Twelve young people from Wester Hailes will have their first major dance film performance seen along side Hollywood greats Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as part of the DANCE:FILM 09 Festival.
 
The dance group, from Wester Hailes Education Centre, had only 3 short weeks with choreographers Allan Irvine, of Dance Base, and Pete Maniam in the lead up to the final filming event. Filming took place on a Saturday evening in Dance Base with a crew of young filmmakers from Pilton Video and specialist dance filmmakers, Cagoule Productions.
 
The group attended classes at Wester Hailes Education Centre and Dance Base led by Allan Irvine from the Dance Base Outreach team to work together to make this performance ready for screening.
 
The young people worked with Pilton Video and Dance Base to complete Pictures on Wax as part of the Cashback for Communities: Creative Identities initiative. Creative Identities is an 18-month programme of arts and moving image activities for young people funded by the Scottish Government using £1.2m from the proceeds of crime, managed in partnership with Scottish Screen and the Scottish Arts Council.
 
Minister for Culture Michael Russell said:

“It’s great to see such success growing from our Creative Identities initiative which allows young people to explore the arts and become involved in creativity.  Widening access to culture and encouraging participation has a beneficial impact on our communities and this is a fine example of taking proceeds of crime and turning them into something positive.  I am particularly excited to see this fusion of dance and film through Pictures in Wax, it will be a worthy addition to the Dance:Film 2009 Festival.”
 
Allan Irvine Youth Dance Worker said:
 
“I felt lucky to have this group of dancers for the project: they worked hard, were very open minded and were always willing to try new and different things. This attitude made the whole thing more successful. They were a lovely group and it was fantastic working with them”
 
Joel Venet, co-coordinator at Pilton Video explained the energy and commitment of both groups of young people from Wester Hailes Education Centre and Pilton Video:
 
“The kids worked really hard over three weeks doing the dance work with Dance Base; and then in five and a half hours, getting the film made and it really proved how inspired they all were to be involved in the creative process.
 
Janet Dick, Outreach Co-ordinator at Dance Base said
 
“The classes were scheduled as part of the school day with additional rehearsals at Dance Base on a public holiday and weekend – asking young people to give up their out of school time shows a very high degree of commitment!   The end result is a very fine dance film which invited friends and family will be delighted and proud to see.”
 
Pictures on Wax will be screened as part of the Dance for Camera shorts programme at DANCE:FILM 09
 

Dance Base Outreach Programme and WHEC, in association with Pilton Video, presents
 
Dancers
 
Nicky Brunton
Alesha Carrer
Kelly Duke
Alice Gainford
Darryn Hbbangana
Jordan Hickey
Stacy MacKenzie
Kelly Moss
Nicolle Moran
Suzanne Norman
A.J. Stewart
Katelyn Walker

Dance Base Outreach Team
Janet Dick
Sandra George
Allan Irvine
Pete Maniam
Dawn-Claire Robertson

Pilton Video
Heather Bowry
Sean Begg
Andrew McDonald
Lucy McNally
Joel Venet
Sean Young

Music
Barney Strachan
 
DANCE:FILM
Steph Wright
 
Camera and Editing and Direction
Cagoule Productions (Abby Warrilow and Lewis Gourlay)

Special Thanks to Wester Hailes Education Centre ( W.H.E.C.) and especially Mairi Allison P.E. Dept.
 
DANCE:FILM 09 is a collaboration between Dance Base and Filmhouse and is supported by Scottish Screen

Argyll and Bute Council and the Community Planning Partnership are urging Third Sector organisations to have their say about the services and support they receive from a range of bodies.

The dialogue – ‘Connecting and Communicating’ – aims to Build Confidence, Capacity and Competence in the Third Sector and is open to voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, as well as individuals who have experience of working in the sector.

Councillor Dick Walsh, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council and Third Sector Champion says: “We are working together, in partnership, to improve access to information and to break down some of the barriers that voluntary organisations and community groups are faced with when trying to access support.

“We aim to highlight good practice to lead the way forward to an improved way of operating, which we hope will go a long way to strengthening the voluntary and community sector.”

CouncillorWalsh is also the Chair of the Demonstration Project, Harnessing the Potential of the Third Sector, which is focusing on four themes:

•Funding
• Assets
• Procurement
• Skills and Training for Social Enterprise

A series of events will take place between May and July to ensure that the proposed improvement measures are going to be of benefit to the sector.

Representatives of the sector will have the opportunity to share their views on changes to the Community Planning Partnership structure and the Community Engagement Strategy, as well as the Demonstration project and improved ways of accessing information and training.

The feedback will enable those from the Third Sector to influence the way the Council and its partners deliver support services at a local and an Argyll-wide level.

The dialogue between the Council, the CPP and the Third Sector will incorporate a range of workshop sessions and online information, and consultation materials will be accessible throughout the period.

If you would like more information on ‘Connecting and Communicating’, or for a diary of events, visit www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/thirdsector or call 01546 604437.

The consultation is being carried out by Argyll and Bute Council and hosted on the websites of Argyll and Bute Council, Argyll and Bute Social Enterprise Network and Argyll CVS

A year ago the Community Planning Partnership, together with partners from the Big Lottery Fund, launched a Demonstration Project aimed at identifying ways to strengthen work with the Third Sector. The following themes were seen to be the key areas for development:

1) Funding – ensuring that funding streams are appropriate and considering issues such as the impact of local community action plans, the removal of ring-fencing, etc

2) Assets – improving community sustainability through the Third Sector’s ability to acquire assets;

3) Procurement – removing barriers and identifying training to enable Third Sector bodies to successfully bid for contracts; and

4) Social Enterprises – putting procedures in place to ensure existing and new social enterprises have access to training and information to allow them to develop and grow

Author: The Herald

SCOTLAND is missing out on the potential benefits of an approach proven to strengthen communities and improve the impact of regeneration work, a conference will hear this week.

The Social Capital and Community Resilience conference, being held at New Lanark on Thursday, has attracted a host of international experts in the field, but Scottish policy-makers have yet to take advantage of the concept, according to organisers Assist Social Capital.

Colin Campbell, executive director of Assist, said: “It is disappointing that when social capital is seen around the world as such an important currency, the Government’s enterprising third sector plan doesn’t mention it once, and it isn’t mentioned in the community empowerment plan either.”

Social capital is the value placed on community networks and links in building stronger communities and helping individuals within them overcome challenges and setbacks.

Social theorists describe it as the social glue which helps communities cope with shocks such as natural disasters, loss of livelihoods, environmental degradation and economic hardship.

The conference’s keynote speaker, Dr Manfred Hellrigl, programme director at the Office for Future Related Issues in Austria, will discuss citizen involvement and sustainable development in communities. Other sessions will focus on how social capital can help government agencies and non-governmental and third sector organisations build sustainable communities.

Cambell said the theory was backed by a wealth of international academic research but was not so widely adopted in practice.

“We are holding this event in New Lanark, where Robert Owen pioneered free education and the co-operative movement in the nineteenth century. Despite the new millennium, I don’t think we are that much further forward.

“Where there are low levels of social capital there are direct consequences such as higher rates of crime, illness, poor health and environmental degradation.

“We are swimming in a sea of social capital all the time, but we don’t know it until we lose it.

“Social capital hit a post-war high, in terms of the sense of community, but since then it has been eroded by modern life. The pace of modern living doesn’t allow people to build those relationships. People are building relationships online but it is not the same.”

One organisation taking part in the event is Here We Are, a community network based around the parish of Cairndow in Argyll.

Founder Christina Noble set it up in 1998 after running a walking company in the Himalayas.

She had seen how local men were amazed at the interest shown by travellers in their daily lives, and the boost in confidence it gave them.

She thought there was space for a visitor centre in Scotland which would allow visitors to explore and understand the way of life of people in the West Highlands, instead of traditional stories of ghosts, castles and battles.

The Here We Are centre, which opened in 2001, operates seven days and has developed to include meeting facilities, a service point for Argyll and Bute Council and a learning centre for the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Noble, who will speak at the conference, said the plan is for the centre to become self-sustaining. “The parish includes Ardkinglas House, the first in the area to have electricity. Now we have a biomass plant for woodchips which we supply to a salmon hatchery.”

The community is also developing a micro hydropower scheme, and it’s approach is being copied in Iceland.

Thornlie Primary School in Pather, Wishaw, will also take part in the conference.

Pupils will sing at the conference and talk about a scheme which has linked them up with a school and orphanage in the country of Georgia.

Campbell said the conference would highlight the role of social capital as the missing link which makes other forms of wealth work – human, physical and financial.

Economist and social scientist Professor Herbert Simon has argued that 90% of global economic income is derived from forms of social capital, he added.

“At a time when we hear about overpopulation, inequality, environmental disasters and economic crisis, social capital is what people rely on when little else is being created,” he said.

Speech at DTA National Policy Symposium
Naomi Alexander

Hello Everyone. My name is Naomi Alexander and I’m here to talk to you about the CREATE Consortium’s campaign to establish the Community Allowance as part of the UK benefits system.

Our work focuses on the intersection between the benefits system and community regeneration.

The story of the Community Allowance started back in 2001 at the first meeting of the National Community Forum, when all 24 community activists from across the country unanimously agreed that the benefits trap was one of the biggest barriers to achieving neighbourhood renewal.

The benefits trap is an unintended result of the benefits system as it is currently structured. The cost to the nation goes far beyond the impact on individual benefits claimants and their families. Whole communities are caught in this trap and so too are our attempts at neighbourhood and civil renewal.

We spend £92 billion a year on benefits payments.

Not in administration, not in employment support, but the actual weekly payments.

This £92 billion is the national bill for the most elaborate and complex poverty trap imaginable. It provides few stepping stones to avoid or escape the trap.

At the heart of the trap is the ‘earnings disregard’, which is the amount you are allowed to keep on top of benefits if you do part time work – literally, the earnings disregarded by the benefits system.

Shockingly, for people on Job Seekers Allowance, the ‘earnings disregard’ still remains at the same level it was in 1988: £5 a week – less than an hours work on today’s minimum wage.

I’m sure I’m not the only one in this room to see a cruel injustice in a country that has allowed MPs to freely dip into the public purse to fund lavish lifestyles, spending £600 on pot plants. While someone receiving Job Seekers Allowance of £60.48 a week will have penny for penny taken back by the state for anything they earn over £5.

Not only that, but people who declare paid work that is less than 16 hours a week can have their payments thrown into chaos for months, often leaving them with nothing to live on and facing threats of eviction.

Where is the incentive to get try and back into work? And what does this system say about the way we view benefits claimants?

I’d like to show you a short film we made last year about how these issues are played out on one estate in Milton Keynes.

Through the Community Allowance campaign we have been asking whether there is a way of seeing the benefits spend differently. Is it possible to see benefits as an investment in some of our most deprived communities, rather than as a drain on tax-payer’s money? Could we see it as a hand up and not a hand out?

The Community Allowance is a proposal to enable community organisations to pay local unemployed people to do part time or sessional work that strengthens their local community and for those people to be able to keep their benefits and keep what they earn on top of their benefits, up to a maximum of £86 a week, which is the equivalent of 15 hours a week on the minimum wage.

If implemented, the Community Allowance would provide small, manageable and supported stepping-stones for people to begin the journey off benefits and into work.

At the heart of the Community Allowance is part time and sessional work of the kind Lisa wanted to get going on her estate. As we all know, such work plays a major role in the community sector, with so many potential jobs that can help deliver positive change. Many of these jobs come in at under 16 hours a week, which if you’re on benefits, is the magical but somewhat random ‘safe’ number of hours you can work and have your benefits protected as tax credits kick in at this point.

What could be achieved if on every estate there were jobs for 2 hours running a lunch club for older people, 4 hours doing detached youth work, 3 hours doing community health work or 2 hours running arts or sports classes. We’ve all seen how this work can really change people’s lives!

However, policy makers attach a low value to this kind of community activity. It certainly seems that the DWP don’t always view it as ‘real work’ as it doesn’t fit their model of a 16 – 40 hour working week. Yet this kind of work can have a transformative affect both on the confidence and skills of the individual doing it and the community benefiting from the activity.

Since we started the campaign we have achieved a great deal through the work of all our supporters.

Over 3000 people have visited the Community Allowance website and we have attracted over 100 organisations to back our call for a Community Allowance pilot, most of who have written directly to James Purnell and Hazel Blears calling for a pilot programme.

Last summer, our intensive lobbying was rewarded with a commitment to pilot the Community Allowance in the Community Empowerment White Paper produced by DCLG – they have been fantastic advocates for the Community Allowance across Government.

In the autumn, the Department for Work and Pensions included a commitment to pilot the Community Allowance in the Welfare Reform White Paper for people on Employment and Support Allowance. This is a significant step forward in being able to realize our goal, but we still have a long way to go.

We are trying to achieve our ultimate goal of the Community Allowance for anyone on any benefit. Earlier this year we submitted a proposal to DWP’s innovative Right to Bid scheme, for £2.2 million to run a pilot programme with 15 community anchor organisations across the UK.

We’ve got through to the last stage of assessment and civil servants from across DWP are meeting next week to make a decision. We know that the Directors across DWP have been discussing the Community Allowance.

While its good to know we’re having an impact on DWP thinking, it’s important to keep in mind the wider context of the recession and the impact this is having on the lives of millions of people across the UK.

Yesterday I spoke to a manager of a Citizens Advice Bureau in Cornwall. He told me that since last year he has seen a 103% increase in enquiries related to mortgage repayments and repossessions and a 336% increase in enquiries concerning redundancy. Earlier this year Save the Children took the unprecedented step of giving cash handouts to families in the UK, something it usually reserves for disaster affected communities in developing countries. These are sure signs of a society under stress. The Community Allowance is needed now more than ever.

Despite this, both Labour and the Tories are still talking about bringing in ‘work for your benefits’ schemes.  Mandatory, full-time, unpaid community work for those who have been on JSA for more than two years. In the interests of state choice and procurement rules, this could be delivered by public, private or voluntary sector, ‘depending on who does it best’. I’m sure this audience would agree that using community work as a punishment for being out of work during a recession is a disastrous mistake. We need to make absolutely clear that we as a sector will not endorse it.

Community work can be a carrot not a stick. 15% of the population, or 8 million people, live in ‘deprived areas’, and changing those areas is not just about squeezing people into a job at Tesco. The costs of ongoing deprivation to society and the state go way beyond the welfare cheque – eating into our taxes across health, drugs, crime, prisons, housing, social work, policing, and the enormous burden to the future caused by poor educational outcomes.

The community sector has been saying for a long time that we need to show government just how much is saved by sustained, deep-rooted community work.

How much better would it be, how much more would we save, if the people doing the community work were those most at risk of the benefits trap?

This week we are pleased to announce that one of the UK’s leading think tanks, the the New Economics Foundation, will be conducting a Social Return on Investment study on the Community Allowance, thanks to the support of our funder, The Hadley Trust.

We’re going to incorporate the NEF findings with think pieces from leading lights on the left and right of the policy spectrum, including Julia Unwin who spoke earlier and Phillip Blond, senior advisor to the Conservatives. We will be taking this evidence to the three main political party conferences in the Autumn, challenging politicians to see how the Community Allowance can ‘lift’ a whole community, increase confidence and pride, bring out the best in people and stimulate local economic activity.

To sum up:

We believe we need to change our approach to worklessness in order to achieve neighbourhood renewal, community empowerment and social justice

We need to integrate welfare with regeneration, creating jobs for people who live in the area being regenerated.

We need to fight the old ideologies, not by saying ‘it’s not fair!’ but by creating a positive vision of how different things could be

We need to challenge Britain, the 4th richest country in the world to live up to its ideals and to use the Community Allowance to see the potential of benefits spend as an investment in our most deprived communities.

If you agree, we would love to involve you more in the work of the CREATE Consortium, especially during our work this conference season. Please get in touch and together lets work to make the Community Allowance a reality.

Thank you for listening.

Transforming Communities for Good

A manifesto from the Development Trusts Association

Summary

The community enterprise movement, and our 450 development trusts in particular, are a great success story.

In the face of global uncertainties and the economic downturn, we offer a community-led solution, increasing confidence and pride, bringing out the best in people, improving relationships between different groups, stimulating local economic activity, and improving stewardship of scarce resources.

We make five pledges:

to help every community set up an effective development trust
to promote community ownership of land and buildings
to grow a culture of community enterprise
to build alliances with partners in all sectors
to demonstrate community impact
We call on government:

to shift regeneration spend towards community investment
to provide access to assets for community groups
to ensure community vehicles are established in all new town developments
to introduce fair contracts
to make the business support system relevant for community enterprise
to introduce a Community Allowance
These actions will take us towards our goal: that all communities will become places where people feel common ownership and pride, places which allow everyone to achieve their potential, and places which are socially, economically and environmentally prosperous.

1. Transforming communities for good
Development trusts are community organisations using self-help, social enterprise, and asset ownership, to transform their community for good. There are 450 development trusts, operating in both urban and rural areas right across the UK. This is a great success story – one which gives us real hope there is a better way of doing things.

The vision of the Development Trusts Association is that all communities will become places where people feel common ownership and places which allow everyone to achieve their potential, and places are socially, economically and environmentally prosperous.

2. A community-led response to the big challenges we face
Local communities face uncertainty and challenge. The economic downturn, technological change, widening social divisions and the poverty gap, demographic change, the affordable housing crisis, the threat of climate change – all of these will have far reaching impacts in every part of the country. If we fail to respond effectively, our communities will become fragmented and demoralised, with negative consequences for all of us.

Should we leave it to others to find all the solutions? No! All the efforts of government and others will ultimately be in vain if communities, at a local level, are not themselves the driver for change. We believe that development trusts, with a people-led problem-solving culture, are the most effective vehicle for a community-led response.

Our experience has been that, even in the most difficult circumstances, people can achieve surprising and extraordinary results. This is especially true where community organisations develop a culture of community-led enterprise, developing into businesses which can trade successfully, generating surpluses to be reinvested for community purpose, and at the same time improving lives.

We have also learned that community asset ownership is a foundation for community transformation and empowerment. Bringing underused and even derelict land and buildings into community ownership can overcome blight, deliver facilities that people want, generate community income, and increase the spirit of community self-help.

At its best, this way of doing things ‘lifts’ a whole community, increasing confidence and pride, bringing out the best in people, improving relationships between different groups, stimulating local economic activity, improving stewardship of scarce resources. In every sense, development trusts create wealth in communities, and keep it there.

3. Our pledges
In order to grow the community enterprise movement the Development Trusts Association will:

Help every community establish an effective development trust
But not at the expense of quality! We will help every development trust achieve recognised organisational performance standards, and make it easier for development trusts to learn from each other, unlocking skills and expertise, enhancing leadership, and building on success right across the country.

Promote community ownership of land and buildings
We will help development trusts develop local assets and bring land and buildings into viable community ownership, delivering services and facilities. We will help development trusts establish community land trusts and similar vehicles to safeguard community benefit and increase the supply of affordable housing.

Grow a culture of community enterprise
We will provide business diagnostic and support, to help development trusts operate as profitable and thriving social enterprises.

Build alliances with partners in all sectors
We will help development trusts improve understanding of community enterprise among third sector partners, local councils, housing associations, and businesses, and build alliances with them.

Demonstrate community impact
We will help development trusts find the best ways to tackle entrenched poverty and combat social injustice. We will help them deliver environmental benefits, through renewable energy and other schemes. We will help development trusts improve engagement with, and accountability to, the diversity of people and groupings that exist in every community. We will help development trusts understand and demonstrate the impacts they make.

4. What we want government to do
National and local government deserves praise for much progress in recent years. The policy recognition, across all political parties, for the value of social enterprise and community asset ownership is very welcome. There has been a genuine effort to achieve better targeted funding and improvement to the legal and regulatory framework within which we operate.

But we are still at the beginning of a journey, and if we are to realise the potential of the community enterprise movement we need government to act on the following:

Shift regeneration spend towards community investment:
National government should shift resources to increase the availability of investment for community enterprise and asset development. Our experience has been that investment readiness assistance, development finance, rapid and flexible finance for capital development (grants, patient loans, and equity), and post investment business support to ensure sustainable enterprise, are all in short supply. £250m in the next three year spending round will lever in additional resources (public grants, private investment, community shares) and deliver the capital foundation and organisational capability for the next 500 development trusts.

Provide access to assets:
A mechanism, drawing on lessons from the community right to buy legislation which exists in Scotland for rural areas, should be introduced to create a window for community groups to acquire key community assets (land and buildings) from both the public and private sectors.

Ensure community vehicles are established in all new towns:
New town developments, and large scale redevelopments, should always include provision for asset transfer to an independent community vehicle such as a development trust, with expert assistance and start up costs – creating the foundation for community land trusts and other community asset development initiatives.

Introduce fair contracts:
The way that public sector contracts are negotiated continues to create profound vulnerability for the community sector and misses a major opportunity for the public sector to multiply the local effect of their spending. Many public bodies award third sector contracts on the basis of cost, and this leads to a situation where full costs are not covered – indeed 40% of our members end up subsiding public service delivery. The way forward is that public bodies should award contracts on the basis of price, quality, and community benefit (the use of social clauses should be extended across public sector procurement). This would mean that public bodies would achieve greater local benefit for their spend, and effective community groups would be able to generate surpluses to increase their sustainability, independence, and community impact.

Make business support relevant for community enterprise:
The know-how that exists within front-line community enterprises is a vital resource for stimulating the next generation of viable community enterprises. Government should ensure that the business support system invests in specialist community enterprise business support and in particular expands resources for peer-to-peer learning.

Introduce a community allowance:
We do not believe that compulsory community ‘workfare’ would ever be effective, yet clearly the benefits system needs reform. Community work should be an incentive not a punishment, part of the carrot not one of the sticks. At present the system undermines opportunities for local sessional and short-term paid community work as a step towards more permanent employment and a contribution to strengthening local neighbourhoods. Government should introduce a community allowance to provide the flexibility to encourage this to happen.

About development trusts
Development trusts use self-help, trading for social purpose, and ownership of buildings and land, to bring about long-term social, economic and environmental benefits in their community.

They operate in both urban and rural areas, often in neighbourhoods which have experienced the worst economic decline. They are independent, but work with the public sector, private businesses, and with other community groups.

They are community ‘anchor’ organisations, delivering services and facilities, finding solutions to local problems, and helping other organisations and initiatives succeed. They create wealth in communities – and keep it there.

There are now 450 development trusts in DTA membership, in both urban and rural areas. While many are still small, others are operating at scale: the combined turnover is £260m including £105m earned income, and development trusts have £490m of assets in community ownership.

A row has broken out between the farming lobby and voluntary sector leaders over the way Holyrood distributes rural development funding.

In March, the Scottish Government launched a review of the Scotland Rural Development Programme (SRDP) in order to determine how the fund could be best used to ease the impact of the recession on Scotland’s rural economy.

The fund, which is worth £1.6 billion between 2007 and 2013, is designed to target economic, environmental and social benefits.

Around £500 million is earmarked for bids from a wide array of organisations for projects aimed at boosting rural businesses and communities under the Rural Priorities scheme. Since the scheme was launched last year, more than 1,800 projects worth £125 million have been approved. These include improvements to community facilities such as town halls, community renewable energy projects, conservation projects and business support such as enterprise advice.

But now the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS) has called for the remaining Rural Priorities cash to be rolled into an SRDP pot earmarked for farming grants, in order to help farmers stave off the worst impact of the recession.

NFUS president Jim McLaren said the SRDP funding should be focused on those who are “actively farming the land” as that would be the best way to “serve rural Scotland and provide a much needed economic boost”.

But Norman Macaskill, head of rural policy at umbrella body the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, said he would be “very concerned” about any shift of community-based funding to agricultural support, as it would be contrary to the aims and objective of the SRDP.

“The fund was set up to provide a holistic and wide-ranging approach to rural development, and we agree with that principle,” he said. “We will defend the pot of money for communities.”

The Scottish Government has appointed Peter Cook, an agricultural economist, to head up the review, which is due to report this month.

A Scottish Government spokesman would not be drawn into the row. He said ministers recognised the importance of both direct funding grants for farmers and the cash earmarked for rural priorities. “Both are vital funding pots for rural Scotland,” he said.

The largest-ever government-sponsored survey of third sector organisations has produced an average national score for how effectively local statutory bodies help them achieve their aims, of just 16 per cent.

The low scoring has prompted charities minister Kevin Brennan to urge local authorities, primary care trusts and other local government bodies, to redouble their efforts to improve their performance under the National Indicator 7 – ‘An environment for a thriving third sector’.

Brennan said: “Now that the survey has provided a baseline score – we will judge local statutory bodies on their progress at developing their relationship with local third sector organisations.”

However, he stopped short of criticising the statutory organisations, and expressed confidence that their performance would improve.

“Overall, I’m confident that there will be progress, we’ve already had really positive feedback from the survey and I’m pleased to note that local statutory body chief executives are very keen to develop their relationships with the third sector.”

The results differed vastly according to whether the respondent third sector organisations had current contact with local statutory bodies. Where they did, they give an NI 7 score of 75 per cent. Where they had little or no contact, the score dropped to 3 per cent.

The survey was mailed to more than 104,000 charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises, and 48,949 – 47 per cent – completed it.

The full results will be published today on the survey website.

LPL is conducting its own survey into how supportive the public sector is of the community sector .  http://www.ekosonlineresearch.co.uk/lpl.htm

Scottish Government has either commissioned or is about to commission a number of pieces of related research:

SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT CURRENT PROGRAMME FOR THIRD SECTOR RESEARCH

 The programme covers three themes that will support the Scottish Government’s five Strategic Objectives, as follows:

1. Alignment of research evidence to government strategy

2. The localism agenda

3. Sustainable growth of the third sector

1. The Alignment of the Evidence in Relation to Scottish Government Strategy

The main priority for Scottish Government analysts is to establish a thorough understanding of the evidence base and understand what the third sector can currently contribute to the government’s purpose (especially cohesion and solidarity) and five strategic objectives.

Project A. Commissioned.

The contribution of the third sector to the Government’s purpose and five strategic objectives

This work will review the current evidence on the third sector in Scotland to evaluate its contribution to the Government’s purpose and five strategic objectives (wealthier and fairer; smarter; greener; healthier and safer). It will identify what evidence we have on the Scottish third sector, and highlight the areas where the sector makes the largest contribution to the Government’s objectives. It will also draw on international evidence to highlight potential areas for the third sector to make an impact, thereby providing an indication of the gaps in evidence and the gaps in the sector for understanding how the strategic objectives can best be met with support from the third sector.

2. Localism

A key theme of the Government’s purpose is localism, in particular empowering communities and citizens to work together towards building sustainable economic growth with opportunities for all to flourish. The two projects here are specifically related to the new local landscape in which Third Sector organisations are operating.

Project B. To be commissioned.

The opportunities and challenges of the changing public services landscape for the third sector in Scotland: a longitudinal study

The purpose of this work is to assess and track over the next six years the opportunities and challenges that Third Sector organizations are facing with a changing public services landscape in Scotland between 2009 and 2014. The Concordat was signed in November 2007 and has begun an ongoing process of change that aims to deliver public services more effectively and efficiently by taking decisions closer to the public for whom they are designed. Other policies, such as the Crerar Review and Best Value 2 are likely to contribute to changes in the public sector landscape. This work will investigate how these and other local issues impact upon third sector organisations and the work they do, assessing the perceived as well as actual impacts. The outcomes will provide evidence on the impact of the changing local  landscape in relation to the third sector, identifying areas of good practice that can be shared with other third sector organisations, and also areas where greater support needs to be directed. Longer term, his work will also be an additional means for identifying the success level of recommendations resulting from Project C, below, on the role of the third sector within community planning partnerships. The intention is for this to be a longitudinal study with a group of organisations over a period of time.

Project C. To be commissioned.

The role of third sector organisations in Community Planning Partnerships

The Concordat has devolved greater responsibilities to local level and Community Planning Partnerships will play a greater role than in the past in the design and delivery of public services. Comment from thirdsector stakeholders has suggested that third sector organisations do not always have sufficient involvement in CPPs, particularly in this context. This research is intended to establish the current and recommended level and type of third sector involvement in CPPs and make recommendations about effective models for engagement, based on established practice. On the basis of an initial mapping exercise of current processes and involvement, it will provide an analysis of the effectiveness of a range of involvement models, highlighting areas of good practice. It will also identify any barriers (perceived or real) to involvement of third sector organisations in CPPs, on a local and national basis. One of the primary measures of third sector involvement in CPPs will be their influence on single outcome agreements, as CPPs will now be the principle means for bringing this influence to bear. In this context, this work is directly linked with Project B, and ongoing outputs from the two projects are expected to complement each other.

3. Sustainable and Strategic Growth of the Third Sector

A key role has been identified for the third sector in achieving the Scottish Government’s purpose of creating a more successful country with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish through sustainableeconomic growth. In order to realise that potential, the Scottish Government is seeking evidence on which to base strategic decisions about the best places to invest and about how to support most effectively the third sector in developing their businesses.

Project D. To be commissioned.

Evaluating the success factors for establishing a thriving social enterprise

The Scottish Government is committed to developing the number and quality of social enterprises in Scotland, and particularly those that provide services to the BME community. This research will help us to understand the factors that contribute to a successful social enterprise and how these can influence investment decisions, and any specific qualities and characteristics of Social enterprises run for and by the BME community. It will first draw on evidence from SMEs to understand the success factors of standard enterprises. It will go on to classify what constitutes a successful social enterprise by focussing in-depth on a number of organisations from different sectors of both successful and less successful social enterprises, including those providing services to the BME community. The study will also explore the extent to which access to support is a success factor and highlight any shortcomings in the current provision. The case studies will establish whether it is feasible to draw up any success factors and, if so, compare these with the documented success factors of SMEs to identify distinctive aspects of social enterprise success. The research will then be used to establish the viability of undertaking a follow up study to test the success factors at a larger scale.

Author: Andy Wightman

Land Matters – A blog by Andy Wightman. Land Reform campaigner

Cmmunity Right To Buy . May 13th 2009

Well, I’ve just watched the proceedings of the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee and there was quite a bit of discussion about the proposed new Regulations. Thanks to Peter Peacock and Liam McArthur in particular for probing Officials on this question though it was disppointing that the Minister left before the topic came up (though I know that it was not on the agenda for her to have been present).

The first thing to say is that I had not appreciated that in order to re-register an interest in land, a community would have, in effect, to go through exactly the same process as it did for its initial application. I had absorbed what the then Scottish Executive wrote in their guidance and what is STILL in the latest guidance published on the Scottish Government’s website on 23 April 2009, namely …..

50. We do not expect the renewal process to be burdensome, but it is important to ensure that the initial serious intent to purchase the registered land remains, and you will therefore be required to complete the “Renewal of Registration” application form. As renewal will not be required within 4 years of commencement, a form will be made available in due course. It is expected at this stage that there will be no major changes to your company’s memorandum or articles of association, as these should have been approved by Ministers under section 35(1) of the Act prior to amending. To simplify this process, you should highlight any changes clearly on the renewal form. Ministers will then consider whether your application continues to meet the criteria set out in section 38 and, if content, instruct the Keeper to renew your registered interest for a further 5 years.

This guidance has led people to believe that the re-registration process would be a “light touch” process essentially re-validating the existing registration. Of course, if any details had changed, they would need to be edited. But there was never any inkling in the minds of anyone I have spoken to over the years that they would have to go through the whole process again. The text does not imply generating fresh petitions or consulting landowners all over again and providing them with the right to appeal the application all over again.

It now appears that the Scottish Government believe that this is necessary because of the terms of the Act which says in Section 44(2) that a community body can, at any time within 6 months prior to the expiry of an registration apply under Section 37 to re-register an interest. The first registration that this will affect is CB00015 (Eilean Glas Heritage Trust – see Register of Community Interests) whose existing registration expires on 30 April 2010 and who can thus make an application to re-register their interest from 30 October 2009.

So, silly me, it was clear all along! I should have read the Act more carefully. A re-registration is, in effect, a fresh application with all that that entails.

This means that a community wishing to submit a re-registration has to complete the application form all over again although some of the hard work such as drafting their Memorandum and Articles of Association, will not have to be done again and finding out if there has been any change in the ownership of the land in question will be simpler than finding it out from scratch. The community body will probably not need to prepare a fresh map all over again (though many of the maps associated with existing registrations are defective despite being approved by Scottish Ministers and can thus be rectified).

BUT, the community will need to seek support from 10% of their community through a fresh petition, the landowner will be invited to comment afresh and will be able to mount a legal challenge if they wish. Now that it is clear that even the tiniest administrative error can lead to a successful challenge, the re-registration process allows for such errors in existing applications to be rectified but it may also allows for others to be siezed upon now that one legal firm in particular has created a specialism in derailing community right to buy applications.

All of which changes one thing but not another.

It changes the scope to in any way amend the proposed Regulation to enable the kind of light touch re-registration that had been anticipated. Thus a consultation on these new Regulations may achieve little as the David Brew stated at the Committee today. I have to say though that I think I was the only person in the whole of Scotland to submit comments on the original forms when they were issued for consultation and there was some benefit in this process. I accept that little may be achieved this time round when all that is involved is some redesign.

It does not change the frustration that the process of applying for a registration of interest should be such a complex a bureaucratic process. It now appears that in order for re-registrations to be light touch, we can’t amend the Regulations as tabled before Committee today and that the Act itself will have to be amended – it is a mess. That, in any event, is something that needs to be done for a whole host of policy reasons that have emerged duruing the first 5 years of its operation.

It also begs the question why those involved in this whole process with Government have not been more open with organisatiosn across Scotland with an interest in how land reform develops. We still don’t have a timetable for a review of the Act despite it being promised by a succession of Ministers. We have no forum in which to discuss where the land reform process may go from here, despite it being clear that what has been achieved thus far is simply the start of a process. A whole raft of emergent topics could usefully be discussed including succession law reform, leasehold reform, common land issues and the ongoing focus on offshore tax havens to name but a few.

My last contact with the Land Reform Branch of the Scottish Government (they have a new name now I think) was in May 2005. I have plenty to keep me busy and am not looking for opportunities to have to give more voluntary time to this issue than is strictly necessary but one can’t fail to get the impression that there is no appetite for taking the land reform agenda forward or making existing measures more straightforward. I’ll relate an anecdote about this in a separate post.

Meanwhile, what to do about re-registrations?

Amending an Act is not something undertaken lightly but in this instance I think that a simple amendment NOW could provide time to sort out the situation with re-registrations.

Section  44(1) should be amended to read 10 years instead of 5 years. This would extend ALL existing registrations for a further 5 years. Thus there would be no need at the moment to address the question of how re-registrations are dealt with.

Anyone up for that?

DTAS Asset Transfer Programme

PROGRAMME CONCEPT

Experience in the UK suggests that there are three main barriers to increasing asset transfer:

• Political will
• Officer imagination
• Community capacity

A programme to increase successful asset transfer will need to address all three aspects.  A key ingredient of success will be to change attitudes within local authorities and to some extent within the community sector as well.  The programme outlined below therefore focuses on raising awareness of the benefits of community asset ownership; identifying, disseminating and developing effective practice in asset transfer through targeted studies and demonstration work; and providing key resources for those involved in asset transfers.  The key target groups for the programme are councillors, local authority officials, and community groups.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of the programme is to increase community asset ownership by encouraging and supporting local authorities and community groups to achieve fair and effective transfers of assets to community organisations within a wider strategy of local community asset development.

The objectives of the programme are:

a. To raise awareness amongst councillors, local authority officers and community groups of the benefits and risks of community asset ownership and assets transfers.

b. To identify and disseminate lessons from effective practice in encouraging community ownership and management of assets through assets transfer and wider policies to support community asset ownership.

c. To provide training, toolkits and other practical resources for councillors, local authority officers and community groups on asset transfers.

d. To provide targeted support in selected local authority areas to develop a joint strategy and action plan on assets transfer.

e. To provide targeted development support for selected community groups to enable them to take on transferred assets.

Author: Doug Reeler, Community Development Resource Association

The word sovereignty is well-used by small-farmer organisations and allied practitioners when they speak of food sovereignty or seed sovereignty as a right of autonomous self-reliance, of local ownership, of decision-making from a stance of consciousness and free-choice, not subject to the will and whims of those outside who may seek to control or exploit.

Sovereignty is a particularly powerful concept when applied to organisation, suggesting the same authentic qualities, describing a home-grown resilience, an inside-out identity, the idea of an organisation being the expression of the free will of its own constituents.  It should be clear that rights like food sovereignty can only exist if they are embedded in strong, sovereign organisation.

Sovereignty is both a quality of organisation to be developed and a right to be respected and defended.  If development is about shifting or transforming power there has to be a clear concept of where power can be rightfully and sustainably held – sovereign local organisations and social movements are an obvious location.

But sovereignty is hard to come by. We witness vibrant, if disorganised, community-based organisations, movements and local NGOs, continuing to line up for funding, fitting themselves, their work, structure, language, indeed their life, into the templates of short-term funded projects and tightly contained project-cycles.  Local organisations continue to be the service-providers of donors and government to achieve their externally formulated project goals, with a few participative processes thrown in to give them local flavour.  And all gamely assisted by NGOs and professional consultants, themselves competing for funding and held to account against external measures.

Some of the larger international NGOs working out of a rights-based approach have begun to recognise the importance of supporting local organisations and movements as rights-holders. But despite the speak of “rights” we continue to witness local organisations or “partners” being assessed against templates, checklists and models of a “best practice” organisation developed in the North and having their capacity built accordingly.  We witness lively volunteer-based organisations and emerging grassroots movements being rebuilt into more professional organisations losing their character and representing only those interests of the community that align with funding or NGO guidelines. We witness them developing into better-behaved citizens, possibly alleviating some small vestiges of poverty in the short-term, but angry only when the funding slows, no longer at the injustices they were born out of, becoming a pale shadow of their potential at best and a blockage to authentic development at worst. We sometimes wonder whether the NGOs and donors of the development sector have become latter-day missionaries, undermining indigenous potential and naively and unwittingly softening up the natives for more post-colonial globalisation!

This is development without local sovereignty and it has long accompanied the deepening poverty of the marginalised of this world.  It is also extremely difficult for the development sector to admit this veiled role without exposing its own lack of sovereignty and backbone.

The situation may be dire but it is not hopeless. There are sovereign organisations and movements on all continents bucking this trend, often supported by developmental donors and NGOs, and the sector needs to seek them out and learn from them.  There are many initiatives, programmes and projects that hold great promise if they can adjust or transform themselves towards incorporating a more directly organisational approach or indirectly providing support in this direction. 

If this is true then it requires that development practitioners, including donors, pay more attention to the concept of organisation itself and the practice of facilitating the development of authentic and sovereign local organisation and social movements.  There may be a growing body of professional OD facilitators in the sector, some of whom are developmental, but we believe that it is a discipline that needs to be more widely learnt and become more central to the practice of the sector as a whole, not just a small professional enclave.

What are some of the key aspects of the identity of a sovereign organisation or movement?

… such an organisation strives to know and work with its own purpose.  It works on and out of clear principles and values and has the courage to hold onto these.

… it is an authentic expression of the will and voice of its own constituents. It can provide services but is not the service provider of another organisation’s purpose, and while it may accept funding it is not a surrogate vehicle for the funded projects of outside agencies.

… a sovereign organisation is culturally and structurally unique, not a clone of some external “best practice” template.

… a sovereign organisation is politically conscious, knows its rights and responsibilities and understands the power relationships it is held in.

… a sovereign organisation is able to cooperate and work with co-travellers and peers without losing its sense of self.  Sovereignty does not denote parochial, insular behaviour, though there may be phases of independence, of inward development and of finding own identity, before opening up to collaboration.

… sovereignty is both a quality and a process of continual learning. The ability to learn and adapt will determine its sovereignty in a changing and volatile world and thus its increasing effectiveness. A sovereign organisation learns from many and varied sources, primarily its own hard-earned experience, but also through its diverse horizontal learning relationships with co-travellers and peers.

It is in encouraging and supporting these qualities and processes that we may find the real challenges of developmental practice for NGOs and donors.  What it requires is the time to see what is living in communities that is authentic, that has potential, accompanied by a deep respect for what is local and indigenous and a subtlety of practice to give thoughtful and careful support where it is needed.

Perhaps it requires practitioners and donors who are working on their own sovereignty, beholden to their own purposes and values, derived from the needs and rights of those they seek to support, rather than as the funded, outsourced agents of higher powers.