Author: Rob Edwards

The following article was written by Rob Edwards (freelance journalist specialising in environmental issues) for his own web site www.robedwards.com

Thousands of people in Glasgow are being condemned to years of pungent pongs and pollution because because of a secret decision by Scottish Water to abandon investment in a dilapidated and overloaded sewage works.

Communities across Scotland are also suffering from smells and overflows at ageing or inadequate sewage works deprived of much-needed money. There have been a series of problems in Edinburgh, Inverness, Fife and Lanarkshire, while Scottish Water has frequently being prosecuted for pollution.

In Campbeltown on the Mull of Kintyre the water company has been humiliated by the consumer watchdog, Waterwatch Scotland. It has been ordered to apologise for repeatedly mismanaging sewage operations and “systematically trying to rubbish” the complaints of local people.

Now leaked extracts from Scottish Water’s latest business plan reveal that Dalmuir Waste Water Treatment Works in Clydebank will not be upgraded before 2014. This is despite the plant being in such a poor state that it breaches its operating licence, causes a stink and contaminates the Clyde.

The revelation has shocked and angered the local community and their MSPs, who accuse Scottish Water of misleading them about plans for Dalmuir. “It’s disgusting, disgraceful and out of order,” according to the chair of the local tenants’ association, Daniel Lennie.

“For the next few years they are going to continue to pollute this area and that’s shameful, absolutely shameful,” he said. “This stuff makes you ill. If you are old or young, it will make you sick, it will make you vomit.”

People living around Dalmuir sewage works have been complaining about bad smells for ten years. In the summer they say they can’t sit in the open, or send children out to play because the stench is so awful.

Dalmuir has also been breaching legal limits on the waste it discharges into the Clyde. In December the government’s Scottish Environment Protection Agency slapped an enforcement notice on the plant, obliging it to clean up its effluent.

In response to pressure from MSPs, ministers and regulators, Scottish Water has repeatedly promised to tackle the problems at Dalmuir. At a local public meeting last month it said that it was currently investing over £2 million in improvements.

But what the water company didn’t say is what is disclosed by its leaked business plan – that no investment is planned for much-needed upgrades at Dalmuir between 2010 and 2014. As a result, Dalmuir should be excluded from its “overall performance assessment” by regulators, the plan states.

“We are not currently progressing with the necessary enhancement investment to achieve robust compliance with the Controlled Activities Regulations licence at Dalmuir as this w ould not be in customers’ interest until the wider Glasgow strategic waste water study is concluded,” the plan says.

“Whilst we plan to use all available contractual measures to improve the reliability of compliance at Dalmuir, which is managed under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, it is likely that the plant will not achieve sustained compliance because it is undersized for the flows requiring full treatment.”

A second internal report obtained under freedom of information legislation reveals a litany of technical problems at Dalmuir. An audit of the plant for Scottish Water by the Water Research Centre in August 2007 found numerous blockages, breakdowns and flaws.

“Lumps of sludge were seen floating on the top of tanks and causing blockages,” it said. Sixteen of 24 “bubbler” units used to dislodge accumulated sludge were out of operation because of defects.

Another 2007 internal report on the Seafield sewage works in Edinburgh exposes a series of plant failures leading to breakdowns and blockages. Some equipment is “in poor condition” while “the overall screening plant is inadequate”.

According to Tommy Kane, a water industry researcher at Strathclyde University, there had been inadequate design, investment and management in sewage works. “Unfortunately, the people and environment are paying the price of the apparent failure of PFI contracts,” he said.

When shown the leaked business plan, Kane described it as “unbelievable”. He added: “This calls into question the commitment of Scottish Water and the economic regulator to ensure a base service for all water users.”

The Scottish Nationalist MSP for the West of Scotland, Gil Paterson, has written angrily to the Scottish government’s environment minister, Roseanna Cunningham, demanding an investigation into Dalmuir. He accused Scottish Water of “glossing over the real issue in an attempt to fool not just me but the public”.

He said: “I feel that if this report is accurate I have been let down and my trust has been abused by Scottish Water to hide the truth from the public.”

Scottish Water was accused of “muddling through” by the Labour MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Des McNulty. “The people of Dalmuir have suffered because the supposed experts have got it wrong,” he said.

Scottish Water pointed out that Dalmuir would be part of a major strategic review of waste water treatment in Glasgow. “That study will take place during the 2010-14 period and it would be inappropriate to spend large amounts of money at Dalmuir before then,” said the company’s head of corporate affairs, Helen Lennox.

“At the end of last year Saur Services Glasgow Ltd, our PFI partners at Dalmuir, committed over £2m to be used to help improve the plant’s operability in the short-term.” Some £20 million is also being invested in improvements at Seafield.

Outcome of LPL meeting held June 16th  to consider issues affecting progress around land reform/community assets agenda and proposals for how to proceed
Present :
Andy Milne                      Scottish Urban Regeneration Network
Andy Wightman               Writer and researcher
Angus Hardie                  Local People Leading
Alistair McIntosh              GalGael,  Centre for Human Ecology
David Niven                     Individual (formerly Initiatives at the Edge)
Frazer Scott                     Forward Scotland
Geri Smyth                      Transition Scotland Support
Helen Pank                      Federation of City farms and Community Gardens
Ian Cooke                       Development Trusts Association Scotland
Jon Hollingdale                Community Woodlands Association
Natalie McCall                  Transition Arran / Glasgow Caledonian University
Norman MacAskill              SCVO
Mark Lazzeri                     Assynt Foundation
Tom Black                        Development Trusts Association Scotland
Tom Graham                    Crofters Association, Tenant farmer
Wendy Reid                      Development Trusts Association Scotland
 
Other LPL supporters who noted their active interest:
Chris Mitchell                    Kinghorn Community Land Initiative
Cllr Bryan Stuart                Aberdeenshire Council
James Hilder                     Mull and Iona Community Trust
Judy Wilkinson                  Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society
Neil Gerrard                       Community Land Unit
Pauline Gallagher              Neilston Development Trust
Patricia Robertson             Assynt Foundation
Robin Callander                Independent specialist adviser
 
 
Main concerns  expressed at meeting
·         Government enthusiasm for land reform has cooled
·         Land Reform  (Scotland) Act 2003 is not delivering expected outcomes
·         Previous commitment from Scottish Executive/ Scottish Government to  review the operation and  effectiveness of Land Reform Act has not been fulfilled
·         Levels of investment in a comprehensive programme of community asset acquisition and development have stalled
·         Standard of community capacity building per CLD is inadequate to meet the demands placed on community bodies in the pre and post acquisition of assets.
·         Transfers of local authority assets into community ownership are ad hoc and lack a national strategic focus viz a viz that provided by the Quirk Review in England
·         Common Good assets remain poorly documented with persistent financial irregularities and little opportunity for meaningful community oversight.
·         A commitment from Scottish Government to produce guidance for local authorities on the disposal of public assets at less than best consideration has not been fulfilled.
·         Scottish Government’s Community Empowerment Action Plan is not currently a cross government policy priority and consequently the community asset agenda sits outwith mainstream policy thinking
 
 
What action is required:
Proposed that a campaign of coordinated action should be pursued under the auspices of Local People Leading which should include the following key areas:
 
·         Community Right to Buy.   Registration and re-registration procedures should be simplified.  Scope of the Act should be extended to cover all land in Scotland.   Significant investment is required to raise awareness and understanding of the Act.
·         Investment.  Further public investment is required to support asset acquisition allied to new regulations and guidance to facilitate greater levels of transfer of public assets into community ownership
·         Capacity building support. More effective and appropriate levels of community development support should be available to communities to assist in pre and post acquisition support.
·         Common Good. All Local Authorities should have accurate asset registers and strategic plans for management of common good assets. Communities should be provided with greater powers over their Common Good 
·         Crown Estates. The Crown Estate in Scotland should be reformed as proposed in the report – New Opportunities for Public Benefits and endorsed by HIE, COSLA  and six local authorities from the Highlands and Islands.
·         Research and development.  Commission longitudinal research into community asset ownership to study impact on community resilience, social capital and wider impacts on civil society.

Research Summary

Local People Leading asked EKOS to help to gauge the views of supporters on how well local public bodies are serving the community and voluntary sector in Scotland.

We received a total of 73 responses by way of an online survey. The responses came from community groups, voluntary organisations, and social enterprises across Scotland.

The survey provided a revealing snapshot of the ambitions and progress of organisations, their relationships with local public bodies, and their ability to work with the public sector to make a difference locally.

The survey highlighted a number of main findings:

• Organisations are generally very ambitious to bring about change for their community. Their focus is on enabling more people to get involved in local decision-making, to introduce or extend local service provision, and to influence the way that public services are delivered.

• Organisations are generally positive about their recent progress. Almost three-quarters of survey respondents (71%) felt that they had been fairly successful or very successful in progressing their ambitions over the last 12 months.

• However, a number of main challenges have impacted on the recent success of organisations. These challenges relate largely to the changing public sector landscape in Scotland and the accompanying uncertainty, reduction in funding levels, new demands, and resource constraints that are arising for the sector.

• Despite these changes and challenges, organisations still remain generally optimistic about their future prospects. Almost three-quarters of survey respondents (74%) were very or fairly confident that they will be successful in progressing their ambitions over the next 12 months.

• Organisations are generally close to or rely on the public sector in a variety of ways. All of the organisations that responded to the survey had direct dealings, to a lesser or greater extent, with local statutory bodies.

• While generally knowledgeable about local public policy priorities, structures, and procedures, there are some important gaps in the sector’s understanding. There was notably less familiarity reported in relation to: opportunities to get involved in Community Planning processes; the way in which public service contracts are awarded; and the local priorities now being set out in Single Outcome Agreements.

• Significant concerns have been expressed by organisations in relation to their dealings with local public bodies. In particular respondents highlighted: an inability to secure long-term funding; the limited availability of capacity building assistance locally; and the inability to fully recover overhead costs from public contracts.

• Concerns have also been expressed regarding the influence of the community and voluntary sector in public decision-making. Less than one-quarter of respondents (22%) reported satisfaction with their ability to influence the decisions of public bodies.

• Some concerns were also expressed about the attitudes and behaviours of local public bodies. These concerns related largely to the willingness of public bodies to consult with or involve the sector in the policy-making process or to act fully on the views of the sector.

• On a positive note, relationships do generally appear to be improving. In two-in-every-five cases (39%) respondents indicated that their relationship with local public bodies had been getting better or much better during the last 12 months.

• However, in many cases the reported relationship with public bodies has not been changing (in 41% of cases) or has been deteriorating (in 20% of cases), with suggestions of increasing control and influence being exerted by public bodies (to the detriment of the sector).

• Overall, the survey feedback suggests that the public sector is having a slightly more positive than negative influence on the success of organisations. In 31% of cases this influence was characterised as positive or very positive and in 24% of cases it was deemed negative or very negative (45% of respondents suggested that the influence was neither positive nor negative).

• Where public bodies are having a positive influence, they are reportedly improving dialogue with the sector, recognising and accepting its contribution, collaborating where possible around shared goals, and actively supporting the sector to develop and expand its role in service delivery.

• On the other hand, where public bodies are exerting a negative influence on the sector, there has been a reported absence of communication, a failure to understand and recognise the contribution of the sector, an unwillingness to jointly plan and deliver services, and a failure to meaningfully support and empower the sector.

• Respondents provided many helpful suggestions on ways that public bodies could do more to improve their relationship with, and influence on the sector. For many, real change could only be achieved through improved dialogue, greater clarity on the desired role and contribution of the sector, and a genuine willingness to work with and through the sector to realise shared goals.

Author: Henry palmer, Social Enterprise Magazine

The government’s relationship with the banking sector is depicted as akin to that of an overly-liberal parent to their child. The government and its regulators have opted for a light touch approach, entrusting banks themselves to do the right thing.

But as minds focus on how to rebuild a banking system that is solid, fair and equitable, a chorus of voices from the social enterprise sector is beginning to ask whether it is time for government to adopt a more heavy handed approach to harness the collective power of banks.

According to critics, evidence of the industry’s contribution to tackling under-investment has been piecemeal and anecdotal. This has not satisfied the growing number of campaigners, who believe the UK should look to legislation overseas – particularly the US – which compels banks to be open and transparent about their activity in marginalised communities.

The concern that banks have been engaged in little more than gesture politics to keep the statute book at bay, was succinctly captured by the influential Social Investment Task Force – pre-economic meltdown – in 2001.

Appointed by then Chancellor Gordon Brown and chaired by venture capitalist Sir Ronald Cohen, the task force’s report said: ‘According to the British Bankers’ Association, banks have supported at least 70 local loan funds of various types. These are welcome moves. However, they are mostly inspired by philanthropy, public relations or marketing.’

Indeed, this view is supported by Niall Alexander, the former director of HBOS’s community banking unit, as he recalls his attempts to build on a widely acclaimed project to tackle financial exclusion in Wester Hailes, a deprived suburb of Edinburgh.

He recalls that while he received support from the highest echelons of the bank, including former HBOS CEO Sir James Crosby, who went on to become the deputy chair of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), this ‘never trickled down to middle management’.

Despite the success of the Wester Hailes Community Banking Agreement, Alexander says he was subsequently unable to secure the resources required to duplicate the project elsewhere. ‘Of course, the bank got their kudos early, good PR, a nice story. Once that had been picked up, they were less bothered.’

Faisel Rahman, managing director of east London-based Fair Finance, which offers financial services to local communities bypassed by mainstream banks, says: ‘I completely agree with Cohen’s view that banks are only interested in getting good PR and promoting themselves to government. This is not just about us understanding the willingness of specific banks to develop products and services that are suitable for under-served markets, but would also enable organisations, such as my own, to start filling gaps in the market.’

Before her departure, former communities secretary Hazel Blears raised the spectre of the government introducing new, powerful banking laws based on the decades-old Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in the US.

At the centre of the CRA is the full publication of lending data, allowing the general public to take banks to task if they do not meet their obligations to lend in the same areas they take deposits.

Speaking at an event for third sector bosses in London in April, Blears said her department was looking at ways to rebuild trust in financial institutions. ‘The US Community [Re]Investment Act, whereby financial institutions must plough some of their profits into compmnities, might serve as an interesting starting point,’ she said.

A flurry of action

With these few words, Blears set in motion a flurry of activity among campaigners, whose calls for such legislation before the banking bail-out had fallen on deaf ears. For many, the fact that a Cabinet minister was ready to champion their arguments said much about how far the balance of power had started to tilt away from the banks.

The DCLG has since commissioned a scoping study to assess the feasibility of legislation based on the CRA, with counterparts in both the Office of the Third Sector and the Treasury adding their thoughts and ideas into behind¬ the-scenes conversations. Despite Blears’ departure, a series of ‘invitation ¬only’ seminars have been taking place across the UK to guage the public’s appetite for CRA-based laws.

While the Treasury’s official line is that there is currently no ‘clear evidence’ of the need for a CRA in the UK, campaigners point out that the banks’ refusal to publish and share figures on lending leave us all in the dark when it comes to understanding the role of the banks in boosting wealth creation in poor neighbourhoods.

For Toby Blume, CEO of the Urban Forum, the part-nationalisation of names like Lloyds and RBS has given campaigners and the wider British public a newfound sense of legitimacy in calling for fundamental changes to the banking system.

Blume says: ‘There is a widespread feeling that the £90bn of public money invested in banks on the brink of collapse has offered little to communities and citizens. Citizens quite rightly want to feel that the money pumped into these ailing banks has been worthwhile.’

Meanwhile, Rahman says: ‘The financial crisis forced the government to make a decision to spend £70bn of taxpayers’ money over the course of one weekend. It seems right that as part of the public’s underwriting of banks, they should be allowed access to simple information about where they lend.’

eRA in the UK

Unsurprisingly, the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) is sticking to its long-held position that its members do not need to be coerced into action through regulation.

Brian Capon, a spokesman for the BBA, says: ‘In the UK, there is a high level of good practice being displayed across the financial inclusion and capability agenda by the leading banks with considerable efforts being made supporting the FSA and government [agendas] … Legislation could curb this.’

The BBA is also closely following the arguments of free marketeer commentators in the US, who have suggested that the CRA played a large role in the economic meltdown itself. ‘In the US, there is still an intensive debate on if and how the CRA has contributed o the sub-prime crisis,’ Capon says. ‘It would be unwise to move ahead with any similar requirements in the UK while this issue is still being examined.’

But this line of argument has surprised John Taylor, president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition in the US, who says it has completely failed to attract any political currency.

Indeed, he points to evidence given to a House of Representatives’ consumer credit committee in March this year, when the Federal Reserve’s director of consumer and community affairs, Sandra Braunstein, said: ‘I can state definitively … that the CRA is not one of the causes of the current crisis.

‘We have run data on CRA lending and where loans are located, and we have found that only six per cent of all higher cost loans were made by CRA¬ covered institutions in neighbourhoods targeted. So I can tell you, if that’s where you’re going, that CRA was not the cause of this loan crisis.’

But it is not just the industry itself warning against a wholesale import of the CRA into the UK. Sarah McGeehan, head of social finance at NEST A, believes it is not as simple as importing the CRA into the UK.

However, McGeehan adds: ‘While CRA might not be the complete answer, there is a sensible argument to suggest that if banks benefit from the extremely profitable bits of the market, there should be a responsibility to serve the whole of the market.’

The Community Development Finance Association (CDFA), whose members provide financial service in marginalised communities, has itself fallen short of calling for wholesale legislation.

Bernie Morgan, CEO of the CDFA, says: ‘CRA operates in a very different legal and fiscal framework. While we are warning against wholesale CRA for the UK, we want the CDFI sector to be a permanent and recognised part of the financial services industry. As we are seeing, CDFIs are essential in times of both boom and bust.’

Instead, the CDFA launched a campaign in May calling on banks and its members to adopt a voluntary code or ‘community finance charter’. Under the charter, the FSA would be able to take a bank’s record in serving marginalised communities into account when awarding a banking licence.

Greater transparency

But the CDFA – along with Fair Finance, the Social Enterprise Coalition, the Urban Forum, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and the Development Trusts Association to name a few – are all convinced of the need for quick and tough action to compel banks to come clean on where they lend.

The report says: ‘Some banks have clearly embraced the opportunity to disclose information, develop their understanding of these markets and work in partnership with CDFIs and other agencies. Others have not been proactive. Those who are more reticent must be required to disclose.’

Morgan adds: ‘It is vital to get banks to disclose activity to the same framework and the same regularity. We’re calling for disclosure so we can measure the contribution of one bank against another.’

Rahman agrees. ‘Disclosure will only ever work if each individual bank can be identified,’ he says. ‘It is only after we’re given access to the data, which would allow us to understand the complexities of financial exclusion, that we will be able to understand what further action could help.

‘It could be then that CDFIs work with banks to show them that banking in these areas can be done. If they are unwilling to undertake this work, one option would be to find ways to encourage them to invest in social enterprises who could help fix this market failure.’

Andrew Robinson, former head of Community Development Banking at RBS & NatWest and currently director at investment manager CCLA, says: ‘While people were spending, it was easy to see why the government favoured a carrot and stick approach – without the stick.

‘The prevailing view was that the banking system was working for most, so why attempt to burden it with red tape and bureaucracy and risk undermining the perceived success of the City.

Author: Ian MacWhirter, The Herald

Ten years ago this week, as we waited for the Queen formally to open the Scottish Parliament, I was still in the throws of moving back from London, where I’d been working in Westminster for over a decade. Well, it was a great national moment: the restoration of a parliament in Scotland after 300 years, a new Scotland, a great constitutional adventure. Wasn’t long before I was wondering if I’d made the right decision. Holyrood had been launched in ignominy and scandal. Any sense of national renewal was occluded by rows about expenses, poor-quality MSPs, irrelevant debates, indifferent legislation and financial irresponsibility. Politicians at Westminster sucked their teeth and lamented the failed opportunities.

Ten years on, the situation is almost exactly the reverse. The Scottish Parliament seems a model modern legislature, with its open and transparent expenses regime, its pre-legislative committees, fixed-term parliaments and proportional representation. It is Westminster that is mired in expenses scandals, accusations of economic mismanagement, budgetary irresponsibility and legislative irrelevance. MPs in Westminster, with their duck houses, property speculation and multiple jobs have become national pariahs, hardly daring to go out alone in their constituencies.

No-one is more surprised by this turn of events than MSPs, who aren’t used to regarding themselves as exemplars of probity and competence. But, somehow, I don’t think it will go to their heads. Holyrood was purpose-built to prevent elected members turning into arrogant, self-interested courtiers. They’re much too busy, for a start.

advertisement
Most commentators believe Westminster will now have to import many of the practices of Holyrood if it is to restore public respect, most obviously over allowances and second jobs. Elective dictatorship by No 10 is under serious challenge, and Holyrood now gives constitutional reformers a model to work from. In fact, the revival of Westminster was always an important part of the Holyrood project. Constitutional reform was primarily about restoring the sovereign right of the Scottish people to choose how they are governed, but it was also about breaking the Westminster monopoly of power, about bringing politics closer to the people, creating a legislative space for new political ideas.

Of course, Holyrood isn’t perfect by any means. It is still underpowered in important respects, especially over the economy, though this may be about to change following the Calman Report. The parliament hasn’t been tested yet by economic recession and the forthcoming cuts in spending will be challenging for a legislature that has not had to worry about how to raise the money it spends. There is still a strong hangover of petty party tribalism which creates divisions between the main parties in areas where they don’t really exist, such as the environment, health service reform and PFI. But devolution has, by any standards, been a significant achievement.

It has made a difference to people’s lives by passing legislation on everything from the smoking ban to free personal care. It has largely assuaged the Scottish grievance, and stopped Scots blaming London for everything that goes wrong here. Amazingly, it has helped restore trust in politics, as demonstrated by opinion polls such as last month’s Populus poll in the Times confirming that 70% of Scots believe devolution has been good for Scotland. Going around Scotland, even in the recession, you do get a sense that things are getting better.

And then there’s Andy Murray. No, the tennis phenomenon’s performance cannot be put down to the Scottish Parliament. But notice how there hasn’t been the usual quarrel over whether Murray is Scottish or British. Everyone knows he’s Scottish – even the folk on Henman Hill have pointedly refrained from changing its name to Murray Mound. It’s just not an issue any more. Some still gripe about Murray being hailed as British if he wins and Scottish if he loses, but not with any conviction. The fact of Scottish self-government, albeit limited, has made Scots more secure in their identity and less bothered about perceived slights to national honour.

It is very rare in politics that something actually works and we should not it let it pass unremarked, even if we don’t start popping BBC champagne corks in celebration. Devolution has been an achievement for that amorphous body called “civil society” – the various non-party organisations and public-spirited individuals who launched the Scottish Constitutional Convention 20 years ago.

Curious, then, that large parts of civil society apparently feel excluded. Last week I was invited to speak at a forum organised by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations with representatives from trades unions, civic groups, churches and NGOs. It has been looking into the “crisis of Scottish civil society”. Many people in the voluntary sector seem to believe that Holyrood has been taken over by politicians who have edged them out of influence and public recognition. Well, the trouble with parliaments is that they tend to attract politicians, so that’s hardly surprising.

Of course, politicians have their faults, like democracy itself, but we shouldn’t confuse the institution with the people who are elected to it. Elected members in Westminster and Holyrood are all drawn more or less from the same political gene pool: law, teaching, local government, civil service, trades unions, voluntary organisations. It’s not that the ones in Westminster are genetically inferior or innately corrupt; it’s just that the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy encourages MPs to behave badly. To that extent, the shame-faced dishonourable members are right to complain: “But it’s the system that’s to blame.” The point about constitutions is to create structures that bring out the best in people, not the worst.

No, my concern about Scotland is not that civil society is dead, but that the Scottish media is in danger of dying. The indigenous Scottish press is losing readers; STV is giving up any pretence of public-service broadcasting and the cash-strapped BBC has lost the will and the means to lead political debate in Scotland. The Scottish Broadcasting Commission’s call for a Scottish digital channel has been ignored by Westminster, despite unanimous backing in Holyrood. Increasingly, Scots see themselves through the prism of an anglo-centric media which nods in the direction of devolution occasionally but really doesn’t understand life outside the M25.

Somehow, I don’t think this week’s tenth anniversary of devolution is going to be celebrated in the UK media for what it is – the most radical and the most successful reform of the British constitution since the universal suffrage. A peaceful revolution.

Author: Third Sector

Audit Commission report says councils fear mismanagement and loss of income
David Ainsworth, Third Sector

More than half of local authorities are reluctant to transfer land and buildings to community organisations because they are afraid they will be mismanaged, the Audit Commission http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk will say in a report published tomorrow.

The commission surveyed 80 local authorities to find out whether they were making the best use of land and property. Its report, Room for Improvement, will say the second most common reason for not transferring assets is a reluctance to forfeit income.

“These concerns help to explain why councils want to retain the control of transferred property through leases and licences rather than transfer of freehold ownership,” the report will say. “It may be necessary for councils to help to develop the capacity of the voluntary and community sector in order to transfer more properties.”

Two years ago the Government-commissioned Quirk Review recommended that councils transfer assets to local people to give them a bigger stake in the future of their areas.

But the spending watchdog’s report will reveal that councils have deep concerns about the ability of the voluntary sector to cope.

Most councils, it will say, have responded by offering long leases rather than ownership of property.

Almost half of councils said they had increased asset transfer since the 2007 review conducted by Barry Quirk, chief executive of Lewisham Council, on behalf of the Communities and Local Government department. But only one said the review had made a big difference to its policy. Six had never heard of the review.

Bharat Shah, deputy chair of the commission, will recommend councils draw up asset registers to show what properties are available and allow stakeholders to propose better uses for them.

The real reason charities aren’t trusted with property
Malcolm Hayday, Chief Executive, Charity Bank

So the Audit Commission has found that more than half of local authorities consider community organisations are not to be ‘trusted’ with property. Is it a coincidence that on 17 June, the Audit Commission also reported that only 20 percent of council finance directors have all the information they need to manage their estates? The words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ come to mind. I suspect the real reason for their reluctance to let go of their assets is that, in straitened times, councils will need every pound they can get from property sales.

Author: Kenneth Roy

This is a little story of how representative democracy works; or rather doesn’t.

After a campaign by parents against Glasgow’s proposed programme of primary and nursery school closures, the city council met on 23rd April to reach a final decision. It had been a long, eye-catching campaign. Some had occupied school buildings; others had chained themselves to railings. To say that feelings ran high on the day of decision would be an under-statement. A vocal placard-carrying group, including babes in arms, gathered outside the city chambers while the councillors talked and voted.

I was not there, but have seen footage of the sad scene; watched it several times. The most striking thing about the protesters – it must be stated frankly – is that they were the unmistakeable voices of the Glasgow working class; there was not a trace of a middle-class accent. Also notable by their absence were the semi-professional agitators who attach themselves to such causes. This was no rent a mob. This seemed to the disinterested observer to be the genuine article.

In the end, all the months of campaigning achieved little. One school was saved. The bulk of the closure programme – 11 primaries and nine nurseries – will go ahead as originally planned. By the end of this month, the doomed schools will shut their doors for the last time.

The reaction to the vote in front of the city chambers was one of barely coherent anger. One mother could scarcely find words to utter to Scottish Television’s cameras. She finally came up with four. ‘The family!’ she cried desperately. ‘The community!’ But the barely coherent may speak volumes. Really she couldn’t have chosen four more resonant words. The family. The community. One supposes that, if any revival is possible in Britain, any clawback from our state of perilous disillusion, it will originate with these neglected concepts. The revival, if it comes, will start local, deeply local. It will have to be born within us and grow, somehow. The Glasgow mother, struggling for composure, managed to articulate the essentials.

But this necessary business of reconstruction, of taking responsibility for what we see and experience around us, can’t be divorced from representative democracy. That is the fluid we use; the oil for the machine which takes decisions, makes policies. Except it is no longer an effective lubricant – as we’ll see at the weekend when the shocking but unsurprising results of the European elections tumble in, possibly signalling an unparallelled crisis for democracy.

In Glasgow that spring day, the Labour councillors who run the show were unmoved by popular protest, just as the rather larger Labour group who run the show nationally were unmoved by the millions who marched against the Iraq invasion. The war happened anyway. The schools are closing anyway. What does it take? ‘Vote for me,’ they say. ‘Trust me.’ That’s representative democracy for you. Sadly, we don’t trust it any more. Trust is a busted flush. As the party of government committed us to war, as the innocents died on the killing fields of Iraq, many of the war’s supporters, impervious to the possibility that they would ever be found out, were fiddling their expenses, each dodgy receipt contributing to the great hypocrisy. Unless we’re careful this hypocrisy will prove to be more than the enemy of representative democracy. It will be the finish of it.

Look at Albert Primary. It is a poor little school in the heart of Glasgow Springburn, where a by-election will take place in the early autumn, perhaps sooner. One of the reasons given for its impending closure is that it is in a state of disrepair. Sure, but whose fault is that? A lick of paint would work wonders. But let’s not bother with the Dulux. Let’s allow Albert Primary to fall slowly apart as a physical entity, yet astonish the world with the quality of its teachers, the creativity of its pupils, the enthusiasm of its parents. Teaching is like theatre. All you need is two boards and a passion. It can work in the dingiest, clapped-out places and, given half a chance, sometimes does. If only representative democracy were functioning properly, it would start from that premise about education and work outwards.

Now then, why is Albert Primary closing this month? Not because it is in a state of disrepair – we can discount that feeble deception. No doubt the powerlessness of the people of Springburn is a factor; any school within a working-class area is fair game, an easy target. The city budget looks bad. That’s undeniable. Money has to be saved somewhere. These are probably the real reasons: the first, lack of clout, would never be admitted by those responsible, but the second, lack of money, should have been intelligently explained in order to facilitate an inclusive debate about resources, choices, priorities.

Instead of such honesty – ‘transparency’ if you prefer the word of the moment – we have had obfuscation. I listened to the official version of events, mouthed by someone whose performance on television was so unimpressive that the suit was not granted the dignity of a caption. I will quote what might loosely be termed the highlights of his statement: ‘Maximise the teaching and learning resources…improve the exam results…individual support around literacy and numeracy…once the results have bedded down…’ What is the man saying? He appears to be claiming that schools with falling rolls, such as Albert Primary, instead of providing a terrific opportunity for smaller classes and more individual teaching, are a liability; that only larger schools, detached from the immediate community, can improve the skills of the children of Springburn. Is he correct in his assertions? I wouldn’t know. He wasn’t challenged on them. His language was so cloudy that it was largely devoid of meaning. It was conference-speak.

What I’ve just related is a mere example of the condition of representative democracy. Twenty schools are closing in Glasgow this month – brutally, in the face of impassioned opposition, and without proper discussion. No one voted for these measures. No manifesto ever included them. ‘Vote for me. Trust me’. It doesn’t work any more, at least in its present discredited form: not as a slogan, nor as a political philosophy, nor even as an operational expedient. The greatest challenge we face is how to reinvent representative democracy before it perishes. It won’t be an easy assignment.

THE board of Scotland’s biggest housing association is set to quit, after a government watchdog accused it of a failure of leadership, The Scotsman can reveal.

Senior officials at Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) are on the verge of stepping down, after the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) questioned the organisation’s management and its strategic direction and purpose.

The regulator, which is answerable to ministers, is conducting an audit of GHA, which is due to be completed at the end of this month. It has already informed the syndicate of banks and building societies that provides GHA with a £725 million loan facility that it is prepared to take the strongest possible action.

Such action could plunge Scotland’s largest social landlord into turmoil and begin a process that could effectively end tenant and independent control of the organisation. GHA has 63,000 tenants and 26,000 factored homeowners.

The watchdog has the power to appoint or remove members from the association’s governing body, appoint a manager to provide leadership to the organisation and demand it produce a remedial plan of improvements. It even has the capacity to order a full inquiry, with a final report made to ministers.

Officials could be removed or suspended, and GHA’s land transferred to another social landlord.

The Scotsman has learned GHA officials believe they are the victims of a “political witch-hunt”, after a breakdown with key stakeholders in Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government.

“They did not play the political game and did not bend the knee enough,” a source close to the bank syndicate said.

The warning of the possibility of statutory intervention was given during a meeting in Glasgow last week between Karen Watt, chief executive of the SHR, and Ian Sillars, of Royal Bank of Scotland and the manager of the GHA funding syndicate.

The source said: “If the purpose of the meeting was to reassure the funders, it had the completely opposite effect.

“In many ways, the regulator has demonstrated either breathtaking naivety or blind arrogance, or both. Any such statutory intervention and its financial implications could, because of the size of GHA and the numbers involved, plunge the entire social housing movement in Scotland into turmoil.”

It is understood that, while the SHR audit will accuse GHA’s board of a “failure of leadership”, it will recognise the continuing and significant improvements made in the quality of services provided to tenants.

As well as statutory intervention, the SHR is also considering whether GHA is able voluntarily to address issues surrounding its stakeholder engagement and strategic leadership. The perceived non-statutory solution would be to “strengthen” the GHA board by co-opting four additional independent directors and to appoint at least one “special manager” to work with the executive team to resolve weaknesses identified by the audit.

The audit – initially planned as a five-day “light-touch” exercise and now in its fifth week – is known to have caused a series of fractious stand-offs between Ms Watt and GHA’s tenant members and heavyweight independent directors.

Both independents and tenant members, including chairwoman Sandra Forsythe, have privately expressed the belief GHA is being penalised and punished for putting the interests of tenants at the heart of decision-and policy-making – instead of “playing the political game”.

The future of GHA has been the focus of much debate. Privately, some in both the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council are said to be concerned about the power it wields and the way in which it is managed.

SHR began its review in May and will publish its findings in the next fortnight.

Under its guidelines on intervention, the SHR makes clear it looks at several key areas before deciding whether to take statutory action. These areas include financial failure; stock quality and investment failure; governance failures leading to and arising from mismanagement and misconduct; and poor service quality.

The guidelines classify intervention as a way of addressing “serious problems” at a social landlord where the body is “either unwilling or unable to deal with them”. They go on: “Sometimes we may need to use statutory powers to protect and support an organisation in tackling disruptive or hostile elements that threaten its stability.”

A spokesman for the SHR said: “I can confirm that our review of GHA’s progress since our inspection in 2007 is ongoing. We aim to publish our findings at the end of June. We will make no further comment until that time.”

A spokeswoman for GHA said: “The audit has given us the opportunity to demonstrate the huge progress we have continued to make in improving services for tenants and factored homeowners since the inspection report in 2007.

“We expect it will reflect the positive feedback we have received from our tenants on the significant improvements we have made.”

Debts, repairs and contract rows – GHA’s controversial six years

MORE than 80,000 local authority properties were transferred from Glasgow City Council to Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) in 2003.

The deal saw the city’s spiralling housing debts of more than £800 million written off, as GHA embarked on a comprehensive programme of demolitions, repairs, and refurbishments.

However, there has been criticism of the organisation’s management structures, with claims that some of the most deprived communities in Scotland have not been given the sweeping improvements they were promised.

The organisation, which employs around 2,000 staff, has had four chief executives in the space of just five years.

Smaller housing groups have condemned what they see GHA’s reticence to break itself up as part of a promised “second stage transfer” process.

In recent years, however, its relationship with the city council has suffered over its “arms-length” City Building organisation failing to secure maintenance contracts for the GHA after the work was put out to tender under EU rules.

Two years ago, Communities Scotland, the precursor of the Scottish Housing Regulator, gave the GHA a C grade, and urged it to foster improved relations with homeowners.

Tenant members form the largest grouping on the GHA board. On a day-to-day basis, GHA is led by a six-strong executive team, led by Taroub Zahran, who has been chief executive for the past two years.

http://communityideascampaign.socialgo.com

Launched on 4 June 2009, the initial phase of the campaign is seeking people’s ideas to: 

• Preserve and grow employment 
• Stimulate activity across the community
• Make it easier for ordinary people to make a difference
• Kick start our construction industry to provide sustainable homes

As you can see from the logo above our motto is simple; no whinging.  Therefore, the campaign will only consider ideas that are positive and think about solutions, not the problems!

But this is just the beginning of this independent citizens’ campaign. In September, with the help of our advisory group we will be producing an action plan – and it won’t only be for government. It will be for individuals, communities, business and other organisations.

To post an idea on an existing one here is what you have to do:

Once you are registered and signed in
– Click on ‘Ideas Tank’ tab
– Click on ‘What’s Your Idea’
– To Submit your idea click on ‘create topic’
– Enter Topic Title, enter your idea in the topic content box, when finished click ‘create topic’

See Herald artice here http://www.senscot.net/view_news.php?viewid=8247

Speech at DTAS Conference 2009
Elwyn James

Good afternoon.  My name is Elwyn and I work for a development trust called Arts Factory.  We are based in the Rhondda Valleys, in South Wales.  First off I’d like to thank Ian and his team for inviting me to speak to you today.  Ian said that he wanted a practitioner to “provide a bit of inspiration” – so no pressure there then! 

Arts Factory is one of Wales’ most enduring development trusts, we have been around since 1990.  I first got involved in 1991 as one of our board of directors.  Then I became Chair of the board.  In 1994 I became an employee of the company, leading on Marketing, and in 2004 I was appointed Chief Executive.  A lot has changed around us since Arts Factory’s birth in 1990 but too much has stayed the same.  For our team it has been a wild ride on a bumpy road.  There have been many casualties along the way, but others have stepped up to take their place.  We have seen a lot, and we have learned a lot.  We have won some and we’ve lost some.  We have had great times and hard times, and we have laughed and cried and cursed together.  I would like to take a few minutes of your time to share some of that journey with you.

I would like to rewind and ask you to imagine the Rhondda in 1990.  It is not long after the miner’s strike and the subsequent colliery closures that had ripped the heart and the hope out of valleys communities.   It is nearly ten years before devolution, Wales is ruled by a Tory Welsh Office represented by a secretary of state who can’t even sing our national anthem.  Margaret Thatcher has proclaimed that there’s no such thing as society – communities are nowhere on the agenda.  The dominant culture is one of despair and of fear of a bleak future.  It manifests itself in all the usual ways – family break up, drug and alcohol dependency, crime and the fear of crime, suicide and teenage pregnancy.  Along with the despair comes the blame.  It was not an easy place to live if you were “different” – different because of your disability,  or your sexuality,  your race, your lifestyle or maybe even the length of your hair.

It is against that back-drop that a small group of people get together in a local pub.  Some of them are people with learning difficulties.  They are all people who were sick and tired of being labelled as somebody’s problems.  They want to be part of the solution but they know that there is no cavalry coming over the hill to the rescue and that they will have to do something for themselves.  They decide to set up a community enterprise doing garden clearances and light building work for vulnerable people in the community.  They approach the local social services department and agree a deal where they would take a group of people out of day care settings in return for a modest service level agreement, which funds the purchase of a small van and enables them to employ a team leader.  Arts Factory is born, albeit under the spectacularly uninspiring name “Vales Community Business”.

Now I would like you to fast forward to the present day.   Arts Factory’s mission hasn’t changed at all.  We are still working to build a stronger,  more enterprising and more inclusive community.  Arts Factory’s values haven’t changed.  We still believe in social justice and in sustainable development, and we haven’t seen them yet!  Our values are best expressed in the statement  “No More Throw-Away People!”  which we stole from Edgar Cahn, the inventor of time-banking, and have used ever since – because it says what we are all about better than we ever could.

What has changed is that Arts Factory is now one of Wales’ best known development trusts.  We are well known in our local communities.  Over the years Arts Factory’s work has touched thousands of people’s lives.  We are well known within the development trust movement,  and by both the Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government, both of which have showcased our work in various case studies.  We have won a bunch of awards, locally and nationally.

Today Arts Factory manages a portfolio of social enterprises.  Our Graphic Design business has been a real success over the last ten years.  Our Environmental Design Service grew out of our initial garden clearances and has evolved to become a service that supports local communities to transform their public space.  We have an on-line business, Factory Books, which supplies quality used books to customers from all over the world.  We are partners in a joint venture to develop a  social enterprise making improvements to social housing stock, and are developing a business manufacturing biodiesel from waste vegetable oil.  We rent managed workspace to a number of other organisations, some of it in Trerhondda, a historic building that we have transformed from a derelict shell into a thriving community-hub.  Trerhondda hosts an Open Learning Centre run by our local FE college, and advice surgeries run by a wide range of agencies.  It is home to Arts Factory’s youth work programme, to electronic job points, to health and fitness groups and arts and craft classes, and to “Stay and Play” groups for pre-school children and their parents. 

That all sounds great doesn’t it?  Job done – there’s your inspiration!  It is all true.  I wouldn’t lie to you.  But it is just one side of the coin.  It is half a picture.  I will get to the other half, but first let me return to the journey.

Back to 1991 – Lots of people want their gardens cleared.  Very few have money to pay!  But our team is out in the community, visible, doing hard work that people value.  Doing something that improves the quality of someone else’s life and of their own.  Flying a flag and spreading a positive message.  Not everyone has given up.

The message begins to spread and other people begin to get involved.  Not in their hundreds,  more a steady trickle of misfits.  I was one of them.  Someone told me about the work they were doing and asked me if I’d be prepared to do a few hours volunteering.  I turn up expecting to be filling a skip and I’m handed a shoebox full of receipts and told that I’m the new treasurer!  No one gives me a chance to say no.  Others simply see our team at work,  ask what they’re doing and why, and then they join in!  Volunteers bring along a friend.  There is an immediacy about everything.  People go straight from a street corner to laying a brick.  Out of the pub and into someone’s garden – filling skips in the rain, and loving it.  There is no strategy at all!  Just do it, and do it now.  Do it because it needs doing.  Do it because no one else is going to.  Don’t talk, act.  No excuses.

1992 – We are building momentum as more and more people get involved.  We don’t have an office yet or any sort of base.  People take their tools home at night.  We gatecrash other people’s offices to use their telephones – we don’t have one.   We are still meeting in pubs but now we are packing them out.    There is a buzz on.  Some meetings turn into parties.  More people come!  We have about 30 regular volunteers and a bunch more that we can call on when we need them.  Of course not everyone is happy.  There are plenty of local people who think our work is pointless.  Others call us “the freak show”.  We don’t care, in-fact we like it!  They are old and in the way.  We are doing things a new way.  We let them wait for their cavalry.  If it comes we will eat their horses! 

We take out a lease on some dilapidated greenhouses for a peppercorn rent and try our hand at growing organic vegetables to sell at local markets.  We think the vegetables grow well but apparently our carrots  are the wrong shape!  We are ten years too early with the organic thing!  We eat the vegetables and switch to growing flowers.  They sell better and we begin to get ideas.

By 1994 the ideas have turned into ambitions.   We blag money from the Welsh Office and move into some dilapidated industrial units.  Now we have a base.  Vales Community Business changes it’s name to Arts Factory.  We shed our skin and move into a new era.  We are scrounging stuff from everywhere and manage to win the support of a couple of charitable trusts.   Within a year we have transformed our units.  We turn the grounds into gardens and create offices, a woodcraft workshop, art space and a full-on garden centre!  In 1996 we get some lottery funding and add a pottery.  By now we’ve got some great facilities and we want to show them off and make the most of them so we open up for evening classes.  More people get involved.  We hold a summer festival on our site – live music, good food, arts and crafts, face-painting and the obligatory bouncy castle.  Over 1,000 people come.

Onto 1997.  Somehow we are now employing over 20 people.  Over 100 people volunteer at Arts Factory every week.  A lot of them are young people as we have invested heavily in a youth work programme.  They are labelled “disaffected youth” but we explain that’s fine – we are disaffected adults.  We need space to grow and we want to get Arts Factory onto the high street where we will be more visible.  Our industrial units are a little tucked away.  We set our sites on a derelict chapel, Trerhondda, and start to circulate a proposal to turn it into a multi-use community facility.  We tour the pubs and clubs telling people about our plans and find there is a lot of local support.  The owners are happy to sell it to us for next to nothing as it has become a liability to them.  We try to talk to the council about our plans but don’t get far.  We don’t understand why, but sympathetic council officers explain off the record that the lady mayoress hates the building and wants it pulled down.  Local politicians tell us to back off and stick to working with disabled people, otherwise they will see us shut down.  We don’t like being threatened and we go for it collecting over 4,000 signatures on a petition supporting our proposal and forcing a public enquiry.  At the enquiry the council parade a succession of expert  witnesses with a succession of reasons why the building should be torn down.   Their barrister leans on a big pile of leather bound legal books when he talks.  We don’t have a barrister, any legal books or expert witnesses because we don’t have any money.  We have a flipchart and a chief executive prepared to stand-up and speak with real passion about our plans for the building.  We win and Trerhondda is ours, but we have made some real enemies. 

Something else happens in 1997.  A Labour government wins the general election.   Some people get ready to greet the cavalry.  They never come.  More significantly for us, it is the year that we launch our graphic design service, which will become one of Arts Factory’s most successful social enterprises.   It is also the year that we conduct the first social audit that has been done by any organisation in Wales.

Over the next couple of years we redevelop Trerhondda phase by phase, as we are able to raise the money.  As soon as the building is made safe and we have got a roof on we start holding raves in it.  Young people come and they are the type of young people we could not have reached through more traditional youth work.  They help us to refurbish the ground floor, and then finally the first floor.  By 1999 the building is being used by over 500 people every week.

By then we have contracted with the government’s “New Deal” programme, providing work experience to “job seekers”.  Except for a whole load of reasons many are not actually seeking jobs.  For the first time we have people at Arts Factory who don’t really want to be there and it has a massive cultural impact.   We gradually disengage from the programme.  Some of the job seekers who have got the point stay on at Arts Factory as volunteers.   Some are still with us today.  They still don’t have what society calls  “jobs” and they have no interest in getting them,  but they have done more useful work over the last ten years than they would ever have done in a lifetime on some production line.  I am very proud to work alongside them. 

1999 – devolution.  Still no cavalry.  Instead we get a new beaurocracy.

By 2000 we have reached our tenth anniversary.   Sustainability has become a big issue.  We understand the depth of the problems in our communities and we know that if we are going to make a real difference we need to be around for the long term.  But financially we are very fragile.  We have no reserves and while we are earning some money and pulling in some grants it is all very hand to mouth.  Cash flow is a nightmare.  Our pottery has never generated the sales we’d hoped for and reluctantly we close it.  Our garden centre is next to go.  It has never made us any money, struggling to break even at best and we have a lot of cash tied-up in stock which we need to free-up.  We reign-in our youth work programme.  This is our first experience of downsizing at Arts Factory and it is incredibly painful but we learn a lot.

We are looking for the big one, something that will secure Arts Factory’s long term future.  We initiate a joint venture with a private sector partner to develop a wind-farm in the Rhondda.  If we can pull it off it will provide us with a core income stream for the next twenty years.  We work hard to make the deal and to win European Objective One investment for the project.  We campaign locally and win a lot of support.  Community based organisations from all over the UK send letters supporting us but local politicians are vigorously opposed to the project.  They are the same people that opposed our redevelopment of Trerhondda.  Progress through the planning system is painfully slow.  Eventually the local authority hear our application and they turn it down, against the advice of their own officers.  We go to appeal and prepare for another public inquiry.  We win this one too and at last we have planning consent for a wind-farm.  It has taken five years!  But all is not well.  Our partners have sold their share in the project to another company.  They are less interested in the idea  of a joint venture with a development trust and they  try to squeeze us out of the project.  We resist and we are still in there but time is ticking on.  Eventually they decide that they don’t want to pursue it at all, leaving is to find another partner, but by now our option to develop the land has lapsed and we fail to raise the funds to renew it.  Another developer steps in and secures the site.  They are not interested in a partnership.  Game over.  Years of hard work up in smoke.  More pain, more learning. 

By now we are deep into Europe, drawing down ESF to fund an informal learning programme that reaches literally thousands of local people.   But in 2004 a bid unexpectedly fails and we are forced to downsize again, laying off valued team members that we have spent years developing.  Six months later a similar bid is successful and we are recruiting again.  We are locked into systemic funding insanity.   In 2007 the Objective One programme comes to an end.  The Welsh Assembly Government  has failed miserably to dovetail the forthcoming Convergence programme.  We can’t bridge the gap.  More downsizing, more pain.  We learn not to depend on Europe.

We create two new joint venture companies with fellow development trusts as partners.  One to develop a construction-based social enterprise making improvements to social housing stock, and one to develop a social enterprise manufacturing biodiesel from waste vegetable oil. 

In 2008 we launch Factory Books, our on-line bookstore and within 12 months we have 20,000 books listed and we’re breaking even.  Just a month ago we launched a business providing IT solutions.  DTA Wales were our first customer.

So that brings us up to the present and by now I think you will have glimpsed the other side of the coin.  It has been a hard journey to get to where we are today.  And where are we?  In many ways Arts Factory is back where it all started.  Some good people, with some good ideas, and the commitment, energy and enthusiasm to make things happen.  Our culture is robust but financially we are still incredibly fragile.  We have no financial reserves, we have loans and a massive overdraft.  We are still surviving hand to mouth,  juggling that cash flow.  But we didn’t stand still to get here, we have done the miles, we’ve walked the talk and learned our lessons.   A lot of people’s lives have changed for the better because of their involvement with Arts Factory, and I know that because they tell me.  Our work has inspired other people to stand-up and do what’s necessary in their own communities, and I know that because they tell me.   And when all is said and done that is what Arts Factory is all about – changing people’s lives for the better.  The buildings and the businesses are just the tools we use to do it. 

What about the future?  It is uncertain, unwritten, like it always was.  These days we do have a clear strategy.  We are completely focussed on developing our enterprise portfolio to the point where it funds all of our operating costs, and we won’t be distracted from that.  The work we want to do is far too important to be left to the vagaries of government programmes and the grace and favour of grant funders.  We will continue to tap into these opportunities when we can, but only to fund work that directly contributes to our long term sustainability.  Over the last few years we have significantly increased the proportion of our  income that’s earned through trading.  We know that it will be very hard to maintain that trend in the face of the current recession.  These are challenging times, but we have never ducked a challenge. 

In closing I would like to say two things.  The first is to directed to those of you who are here representing government  departments.  Take a risk.  When you see positive people, with good ideas, who are prepared to step-up and work to transform their communities, get behind them.  Give them the resources they need to get things moving.  They are taking a risk.  They are daring to hope, daring to act, and they’re risking failure and all of the humiliation and hurt that comes with that.  That takes real courage and they need you to be courageous too and share some of that risk with them.   Some will fail, but many will succeed.  If we don’t learn to take that risk together nothing will change.

The second is directed to the members of DTA Scotland, and particularly those that might be thinking of joining.  We didn’t make this journey on our own.  We would never have made it.  For our first five years we were working in isolation.  We didn’t know anyone else who shared our agenda,  who believed that the solutions to the problems our communities faced lay within those communities themselves.  Sure,  we knew of various voluntary associations and all sorts of charities but none that had the ethos of building community at their heart.  There was no internet to search then and no community sector. Then in 1995 I went to a conference run by something called the Development Trusts Association – it was the first I’d heard of them but the programme looked interesting and I thought I’d check it out.  I came back to Wales and said to my chief executive “I have found them!”  He asked “Who?” and I said “the others.”    When he met them he knew exactly what I meant and we have been active members of the DTA ever since.  We had found a group of people who shared our values and our ethos.  They had ideas, knowledge, contacts, skills and experience that they were happy to share.   When we ran into problems we had people we could ring for advice.  When we could help them we were happy to.  Arts Factory was instrumental in setting up DTA Wales and we have worked hard to build our membership there.  I can’t over-emphasise the value we have had from being part of this movement for change.  We have found that it’s like many things – the more you put in the more you get out.  So if you are here because the programme looked interesting and now you are wondering whether it’s worth joining – just do it.  You won’t regret it.  If you are already a committed member of DTA Scotland then you already know what I am talking about.  We have our Welsh conference on July 8th and 9th and it would be good to welcome some of you there.  E-mail me if you want the details.

One final thing and it is a shameless plug.  If you want to show your support for Arts Factory you can.  You can buy our graphic design services.  Distance isn’t a problem.  We can video conference and work with you on-line.  E-mail me about that too!

Thanks for listening