Plans to make it easier for communities to deliver affordable housing developments without requiring planning permission will be contained in the forthcoming Decentralisation and Localism Bill, housing minister Grant Shapps has confirmed.

Speaking at the Community Land Trusts conference in London, Shapps said that the bill, which is due to be introduced in the autumn, would contain measures to encourage the establishment of “local housing trusts”

Shapps said that the initiative, which was first proposed in the Conservative Party’s planning green paper earlier this year, would allow communities and groups of social housing tenants to form trusts that would decide on the amount and type of affordable housing in an area. They would then be able to take steps to deliver new developments, without having to submit a planning application.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said that local housing trusts would have to prove that any new schemes had support from an “overwhelming majority – around 90 per cent – of the local community”. They would also have to meet some “basic planning criteria”, she said, but would not have to lodge formal planning applications.

Shapps told delegates: “I want communities to have the freedom to decide on the type and quantity of housing without external restrictions imposed by a centralised planning system.

“Local housing trusts may also want to build some housing to sell, sheltered housing for the elderly, or even set aside plots for people to build their own homes.

“They will be able to make a judgement about how best to invest in their community and meet its needs, for instance they might offer long-term low rent for local shops, a community hall, or a sports facility.”

He said that the model for local housing trusts would be based on that of community land trusts (CLTs) – local bodies that own or manage land and assets in perpetuity for the benefit of the community.

“Once a new development has been built, local housing trusts will be expected to invest any financial profits back into the community. And the land will remain in the trust for local benefit forever – regardless of what happens to the homes built on top,” he said

Author: Lesley Riddoch, Scotsman

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

Author: Angus Hardie

Change the direction of travel – invest in community led regeneration

The consultation being led by Scottish Government on how Scotland’s share of the dormant bank accounts should be spent and the associated debate that is has stimulated across the Third Sector is to be welcomed. This financial windfall presents a unique opportunity for Scotland to fundamentally challenge and improve upon existing orthodoxy in terms of how to tackle the deep rooted and enduring challenges in Scotland’s most deprived communities.

This proposal is based on the following propositions concerning Scotland’s community regeneration policy over the past 25 years :

• That despite a succession of targeted, area based regeneration initiatives over this period, the baseline indicators of improved outcomes for the people living in these communities show that little meaningful progress has been achieved
• That these initiatives can be characterised as being, without exception, top-down and led by the local authority in partnership with other public sector bodies.
• That these initiatives result in programmes of short term funding for community based projects that are not able to sustain themselves beyond the end of the regeneration scheme.
• That despite the evidence that this top down, short term investment approach has failed to make a sustained impact, the same approach with minor modifications, has been applied repeatedly ever since New Life For Urban Scotland in the early 1980’s.
• That regeneration policy and practice in Central/Lowland Scotland has failed to recognise the value of lessons learnt in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in relation to the potential impact of community ownership and control and the importance of linking social and community development with economic growth.

The annual turnover of Scotland’s Third Sector is approximately £3.7 billion. In relative terms, £40m is a small amount of money and there is a real danger that if it is committed along existing patterns of expenditure, it will generate little in terms of overall impact and additional value.

It could however be used in such a way that would both signal the start of a new era in the regeneration of our most deprived communities, and provide the Government’s current policy commitment on community empowerment with a flagship initiative that would reinforce its devolutionary credentials.

The proposal – to establish community endowments

The £40m should be used to establish a £2 million endowment fund in twenty of the most deprived communities in Scotland (the index of deprivation that is used should include a rural component) under the ownership and control of a community owned regeneration vehicle. Each endowment would be set up as a legal trust and managed by a team of professional fund managers contracted to work with a nominated local anchor organisation. Each community would enter negotiations with the awarding body (BIG Lottery) as to which local anchor organisation should assume the role of ‘accountable body’ for the endowment. The nominated local anchor organisation and the management arrangements for the endowment would be subject to rigorous due diligence, with a requirement that reporting on investment decisions and any disposal decisions with regard to the income generated, have to be wholly transparent and publicly accountable.

If implemented, this proposal would fundamentally change the framework within which local regeneration could take place. It would:

• provide the community with a long term income stream that is not dependent on the continued patronage of a grant provider
• change the dynamic of the relationship between the community and other stakeholders . The power imbalance created by the ‘begging bowl’ culture would become less significant.
• enable the community to take their place at the ‘partnership table’ as a genuine partner with a financial stake to contribute towards common objectives
• enable the community to assume greater control in determining what local priorities it chooses to address
• increase levels of community self confidence and local capacity as the sense of controlling more of their own destiny grows

Underpinning this proposal is the principle that the people who live in a community are best placed to lead any process of change or renewal that occurs within that community and should always be given the opportunity to do so. Furthermore, inherent in this proposal is a recognition that when local people are presented with this type of opportunity, a hitherto untapped pool of creative energy and local commitment and effort can be harnessed and channelled towards the overall regeneration effort.

As supporters of Local People Leading – The campaign for a strong and independent community sector, the organisations listed below endorse this submission to the Scottish Government as part of the Consultation on Dormant Bank Accounts.

Author: Helen Pank, Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens

Report from a meeting held on 17th June of individuals and organizations  interested in the proposal to form a Community Land Bank in Scotland.

Interest in the concept of a Community Land Bank (CLB) in Scotland is growing.  The objective of a CLB is to make it easier for communities to access land for growing (and perhaps other community activities such as sport or play) as well as making it easier for land owners, both public and private, to use their land in this way.  At the moment communities can find it very difficult to find land and negotiate terms for using the land – even on a short term basis. For instance, Dunoon Allotments Association has been pressing their local authority for land for use as allotments for over 5 years.  Landowners are often overly cautious about making their land available because of fears over the return of the land in the future.

A CLB could help overcome these barriers to access to land, for example by matching communities looking for land with landowners with available land, providing template leases, advice and case studies, assisting with negotiations as an independent third party, perhaps even holding land in trust, thereby offering greater security of tenure for community groups and greater security of tenure for landowners.

The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens(The Fed)commissioned a ‘pre-feasibility study’ into the proposal to establish a CLB in England last year.  The results showed that there was huge interest in the idea, both from public and private landowners as well as community groups.  The Fed is now undertaking further research into the possible structure and remit of a CLB. However this work is restricted to England as it is funded by Westminster Government.  Therefore, on 17th June at a meeting in Edinburgh discussions took place between a range of different stakeholders including local authorities, the NHS, the Forestry Commission, SNH, Development Trusts Association Scotland, to explore the potential for a CLB in Scotland.

Although there were widely varying opinions on how wide its remit should be, whether it should include land to be used for other community purposes than growing, how much support a CLB could realistically offer to community groups/landowners without requiring a huge organizational infrastructure and resource?  However there was a strong consensus that there was a great deal of merit in the idea and that the next step should be for the Fed to apply to the Scottish Govt for funds to undertake more detailed research to define the remit and structure of a CLB in Scotland.  If this application is successful, the Fed committed to work on this project over the winter with a view to presenting a costed CLB business plan by the end of March 2011.

Author: http://communityland.org.uk

A team of researchers are undertaking a study for the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs and Environment Committee into how the Land Reform Act is working. This research will lead to a report to be presented to the Committee at the end of the summer.  The researchers wish to gather the views of community land groups on the legislation.

The team includes:

• UHI Centre for Mountain Studies: Dr Calum Macleod (leading the study);
• UHI Centre for Remote and Rural Studies: Dr Issie MacPhail and Tim Braunholtz-Speight;
• Rural Analysis Associates: Sarah Allen and Davie Macleod;
• Derek Flyn, crofting lawyer.

The researchers want to gather the views of community land groups on the “community right to buy” and “crofting community right to buy” provisions in the Act. They want to hear from groups that have used the Act, or tried to – and those who have purchased land without using it. The research examines:

• the current extent of use of these provisions;
• barriers to their more widespread use;
• the wider and indirect impacts of these provisions;
• proposals on how the provisions or their implementation might change in future.

You may have recently received an invitation to participate in an online survey for this research. The team would like to emphasise:

• the deadline for completion of the survey has been extended to Friday 9th July
• even if your group didn’t make any use of the Act, or very little, your responses are still valuable to us. One of our aims is to find out whether or not the Act had any impact on groups that didn’t formally use it to acquire land – so “no impact on us” responses are important. And in this case, the survey will probably only take about 5 minutes to complete!
• please answer everything in the survey that you can – but don’t feel you have to answer every question if time, or your recall of some of the details of the process, doesn’t allow! Everything you can say will be much appreciated.

If you would like to participate in the survey but have not received an invitation, or if you have any other queries about this study, please contact Tim Braunholtz-Speight on tim.braunholtz-speight@inverness.uhi.ac.uk

Author: http://www.hie.co.uk/

A small community of only 300 people on the west coast of Scotland is looking for a development officer to help them create an economic, social, and cultural plan for their future growth.

Morvern Community Development Company (MCDC) is to employ a full time development officer for the peninsula thanks to an initiative being run by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE).

The development agency is supporting up to 40 communities in the most fragile areas of the region by funding key posts to work locally with a range of community groups.  Morvern has a long history of community action and the new position will support the various community organisations, including MCDC and the community council.

Robin Smart chair of the development company is looking forward to having a post dedicated to moving their ambitious plans forward.

“It has been over ten years since we set up Morvern Community Development Company to create a lifeline petrol station for the community.  Since then we have tried our hand at managing community assets – we bought land at Lochaline and had it re-developed to create a focal green space with pathways and parking for locals and visitors to enjoy. We have campaigned for the future of the local mine. Currently we are working to develop 24 berths at Lochaline to link into the Sail West initiative and we are also hoping to create some allotments for local use.  We will really appreciate the full time support of a development officer who can advise on the best ways to achieve the successful, sustainable way of life that as volunteers we have been working towards,” he said.

Everyone in the community will have their chance to feed into the planning process.  One of the development officer’s first activities will be to consult with local residents, businesses and social enterprises.  Results from this survey will help form a baseline to monitor progress.

As well as the development officer the project, which is part funded through the European Union’s LEADER programme and Highland Council partnership, also provides additional support from a HIE member of staff.  HIE development manager Ian Philp will be working closely with the Morvern officer and the community groups. He commented:

“Evaluations of previous LEADER and Initiative at the Edge/Iomairt aig an Oir regeneration schemes run by HIE showed that groups which employed local officer support generated significantly greater benefits on the ground. Communities themselves will control and drive their development, and we will be on hand to provide the support they need.  We want to help communities carry out sustainable community action planning and deliver projects of direct benefit to them.”

Alastair McIntosh of the Centre for Human Ecology and GalGael Trust gave the opening keynote address on the nature of development and resilience. He said that the word “development” comes from the old French, de-enveloper, meaning to unfold the envelope. It conveys a sense of containing something special and undertaking the unfolding in a fitting manner. Too little development is destitution. Too much is a cancer. Our aim must be to seek development that is fitting to the people and place, and which has resilience to cope with the knocks that the future might bring.

To demonstrate the meaning of resilience he summarised a study that he has just submitted for publication with a former student, Lauren Eden from Canada. This interviewed some 30 key informants on the Isle of Lewis about how they survived during the 1966 National Union of Seamen’s strike. It had lasted for 6 weeks and forced Harold Wilson to call a national state of emergency. The research finds that three pillars of resilience were still intact in 1966. There was resilience of nature’s ecosystems, in that the land was still in good heart for agriculture, and the sea had not yet been overfished. There was resilience of know-how, in that people still knew how to butcher their own meat, to grow vegetables, and to make things. And there was resilience of Spirit, meaning that they cared deeply for one another and shared in the community when there were shortages.

In contrast, the study observed that today the Isle of Lewis is substantially dependent on just 2 supermarkets. When the ferry fails to sail there is panic buying because they are supplied on a just-in-time stocking basis, with only one or two days’ worth of stock. As one informant said, if the Seamen’s Strike happened today, “we’d be stumped.”

He argued that resilience of Spirit is especially important. This means working on identity and community cohesion at very deep levels. It needs to be the starting point for rebuilding community today. The cultural gap been locals and incomers must be mutually better understood. In some places the two groups are like oil and water, but this is not healthy where seeking to strong future communities. In concluding, he called for open discussion between both groups so that, where necessary, local ways can be better respected, and incomer energy more effectively harnessed for the common good. We may not all be native to a place, but there is a sense in which we can all become indigenous if we can relate to places in ways that grow naturally into their soil.

Open letter from Big Lottery 

As you may know the Big Lottery Fund has been working to revise and re-open our main funding programme in Scotland. And after a period of deliberation and re-design our new portfolio will open for business on 30 June this year. I thought you might appreciate an update on our plans.  

We will continue to help communities to have more control and influence over their own future through the ownership of assets and will still have an investment area called Growing Community Assets (GCA). While this sounds familiar, we have overhauled the outcomes we want to see in GCA to be much more specific and defined. This is because we want to be able to make a clear-cut impact with our funding and to reduce the amount of time and resources invested by applicants and us in applications which are ultimately unsuccessful. We have learned from consultation that we are at our best when we are clear about what we fund and are able to give early advice about what projects are likely to be successful.

GCA will continue to make communities stronger and more sustainable by helping them to acquire, manage and develop assets that provide quality services and amenities. Our experience of funding asset development tells us that community ownership of an asset is most likely to lead to the outcomes we want to achieve through GCA. By having complete control of the asset through ownership rather than leasehold, communities have the power to make the changes needed to benefit their community in the long term.  

However, in this next phase of GCA, we will place much greater emphasis on the need for assets to generate income streams that will support and secure the long term sustainability not only of the assets, but also of the communities in which they are located.  

And in addition to emphasising financial viability, this time around GCA will focus much more strongly on tackling need. We want to fund projects that tackle needs in communities. To do this we will expect applicants to show how they have identified needs through consultation with people in their communities, as well as how their projects are the best way for these communities to address their needs. The kinds of need we might expect applicants to identify include a lack of employment due to the closure of a major local employer, or a shrinking population due to the lack of opportunities for young people.

The sharper focus on financial viability and need is reflected in the outcomes we have set for GCA, all four of which we will expect all projects to achieve. The four outcomes are:
• Communities work together to own and develop local assets
• Communities are sustainable and improve their economic, environmental and social future through the ownership and development of local assets
• Communities develop skills and knowledge through the ownership and development of local assets
• Communities overcome disadvantage and inequality through the ownership and development of local assets.

We will launch the full details of our new approach to GCA on 30 June. I hope you will also be interested in the broader improvements to the way that we work including: more commitment to equalities, the environment and empowerment; more development support for applicants; greater contact with BIG staff; and a clearer approach to outcomes and tracking project success. And we plan to maintain the cornerstones of our funding approach that you and others endorsed: grants between £10,000 and £1 million, five year funding, and full-cost recovery.

Author: LPL

The challenge

The impact of the financial crisis on public services and in particular on the communities that are most dependent on these services will be compounded by another crisis that has evolved largely unnoticed over many years – that of widespread and enduring citizen inaction.  As the relationship between publicly provided services and the citizen has gradually become one of passive consumpton, the resilience of many communities –the capacity to withstand difficult times – has been seriously eroded by this general decline in active citizenship.   When public spending cuts result in a reduced level of public services, it is inevitable that where community resilience is lacking, the impact of these cuts will be most severe, placing even greater pressure on over-stretched public services.

The solution

But community resilience is not evenly distributed. Those communities that posess more resilience than others appear to have certain characteristics in common with one another. Of these, the most consistent feature is the presence of a particular type of  local organisation that fulfils a crucial local purpose. These organisations can take many different forms  such as a housing association, a development trust, a faith group, a credit union or some other form of community association. In this context, these organisations are increasingly referred to by the generic term ‘community anchor’.

Understanding the term ‘community anchor’

If a high street or shopping centre is thriving, more often than not you’ll find a large department store or supermarket at its heart – the property market calls them ‘anchor stores’ –  where lots of trading takes place but even more trading happens around them.   Now consider a neighbourhood as a kind of marketplace where lots of social activity, largely unseen, is constantly unfolding.  Sometimes, but not always, there exists in the middle of all of this a community based organization that operates as a social hub, drawing people in, and making things happen on behalf of others.  These organizations are the equivalent of the ‘anchor store’.  People look to these anchor organizations to provide a degree of local leadership, and community anchors engage with local people in ways that public service providers can only dream about and the private sector is uninterested in. Often community anchor organizations grow out of a community’s frustration with external agencies’ inability to deal with the issues on the ground.

An anchor, or more specifically a drag anchor, also has another meaning.  A drag anchor is put over the side of a boat in a storm. It does not go to the bottom. It hangs in the water.  The boat can rise and fall on the waves and it can weather the storm – and just as important – it is not blown all over the place. Community anchor organisations fulfill this purpose in communities buffeted by changes that are beyond their control.

The role of community anchors at a time of cuts on public sepending

Where an effective community anchor exists, the impact of cuts in public expenditure is likely to be experienced in fundamentally different ways. Firstly, the presence of strong informal networks and high levels of local resourcefulness will ameliorate the impact of these cuts because of the well founded traditions of self help and local self-determination. Secondly, many anchor organisations have already started to redefine the nature of the relationship with public service providers away from an ‘active provider- passive consumer’ model to one which is more alligned to that of ‘co-production’ with responsibilities being shared.  In both respects, not only are many of the hidden and long term costs of cutting services reduced, but it also offers a model of sustainable public service delivery which places active citizenship at its core.

Author: http://www.unltd.org.uk/

 A complete package of support
UnLtd’s Millennium Awards provide practical and financial support to social entrepreneurs in the UK; people with vision, passion, drive and commitment, who want to change the world for the better.

We know that there are thousands of people who have the ideas and the vision to make a real difference. We also know that many of them need encouragement and support, contact with others just like them, and access to training to help them grow and give their projects the best chance of success.

That’s why you don’t just get money from UnLtd. If you win an award you will get a complete package of support designed just for you, in addition to the financial support.
It is people who are important to UnLtd; which is why we only offer support to individuals. We do not support organisations.
Where the money comes from
UnLtd Millennium Awards are funded by the income from a legacy of £100 million granted by the Millennium Commission. This legacy is carefully invested so that the income can be obtained for awards for the future – this is what is called a permanent endowment.

The Millennium Commission is the only distributor of lottery funds to good causes who some time ago decided to provide awards to individuals. Around 25,000 of these have been made so far and they have been so successful that they decided to provide the legacy to UnLtd to carry on this work for the future.

Level 1 Awards are aimed at individuals or informal groups of people who have an idea which will change society for the better, and want help getting it off the ground. The money is to help with the running costs of the project. At Level 1 you can apply for an award of between £500 and £5,000, (with an average award size of £2,000). These awards are for people who:
• Have an idea which will benefit their community
• Have thought about how they will run their project
• Have some evidence that there is a need for their project
• Will learn a new skill from carrying out their project

Above all, UnLtd wants to support people who have the vision, drive, passion and commitment to develop their project and whilst doing it, will have the opportunity to increase their skills and vision.
The award can be used for the things you need to start or develop your project: materials, equipment, renting rooms for meetings and so on.

How Can I Apply for a Level 1 Award?
To apply for a Level 1 Award, please complete our Level 1 Eligibility Questionnaire. Or contact – your nearest UnLtd office to discuss your ideas.