Author: LPL

EDINBURGH MAY have retained its World Heritage status, following the visit of two Unesco inspectors last week to assess whether the city was still worthy of the title. Their trip came in the light of a number of planned new developments – including Caltongate, Leith Docks and Haymarket- and has led to soul-searching about the future direction of our capital city. Debate has raged over whether World Heritage status is desirable, or if it is a hindrance to development. Meanwhile, it has become clear that there is an intensity of feeling around the way the city is changing, often expressed most vocally by the people who live in those areas. Is this a rash of Edinburgh nimbyism? Or is it, in fact, the case that it is those who live in a place who care about it most; that they are the ones who are most likely to notice and object to any unwanted arrival in their backyard? Three development protesters present their case.

Caltongate: Sally Richardson points to a bag of plastic rubbish assembled for the recycling bins. “Sometimes, I wonder why I do this. We’re telling our children to recycle, and yet they’ve got to see listed buildings in their neighbourhood be knocked down.”

She is referring to a series of buildings on the Royal Mile, including the C-listed Sailor’s Ark and the Canongate Venture school, which are due to be demolished to make way for a development of offices, leisure facilities and a hotel, known as Caltongate.

Richardson points out a non-listed tenement, designed by EJ MacRae, whose windows are dark and lifeless. “They’re being let to go to wrack and ruin. How many tenancies are empty in there, and how many people are on the waiting list in Edinburgh? You could wash those windows and paint them and that building would look as good as the day that it was built 70 years ago.”

For the past four years, Richardson has devoted around 15 hours a week to the Save Our Old Town campaign. She had not been looking for a cause like this, when, in 2004, she joined the local community council, hoping to find something to keep her brain ticking over while looking after two children.

Nor did she have any idea how all-consuming it would become, when, while hanging washing, she mentioned the development to neighbour and town planner, Julie Logan, saying, “We really need somebody to look at this plan. I think it’s going to be enormous, and it’s for the Canongate.”

The next four years would see her transform into an Erin Brockovich of town planning. Save Our Old Town would launch petitions, come up with slogans such as “Old Town, Not Clone Town” and even manage to rile a councillor enough to stick a single finger up at them. Their campaigning has prompted others to look into the methods of Mountgrange, the developer, leading to the revelation that the company had donated £4000 to the Scottish Labour Party for a champagne reception.

Save Our Old Town has been, over the years, a predominantly female-driven campaign. “Maybe that’s got something to do with this area,” says Richardson. “In the past, women here campaigned and made banners to save their wash-houses.” She believes that for all our local and national governments’ talk about promoting community engagement, it’s the last thing they want: “I’m just considered to be a troublemaker.” For her, the “ugly gap site in the heart of the city” described by Jenny Dawe, city council leader, is a once active neighbourhood that has been allowed to slide.

She is a believer in the principles of Patrick Geddes, the 19th-century developer of Edinburgh’s Old Town, who advocated that by changing spatial form it was possible to change social structure.

In some ways, the Save Our Old Town campaign has failed. The Caltongate development has now been given the green light by both the city council, in August, and, in September, the Scottish government, who rejected pleas for a public inquiry.

For Richardson, however, the process has not been entirely in vain. “I think what we’ve done is delayed it, and now it may be market forces that will decide its ultimate fate.”

Leith Docks: When Shaeron Averbuch and Ross McEwan held a public meeting of the organisation JUMP (“Joined Up Master Planning”) in April, they advertised it with flyers carrying images of fleas. Their point was that “enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable”.

The dogs they were planning to make itch were Edinburgh City Council and Forth Ports, whose master plan, prepared by RMJM architects, was set to transform the Leith Docks area, creating nine urban villages within it and 22,000 new homes along the Edinburgh Waterfront. Some 120 people turned up to that meeting.

Averbuch and McEwan point out, this figure, along with all the names that signed their petition against the development is equivalent to the around 700 members of the public that Forth Ports initially consulted.

Averbuch recalls that when she first moved to a flat on Dock Place in Leith in 1995, “you used to be able to cycle through a lot of it, but you really haven’t got a chance of doing that now”. Ten years later, she noticed how the green spaces were disappearing. At the time, the outline of the Forth Ports plan was first proposed, she and McEwan, who declares himself an “urbanist”, and who worked on master planning social housing in London, had formed a design studio, Art in Architecture. Something they cared about was happening on their turf and they wanted to act.

This kind of development, is, they point out, the equivalent of the creation of a new town. “It’s the same size as Glenrothes or Cumbernauld,” says McEwan. “The difference is that those towns were created by a development corporation. Here we have one land owner following a model that is all about land value.” It is because the plan is on this scale, the pair believe that “this should have been an open international competition for master-planning”.

Both are advocates of modern architecture, yet feel that this is not the kind of design that looks to the long term. “There’s no intellectual rigor to it,” says McEwan, “no concept about how people are going to live for the next 50-100 years.” JUMP has issued its own principles, around which the group believes believe any future development should revolve. They include no (or reduced) cars, plenty of green space, an emphasis on social enterprise.

Averbuch and McEwan are in accord with many of the views of Prince Charles, and cite examples from The Passionate Prince, broadcast on Wednesday night. “We like how Prince Charles’s Poundbury is sustainable and looks to the community. This whole holistic approach seems to have gone out of the window with what’s happening in Edinburgh.”

Their attempts to galvanise the community have not always worked. Few of their fleas have bitten. One problem, McEwan believes, is that “local people don’t think it’s their business, because, as yet, it’s not affecting them. Until the lorries start running down the streets, they won’t worry about it.”

Its this knowledge of the often “all too late” nature of public protest which drives them. “It means we have to work harder for local people’s benefit,” says McEwan, “for that moment in the future when they might become interested, but by then it will be too late.”

Haymarket: Iconic gateway is a phrase I’m sick of hearing,” says engineer Maria Kelly . “I think, we pay our taxes, we’re entitled to our opinions. Many of us are going to be walking past these things. I don’t want to walk past that horror that they’re planning.”

The “horror” she is describing is the planned architectural “super hub”, including a 17-storey hotel, Richard Murphy-designed, known as the Haymarket Gateway, which, last Thursday, the Scottish government announced is now going to be put to a public inquiry.

The news of this was, for Kelly, a “huge relief”. As head of the Dalry Colonies Residents Association, she has spent many evenings over the past two years negotiating with developers and pestering councillors in a bid to alter the course of the development that is set to overlook their homes. “We look forward to contributing to the inquiry,” she says, “which will hopefully result in a development which reaches economic goals as well as contributing to Edinburgh’s wonderful architecture.”

The Dalry Colonies Residents Association is a small but vocal force. When Kelly, originally from Wales, moved into the area, she noted how, because of the way the paths along gardens are shared, everyone knew each other very well.

In the tightly packed buildings there were many long-term residents, pensioners who had been there more than 40 years, and this enhanced the impression that this was a proper community.

It also meant that, as Kelly describes, “we can organise ourselves reasonably well”.

This they have done. The fight has, she says been “non-stop” since she took over the chair.

Among their concerns was the 17-storey height of the main hotel, the disappearance of public toilets and the fact that one of the hotels, which ran close alongside would have bedroom windows looking down on their homes. Kelly recalls starting the consulting process feeling positive. Recently, however, she felt more jaded. It seemed that many of their points were disregarded.

Meanwhile, the architectural plans would suddenly be unexpectedly altered. “When they first consulted with us the hotel was only 12 storeys, and it suddenly became 16 storeys, then 17. That automatically makes you quite distrustful.”

For her it is not change itself that she objects to. “It just seems to me,” she says, “that this solution is an economic solution.

“It’s not that I object to the area changing. It’s just, why does it have to change in the way an architect wants it to look when everybody lives in a city? “

Author: The Big Lottery Fund

Enviro-Mentors! wins BBC viewer vote and slice of Lottery funding

Celebrations are underway for supporters of the Enviro-Mentors! project, based at the Ecology Centre in Fife, the sixth group to win the public vote and a slice of Lottery good cause cash from the Big Lottery Fund through BBC Scotland’s Primetime programme.

A joint project between the BIG Lottery Fund and BBC Scotland, Primetime had £3 million in the pot to go towards projects aimed at helping improve life for the country’s over 50s.

Enviro-Mentors! won the hearts and minds of viewers across Scotland, with their pitch to spend £318,818 for their project based at the Ecology Centre in Fife. The project will recruit and re-skill retired and long term unemployed older people from Fife, to enable them to mentor younger people and pass on their experience and skills.

Project champion Julie Samuel, said: “We’re going to make a difference to hundreds of people’s lives in the local area. It’s going to be fantastic. We’re really, really excited about it.”

Primetime presenter, BBC Scotland’s Dougie Vipond, said: “Congratulations to the Enviro-mentors! They were up against two very worthy opponents from the Central & Fife area in the final episode of the series.”

Alison Magee, Big Lottery Fund Scotland Chair, said: “Enviro-Mentors! is the sixth and final winner from our Primetime programme which has captured the imagination of the viewing public. It is fantastic that Lottery funding will make a huge difference to older people across Fife and enable them to still be able to contribute their valuable skills and experience which will make a vital difference to their communities. “

Author: LPL

After a year long campaign to save their 200 year old village pub from closure the villagers of Birgham in Berwickshire are celebrating the news that they’ve bucked the national trend of pub closures and that the Fisherman’s Arms is re-opening. Reverting back to its original name, it will once again be a friendly traditional village pub serving good pub grub.

The opening ceremony at 6pm on Saturday December 6 will re-unite one of the villagers with her childhood home. Carol Fairbairn was brought up in The Fisherman’s Arms when her parents ran the pub back in the 1930’s and 1940’s. She is the third generation of her family to be associated with The Fisherman’s Arms since her grandparents started there in 1932. Carol will cut a ribbon and pour the first pint of Belhaven to officially signal the start of business. From that moment The Fisherman’s Arms is back!

The fight to save the pub began when the previous owners closed the doors in September 2007 and started to make internal changes to the premises, which villagers identified as the beginning of a change to a residential building. A ‘Save Our Birgham Pub Campaign’ was launched and with over 100 letters of objection very successfully stopped a planning application for change of use to a coffee/retail shop – a remarkable result for a small village of less than 100 homes.

Some residents in the village decided to take the situation one step further and on September 1 this year became proud owners of the village pub! From then on the hard work began to completely refurbish the pub to a high standard and also to set up a company and sell shares to the villagers. Approximately one third of the village, including Carol who will perform the opening, now have a share in the premises and after 3 months work they are eagerly awaiting the re-opening. Despite the present economic situation the strength of support for the pub reopening leaves everyone very confident for its future.

The new landlady of The Fisherman’s Arms is Pauline Bispham, with support in the kitchen from local chef Paul Taylor. Pauline has already re-located from Edinburgh with her husband and children and will be living on the premises. Pauline said: ” We are privileged to be joining The Fisherman’s Arms of Birgham, within such a welcoming, dynamic community. A community, which has fought hard to retain a place for friends to share life, enjoy good food and socialize together. It feels great to be immersing ourselves in a beautiful place amongst great people, where we aim to deliver a fantastic village pub”.

Author: Sally Magnusson , The Herald

With the global financial system teetering around him, a small man with the face of a cherubic gnome came to Scotland this week to suggest something we had all given up imagining: a solution.

On Monday, Dr Muhammad Yunus, Bangladeshi banker to the poor and recipient of the Nobel peace prize in 2006, glided serenely from Glasgow’s youngest university to its oldest, fomenting a quiet revolution every time he opened his mouth.

“This is our opportunity to design a new global economic architecture,” said the man who founded the Grameen Bank in 1983, which gives tiny loans to the very poor, without collateral, on the basis of trust. The principle is known as microcredit, described by the Economist recently as “an increasingly bright light in the gloom of the financial world”.

It’s possible, says Yunus, to take the multiple crises of 2008 – financial, food, energy, environmental – all of which are having a catastrophic combined effect on the world’s poorest, and build a new economic structure.

“So far, governments have kept themselves busy with super-size bail-out packages for the institutions which were responsible for creating the financial crisis,” he told me. “No bail-out package of any size was even discussed for the victims of the crisis – the three billion bottom people on the planet. I’m urging that this mega-crisis be taken as a mega-opportunity to redesign the existing economic and financial systems.”

Pie in the sky? No, he says. We’ve done it in Bangladesh, we’re starting to do it in New York. But won’t self-interest prevent it? No, because self-interest is only half the story of the human condition. We can tap into the selfless instinct as well. It’s not charity – it’s a different kind of entrepreneurship. It’s social business.

“What I’m proposing is a different structure of the market itself,” he says. “A second type of business to operate in the same market along with the existing kind of profit-maximising business.”

This way, he argues, the rule of “strongest takes all” can be replaced by rules that ensure the poorest have a slice of the action. This way we can enjoy the benefits of globalisation without financial imperialism. This way, banks can reconnect with the people.

People who heard this diminutive figure outlining his softly-spoken vision in the inaugural Magnus Magnusson lecture at Glasgow Caledonian University were surprised to find themselves blinking away tears. Not in response to soaring rhetoric or whipped-up sentiment, but from the spine-tingling sense that something you have always instinctively known, that should be true and ought to be possible, can be done. The shiver of recognition you feel in the presence of an idea whose time might just, at long last, have come.

I was also battling the lump in my own throat from wishing my father could have been there. It’s true my sisters and I had allowed ourselves a quiet giggle at the notion that this first lecture in his name, at the university where he was a devoted chancellor until his death in 2007, should be by a banker, about money. Among Magnus’s myriad interests, the intricacies of high finance (or low finance, come to that) had always rather passed him by.

What did engage our father, though, was human dignity, the possibility of access for everyone to the good things of life and the kind of enterprise directed to making that happen which Glasgow Caledonian enthusiastically embraces. This why Muhammad Yunus was invited to become part of the newly-created Magnus Magnusson Fellowship and challenge Scotland’s thinking.

I sometimes ask myself what my father would have made of the global financial disorder – especially its effect on his beloved, fatally over-exposed Iceland. Surveying the wreckage of homes, careers and dreams in his homeland, I imagine him drawing thoughtfully on his pipe and reflecting: “I wonder if we perhaps lost sight of our priorities somewhere along the fast lane to wealth.”

How invigorated he would have been by Dr Yunus, a man who offers the world a different set of priorities. True, Magnus the journalist would probably have found a moment to murmur politely: “Yes, professor, but how exactly do you transplant Bangladeshi loan conditions to welfare-rich Glasgow?”

But he have would admired the intellectual muscle and heartily acknowledged the evidence. Nearly $7bn given out in loans by Grameen Bank to millions of the world’s poor, 97% of them women. A repayment rate of 98.02%.

Have our mighty financial giants, clutching their toxic loans in their big, clunking fists, ever looked at Grameen Bank and wondered if they have missed something? Clearly not. But they should. They would discover that Grameen’s success was based on finding out exactly how they operate and then doing precisely the opposite.

Poor people taking these loans are paying back every penny. It’s the rich who are having problems

“They go to the rich,” Yunus told the audience in Caledonian’s Saltire Centre; “we went to the poor. They went for men; we went for women. They want collateral, contracts, lawyers; we want none of these. They want people to come to them to bank; we made it our first principle to go to the people. They said this thing will never fly. Well, we’re still flying – higher and higher than ever.”

He noted impishly: “The irony of the situation is that poor people taking micro-loans are paying back every penny. It’s the rich who are having problems. So who’s not credit-worthy now?”

Dr Yunus was a high-flying, American-trained professor of economics until the Bangladeshi famine in 1974 rattled his ivory tower and prompted a rethink of conventional economic theories. Later on Monday, he fleshed out his vision of “one major change in the theoretical framework of capitalism” in a second lecture at Glasgow University.

The change would be to enable the social impulse behind Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments to be expressed in a complementary market to the one which has so failed the world. Not through charity, given and then lost, but through entrepreneurship, invested and recycled.

“Imagine what we could achieve,” he said, “if talented entrepreneurs and business executives around the world devote themselves to ending, say, malnutrition in a business format, except that these businesses will have no intention of making money for their investors.” No loss of the original investment, but no dividend either.

Grameen has already joined the French multinational Danone to sell fortified yoghurt to the undernourished children of rural Bangladesh. They have just created a joint venture with Veolia of France to deliver safe drinking water. The water will be sold at an affordable price to make the company sustainable, but there will be no financial gain to either Grameen or Veolia.

“People and donor countries give away millions of dollars,” he says. “Imagine if those billions could be recycled again and again. Each company can create its own range of social businesses. We can pool resources in social business funds.”

Even profit-maximising companies can be social businesses, he says, if, like Grameen Bank itself, they are owned by the poor. Either way, he believes thousands of people will start to come forward to invest because, even when times are personally tough, we all have social dreams.

It would, of course, necessitate the creation of a social stock-exchange, where investors could trade the shares of social businesses. A crazy idea? No more crazy than the notion that one person’s enjoyment of life should not take away the right of survival of another person.

The effect Yunus had on Glasgow this week was electric. Thanking him for his Magnusson lecture, Scotland’s leading philanthropist, Sir Tom Hunter, himself a member of the Magnusson Fellowship, said Yunus had already shown how, with deep humility, you can change the world. “The greatest thanks we can give you,” he said, “is to commit to action.”

By the end of the day, the principal of Caledonian, Pamela Gillies, was doing just that over dinner. With details still to be worked out and her finance director probably having heart failure at the other side of the room, she pledged her support for a social business initiative in Scotland.

At my table, another Magnusson Fellow, the mesmerising Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh, told me how moved he had been by the whole day. “Only in Scotland would something like this happen – low-key but inspiring, without fanfare, without calculation about how things look or embarrassment at how it sounds to express social passion and a confidence in humanity.”

A man who lives and writes in the West Bank city of Ramallah cannot be accused of naivety or sentimentality. Something in the vision of Yunus, the unabashed emotion of Tom Hunter, the caution-to-the-winds “yes we can” of the two university principals and the very practical celebration of my father’s humane legacy touched him to the core.

“We live in such a cynical world. To have something like this revives one,” Shehadeh said.

“I will not forget it.”

Author: Jim Mather

Highlands and islands communities powering ahead

18 November 2008

Community energy issues took centre stage at the Scottish Parliament last week. Nicholas Gubbins, Community Energy Scotland chief executive was invited to give evidence to the Economy Energy and Tourism Committee in its enquiry into “Determining and delivering Scotland’s energy future” . On behalf of the many Highlands and Islands community wind projects Community Energy Scotland is currently supporting, Nicholas highlighted to the committee the major hindrances in the lengthy and difficult planning process and the integration of community renewable generation projects onto weak electricity networks. Nicholas also advised the Committee of the situation with the Melness community wind project which is being held up due to a prohibitive cost of £1.8 million to get it onto the distribution network. Later in the day, a Members’ Debate took place in the Parliament Chamber on the motion raised by Dave Thompson MSP on the creation of Community Energy Scotland. During the introduction to his motion, Dave Thompson MSP made reference to the Eigg electrification, Knoydart hydro and the Gigha wind turbine projects and to the presentations given by each group to MSPs during the launch of Community Energy Scotland at the Parliament on 7 October. He also welcomed recent news from Orkney of the success of the Stronsay community and the Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre Development Trust community turbine projects in their planning applications. Four applications for community wind projects in Lewis and one community wind project in South Uist are also expected to be in the planning system by early December. All the Members who attended the debate were supportive of the motion and recognised the considerable benefits which such community schemes can bring. Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism’s concluded that “Community Energy Scotland has a terrific track record of getting many community renewables projects off the ground” and that the result of this has been “successful communities that have made renewable energy work for them in that intelligent way of the new self-sufficiency, which is generating more confidence and more resilience, and is retaining wealth in situ”. He referred to the Scottish Government’s framework for the development of renewables in Scotland which included distributed energy and community-based schemes. He referred “the relentless march of Community Energy Scotland out of the Highlands and Islands” and into communities elsewhere in Scotland. He welcomed the vital role which social enterprises play in “harnessing the potential for renewables, driving local regeneration, and promoting solidarity, cohesion and sustainability in communities across Scotland, leaving a legacy for future generations.”

You can read the official report of this Members’ Debate at http://www.communityenergyscotland.org.uk/news.asp Community Energy Scotland has also now opened for membership and invites any community organisation keen to become involved and join this new Community Energy Network to visit www.communityenergyscotland.org.uk

What does the new duty to involve require?

The duty requires authorities to take those steps they consider appropriate to involve representatives of local persons in the exercise of any of their functions, where they consider that it is appropriate to do so. It specifies the three ways of involving that need to be covered in this consideration:

· providing information about the exercise of the particular function;

· consulting about the exercise of the particular function; and/or

· involving in another way.

What do we mean by “representatives of local persons”?

Within the context of the duty the term “local persons” refers to those likely to be affected by, or interested in, a particular authority function. It should be noted that the term “local persons” is not simply a reference to local residents. It also covers those who work or study in the area (including those who work for the authority); visitors; service users; local third sector groups; businesses; bodies such as parish councils; and anyone else likely to be affected by, or interested in, the function.

The phrase “representatives of local persons” refers to a mix of “local persons”, ie a selection of the individuals, groups or organisations the authority considers likely to be affected by, or have an interest in the authority function. In the context of the duty the “representative” does not refer to formally elected or nominated members of the community, such as councillors.

The draft document, which is subject to consultation, provides guidance to local authorities and their partners on creating strong safe and prosperous communities, specifically relating to new legislation introduced in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. The guidance covers, Local Strategic Partnerships, Sustainable Community Strategies, the new duty to involve, Local Area Agreements, the revised best value regime and commissioning.

The closing date for responses is 12 February 2008.

Author: Simon Jenkins, Third Sector

“We are sliding into the kind of society where one votes every four of five years, and that’s it,” he told a voluntary sector audience of nearly 100 in London.

“Clearly most people in Britain regard participation in voluntary organisations as a surrogate democracy – you’re with the Rotary Club or the Women’s Institute or Oxfam or the NSPCC, and that’s your bit for society.

“But it’s not the same as self-government. We have got to constantly replenish the conduits of proper voluntary self-government even when we have this vigorous voluntary sector.”

Jenkins was giving the 11th Hinton Lecture, delivered each year in memory of Nicholas Hinton, the former chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, who died in 1997.

He warned his audience that previous lecturers had said how wonderful the voluntary sector was, but he was going to say the opposite.

Successive governments had removed real power from local councils and stared consulting stakeholders such as professional groups, lobbyists and voluntary organisations.

“They say people don’t like local councils and that the new participatory democracy is civil society. I find this very dangerous. Britain is unique in the way it has eroded local participatory democracy.

“We have lost this link between people and elected representatives through the ballot, and the manifestation of what I’m objecting to is you – the voluntary sector. You are the victors, local government is the vanquished.”

He told a questioner: “One of the things you should be campaigning for is bringing local councils to the centre of the stage instead of pushing them aside.”

The lecture will be available on the NCVO website shortly.

Author: LPL

What is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)?

CSAs are only one method of distributing local food, and integrate with other local circumstances. Typically many CSA farmers will also sell extra produce at farmers’ markets or to local shops. CSAs are also part of a wider range of community food and diet activities which include healthy eating campaigns, food access projects for health risk groups and low income families; school food growing projects; community gardens, etc.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a relatively new form of direct marketing of food, enabling small farms to remain in business through supplying a range of fresh produce to local households. The ‘member’ families commit to take a ‘share’ of the food produced on ‘their’ farm and to meet the real costs of having their food grown for them. The exact nature of CSAs depend on local individuals and conditions.

Structures

A number of models are possible including:

• Producer-led

A farmer grows one or more crops, and markets them to the members.
An example in the Highlands & Islands is Wester Lawrenceton Farm

• Consumer-led

A group of people find land, and employ a farmer to grow for them.
An example in the Highlands& Islands is Earthshare

• Network CSA

Several small producers get together to supply a range of produce.
An example in the Highlands & Islands is the Skye and Lochalsh Horticultural Development Association

Products

The CSA model lends itself to any number of products – indeed anything that is produced locally. Vegetable and fruit are the most common, but CSAs also exist for meat, eggs, dairy products, processed foods, firewood etc. The demand exists for locally reared meat, but regulations on butchering and the relatively few rural abattoirs have made it much more difficult to link producer and consumer directly.

Participation in CSAs

Some CSAs encourage members to help, e.g. with weeding or administration or distribution, in return for discounts. Some have special events, such as Harvest Day Celebrations. In most CSAs, the members have some say in what is grown. Many have educational materials as well, e.g. regular newsletters or recipes.

Production Methods

In some CSAs, the producer chooses, while in others the methods are open to negotiation. Some CSAs are organic, while others use organic techniques but without certification, and rely on trust without regulation.

Distribution

This depends entirely on local circumstances. Some CSAs require members to come to the farm, while others link to box schemes or rely on a limited number of pick up points.

Costs

On most CSAs the costs are agreed at the beginning of the year, so both consumer and producer know what to expect. Usually the consumers will pay in advance, or at stated regular intervals by standing order.

Author: LPL

Letter to Stewart Maxwell, Minister for Communities and Sport (note of meeting below)

John Swinney
Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth
Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP

20th June 2008

Dear Mr Swinney

Community Empowerment

Please find attached a short paper outlining our concerns about the approach to community empowerment now being followed by the Scottish Government and COSLA as described in the recent Government-COSLA Joint Statement on Community Empowerment. As you will see, we have some serious misgivings that the Joint Statement will not result in sufficient progress being achieved in respect of this important area of government policy.

Our reason for writing to you is to request a meeting with yourself and other relevant Ministers so that we can explain our concerns more fully. We have written to you because of your responsibilities for issues relating to the Third Sector although we recognise that specific responsibility for community empowerment lies with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing. If you are prepared to meet with us, could your office liaise with Angus Hardie at Development Trusts Association Scotland who has agreed to coordinate arrangements on our behalf.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Local People Leading Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations
On behalf of:
Development Trusts Association Scotland
Community Woodlands Association
Community Recycling Network Scotland
Community Transport Association
Employers in Voluntary Housing
Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations

cc. Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing
Stewart Maxwell, Minister for Communities and Sport

Where now for Community Empowerment?

This response has been written on behalf of a group of voluntary organisations which support the principle of the empowerment of Scotland’s local communities to urge the Scottish Government to take more and bolder steps on the journey towards community empowerment than is currently envisaged in its Joint Commitment to Community Empowerment with COSLA.

There is now a shared and long-standing political consensus about the importance of community empowerment as part of a long term strategy to support individuals and communities to take greater responsibility for their own futures whether as active partners in public sector programmes or as independent ‘civil society’ actors. A key part of the process of community empowerment is what is often called ‘double (or triple) devolution’ in which the devolution of legislative power is complemented by transferring new powers not just to local Councils but also to individual citizens and the local communities in which they live.

The political parties’ election Manifestos for the 2007 Scottish Parliament Elections appeared to confirm the enthusiasm among Scottish politicians for extending the spirit of devolution to citizens and local communities. The SNP’s manifesto was the most specific and included bold and radical commitments on issues such as community councils and the community ownership of assets. These commitments complemented pledges elsewhere in the manifesto to other empowerment measures such as extending the Direct Payment option for users of some public services and the promotion of community owned local energy production.

Against that background – while recognising the political constraints of working as a minority administration and that the Joint Commitment is a first step on a long journey – we are very disappointed by the very limited ambition and scope of the Joint Commitment and the accompanying outline action plan.

Of course, we welcome that the Scottish Government and COSLA have stated unequivocally that both see community empowerment as a key element of what they are about and their vision of community empowerment as a process where people work together to make change happen in their communities by having more power and influence over what matters to them. The Joint Commitment also gives some recognition to the importance of community capacity building and the community ownership of assets. However, it seems from the outline action plan that there are to be no additional resources for or new approaches to community capacity building; the commitment to an integrated programme to develop skills, learning and networking on community empowerment and engagement in practice only extends to engagement; and the development of support to help communities own assets extends only to assessing what might be needed to help them do so. Crucially, there is no reference in the Joint Commitment or the outline action plan to the devolution of power beyond local authorities to Community Councils or other bodies. We also understand that the Scottish Government has agreed with COSLA that there is no expectation let alone a requirement that local authorities should devolve funding decisions to Community Councils.

We believe that the Joint Commitment and outline action plan as they currently stand will be a huge missed opportunity if they do not do more to empower communities directly. We understand and support the importance of ensuring that local communities engage effectively with Community Planning and other public sector partnerships. However, we believe that such engagement will only be at its most effective when it is conducted by empowered communities which have the self confidence which comes from possessing their own powers of action and means of representation. Indeed, giving local communities a greater power to act on their own initiative is an essential pre-condition of strengthening local democracy to the benefit of local Councils as well as democracy at national level.

We are also concerned that without effective action to increase community empowerment and the social capital it creates, local communities will be unable to contribute to their full potential to the achievement of the Government’s key social objectives in local regeneration, anti-poverty programmes, local environmental programmes, health improvement programmes, and even to national empowerment initiatives. This will in turn mean that those objectives are much less likely to be achieved.

There is a wealth of experience and skills in the community sector in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK which would enable the piloting and implementation of a much more effective programme on community empowerment and engagement. Such a programme is justified not only in its own right but also to enable the Scottish Government to achieve wider political and social objectives. We have specific proposals on how to make such a programme a reality and wish to discuss how they can be incorporated into the work associated with the Joint Commitment.

Local People Leading Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations
June 2008

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Notes of the meeting with Stewart Maxwell , Minister for Communities and Sport

LPL was represented by Angus Hardie (Development Trusts Association Scotland) Jon Hollingdale (Community Woodlands Association) and John MacDonald (Community Transport Association). Stephen Maxwell represented SCVO.

Purpose of the meeting was to set out LPL’s position on community empowerment to the Minister and to raise some concerns that we have voiced recently through the LPL Briefings regarding overall progress that is being made with this agenda.

We referred the Minister to LPL’s list of proposed actions that had previously been submitted for consideration and in particular focused our comments on the importance of community ownership of assets and the various proposals that we have made that would advance this agenda. In particular, we raised the issue of the transfer of assets to communities from local authorities or other public bodies at less than best value. Stephen Maxwell proposed that where a Council has deemed an asset as being surplus to requirements, there should be a presumption in favour of community ownership when consideration was being given to the subsequent disposal. Although this would not lead to asset transfer in all cases, having such a presumption in place would give a clear message that, all things being equal, this was the desired outcome and as such would reflect that the Government’s broad support for it. However the Minister was advised by the civil servants in attendance that this would not be practicable as a mainstream policy.

LPL argued that some clear signal from Government was necessary which would indicate the scale and scope of its commitment to the community empowerment agenda. While LPL recognises there are many in local government that are committed to genuine community empowerment, we also recognise that there are many that would prefer the status quo and indeed argue that current commitments to community planning and community engagement are synonymous with community empowerment.

The Minister gave assurances that the Scottish Government was fully committed to deliver on community empowerment and emphasised that local authorities were now signed up through the Concordat to play their part in implementing the Action Plan when it eventually comes out. The Minister said he expected to see the first draft of the Plan in the New Year and that it would be launched early in the Spring.

Author: Dr Madhu Satsangi, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Stirling

Can I offer a comment on the apparent contradiction you note in Nicola Sturgeon’s speech and the direction of HA funding?

Thanks to the Brown/Darling ‘settlement’ of the Scottish budget 2008-11, the name of the game in HA funding is efficiency, hang community development. And funding decisions have been based on acceptance of ‘research’ from south of the border which purports to show that bigger organisations are necessarily more efficient than smaller ones.

In fact, despite the English Government and its agencies’ numerous attempts to prove this, there is no convincing relationship. Work that Ken Gibb and Tony O’Sullivan did for SFHA shows, as does work that I and colleagues did for the previous Executive, that much more depends on circumstance. You quite rightly say that views need to be challenged: so does the ‘evidence’ behind those views.

I hang on to the hope that SNP ministers don’t want to sacrifice one of the most effective approaches to community development Europe has seen in the past 30 years, rather that they have been misled and their hands tied.

If you’ve got the time, have a look at this document and this one