trade organic wine to those who complete the survey.

Senscot Legal Services

Senscot, since its launch in 1999, has played a lead role in the development of Scotland’s social enterprise community.  Our electronic bulletin, circulated to four thousand contacts, is the sector’s main connector – and we are directly engaged with regional and thematic Networks of front line social businesses.  Another Senscot activity is to conceive and incubate new mechanisms to continually develop our sector: new initiatives are identified in dialogue with social enterprise practitioners.

In September 2009, Senscot conducted a survey specifically to gauge member’s perceptions of mainstream professional legal services available to Scotland’s third sector.  Around 100 social enterprises responded.  From this survey, and other research, we found considerable dissatisfaction – in relation to two main themes: excessive fees and the lack of general understanding about the culture and practice of our sector.

Further investigation showed these problems to be linked – in that those firms large enough to support a dedicated third sector practice, also carry partners whose large salaries absorb around one third of all fee income.  Senscot believes that there is a market gap for a legal practice, itself a social enterprise, offering specialist knowledge of our sector at affordable rates.  The option of creating such a business is made possible by a proposed change in the law, expected later this year, whereby directorship of legal practices will become available to non lawyers.  In anticipation of this legislation, Senscot will create a subsidiary – Senscot Legal Services (SLS) – a new social enterprise.

SLS has four key objectives:
• To offer a wide range of quality legal services tailored for third sector organisations in Scotland.
• To create a specialist centre of legal expertise to support the development of the social enterprise movement in Scotland.
• To make quality legal services available across our sector, having regard to the ability to pay.
• To contribute to the long term sustainability of Senscot.

SLS is located in Bath St Glasgow with an initial staffing compliment of lead solicitor and paralegal secretary.  Our research indicates that our constituency purchases a wide range of legal services including: contracting, governance, company structure, employment, property, litigation etc.  Offering this range during the initial stage will involve a pool of ‘friendly’ solicitors with different specialisms.

It is intended that the service will evolve into a fully fledged legal practice should the
the alternative business structures (ABSs) in Scotland be introduced as proposed in the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill. 

Author: Gemma Hampson Social Enterprise Magazine

‘We are determined to help credit unions grow and expand into the future, but growth and expansion must be established on the basis of credibility – credibility that can only come as credit unions build sustainability’   MP Mark Hoban, financial secretary to the treasury

The government has confirmed it will ‘do whatever we can’ to help credit unions grow and provide fairer banking at a cross party meeting in Westminster yesterday.

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on credit unions heard from financial secretary to the treasury Mark Hoban, who set out the government’s plans for credit unions and said their growth was part of the coalition’s commitment to foster diversity in financial services, promote mutuals and create a more competitive banking industry.

He said: ‘We are determined to help credit unions grow and expand into the future, but growth and expansion must be established on the basis of credibility – credibility that can only come as credit unions build sustainability. And it is in the interests of credit unions, the members of credit unions and the movement as a whole that sustainability is built.

‘This government believes that strong credit unions will greatly enrich British society, so it is in our interest to do whatever we can to help the credit union movement to prosper.’

The APPG’s chair, Damian Hinds, said it was an exciting time for the credit union movement in light of new legislation affecting credit unions and banking, partnership potential with the Post Office and a ‘sharper focus on debt as an issue at all levels’.

‘I am sure we [the APPG] can play a helpful role in that agenda,’ he said.

The announcements were welcomed by Rev Antony Macrow-Wood, president of the Association of British Credit Unions (ABCUL).

‘New legislation will help credit unions reach out to many more people. The work we are doing to develop a back office and extend our services through the Post Office will also make credit unions more accessible and convenient and we need to work together to achieve this,’ he said.

The APPG meeting was also supported by The Co-operative Bank

An interesting statement from Alex Salmond last week in the Scottish Government’s statement on its legislative programme. The relevant part of his statement is as follows (as published on the Scottish government website).

• And we are blessed not just with an abundance of water, but with a wide abundance of natural assets and resources: I believe that these belong, fundamentally, to the people of this land.

• We stand at the threshold of another energy revolution, in renewables, and we must ensure that the mistakes of the past, when the takings from North Sea Oil and Gas were siphoned off elsewhere are not repeated.

• So we will consult on legislation for the communities of Scotland to benefit from the exploitation of their natural resources.

• Only Shetland was wise enough to benefit from the oil boom, and it currently sits on a oil fund not far off £200 million.

• Norway created a fund, and it is closer to £300 billion.

• It will be many years before revenues from offshore renewables reach that scale. However a start should be made.

•The only public body which is currently accrues a direct benefit from the offshore development is the Crown Estate Commissioners and we have worked well with the Commissioners. But the revenues go direct to Treasury and that cannot be right.

• Because the communities of Scotland – the Scottish people – must secure an endowment from our own natural resources as well as having a say in how they are developed.

Author: Stian Westlake

It seems that we are finally beginning to grasp the true value of localism: not as an R&D lab for the centre, but as a powerful force in its own right. But this new vision of localism also calls for new types of social finance.

Traditionally, local solutions to social challenges have often focussed on national roll-out. The job of the local was to act as an R&D lab for the national. If we let a thousand flowers bloom, so the theory went, one or two would be especially beautiful, and could be re-planted across the country.

But increasingly, it’s clear that localism is valuable in its own right; its real virtue lying not in the prospect of a better monoculture of public services, but in a diversity of solutions, each of which is well adapted to local needs. In NESTA’s report Mass Localism , NESTA discussed the kinds of benefits that local solutions offer, even if they never grow beyond their local area: their ability to access local resources and to understand local needs are important sources of efficiency and effectiveness.

Central government often asks how local innovation can be “scaled up” but this is not the solution to the exclusion of all other alternatives. Of course in some cases this consideration is important. But often, the question is not “how can we scale up a single solution?” but rather “how can we ensure lots of well adapted solutions flourish?”.

This has important implications for social finance. An important theme in social finance has been how to fund the expansion of successful social start-ups – the social sector equivalent of venture capital and growth capital in the private sector. This is important, but on its own it will not deliver Mass Localism. For this, we need an effective market providing a wider range of social finance products. Social Impact Bonds , with their ability to channel government commissioning into broad networks of local organisations, are one way forward.  Community Shares , which allows local people to buy into local amenities such as pubs, football teams and shops, is another.

The importance of an effective – and innovative – market for social finance to the success of real localism – Mass Localism – can’t be understated. If you are passionate about this – we would like to hear from you.