Author: WEAll

WEAll revealed the latest rankings of the Happy Planet Index (HPI) today, which compare countries by how efficiently they are creating long, happy lives using our limited environmental resources.

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is the leading global measure of ‘sustainable wellbeing’. It measures ‘efficiency’, using three indicators:

• Wellbeing – how satisfied people are with their lives (Gallup World Poll)
• Life Expectancy – how long people typically live (United Nations Development Programme)
• Ecological footprint – how large their environment impact is (Global Footprint Network)

This is the fifth edition of the Happy Planet index. It was first launched in 2006, with subsequent editions published in 2009, 2012, and 2016.

The 2021 Happy Planet Index: Which countries are most ‘efficient’?

The top 10 countries by Happy Planet Index score are as follows:

1. Costa Rica
2. Vanuatu 
3. Colombia 
4. Switzerland 
5. Ecuador 
6. Panama 
7. Jamaica 
8. Guatemala 
9. Honduras
10. Uruguay 

Notably, Central and South America dominate the Happy Planet Index, with 8 of the top 10 highest ranking countries from the region. However, there has been a decline in wellbeing in several countries in South America, including Brazil.

Selected other countries:

11.   New Zealand
12.   United Kingdom
13.   Germany
14.   France
15.   Ireland
16.   Sweden
17.   Australia
18.   China
19. Canada
20. USA

The full Happy Planet Index rankings are available to view at www.happyplanetindex.org. 

How does your country measure up?

This year, the Happy Planet Index features an interactive website, where viewers can explore the data, make comparisons between countries and regions, and view trends over time, from 2006 to 2020. You can also download the data to make your own analyses!

There is also a new ‘Personal Happy Planet Index’ test to help users see what country they are most like based on their own lifestyles – and to reflect on how they can create their own “good life that doesn’t cost the Earth.

How is the Happy Planet Index different?

Unlike other indices, such as the Quality of Life Index or World Happiness Report, the Happy Planet Index does not rank countries in terms of quality of life or happiness. Instead, it looks at which countries are best at using minimal ‘inputs’ of natural resources to create the maximum possible  ‘outputs’ of long, happy lives – thus delivering truly “sustainable wellbeing”. 

Rankings serve as a compass pointing in the overall direction in which societies should be travelling – towards higher wellbeing lifestyles with lower ecological footprints. 

The Happy Planet Index does not consider societies truly successful if they deliver “good lives” which use more resources than the earth can support OR if they consume within the Earth’s limits, but have very low levels of wellbeing or life expectancy. 

Promoting human happiness doesn’t have to be at odds with creating a sustainable future.

The Happy Planet Index turns the old world order on its head by highlighting how high-income Western nations are often inefficient at creating wellbeing for their people. 

Costa Rica has again been ranked in first place for a fourth time due to its commitment to health, education, and environmental protection. In contrast, the USA was placed as the lowest scoring G7 nation at 122nd place, ranking low on both wellbeing and ecological footprint.

Costa Rica has been ranked in first place for a fourth time due to its commitment to health, education, and environmental protection. According to the Happy Planet Index, Costa Rica has a more efficient economy than the USA.

• Costa Rica outperforms the USA (#122) on each of life expectancy, wellbeing, and environmental sustainability.
• Costa Rica’s GDP per capita is less than half that of the USA. Despite this, Costa Ricans have higher wellbeing, and on average live longer. 
• Costa Rica’s per capita Ecological Footprint is just one third of the size of the USA’s.

Countries that rank highly on the Happy Planet Index show that it is possible to live long, happy lives with a much smaller ecological footprint than found in the highest-consuming nations. 

Many nations achieve green lights in each of the individual components of the Happy Planet Index – meaning that these targets are genuinely attainable. 

Stories from a ‘Happy Planet’?

Overall, the Happy Planet Index shows that we are still far from achieving sustainable wellbeing: only a third of nations (representing 38% of the global population) consume within environmental limits and no country scores successfully across the three goals of high life expectancy for all, high experienced wellbeing for all, and living within environmental limits. 

Still, the Happy Planet Index rankings highlight many success stories that demonstrate the possibility of living good lives without costing the Earth – and we’re making progress towards this goal.

Environmental progress made in Western Europe – but more must be done.

• Switzerland jumps to 4th place out of 152 countries on the Happy Planet Index, becoming the top ranking European country on the Index – and the only one in the top 10.
• The UK rises to 14th place; now the highest scoring G7 country. 
• Other Western European countries rank fairly well on the index: the Netherlands (#18), Germany (#29), Spain (#30), France (#31).

Mixed results among high-income countries.

• North America falls in the bottom third of rankings of 152 countries: USA (#122) is the lowest ranking G7 country; Canada (#105) and Australia (#88) are not much further ahead.
• In contrast, New Zealand is now in 11th  place,  becoming the second highest Western country in the rankings. 

Trends in other world regions

• South Asia and the Middle East dropped in the rankings; India dropped to 128th place out of 152 countries due to significant decline in wellbeing since 2006, but also a rising ecological footprint.
• Sub-Saharan Africa’s scores are rising due to rapid increases in life expectancy.

The Impact of the Pandemic

Data from 2020 shows that despite the largest pandemic in living memory and a complete re-organisation of the world economy, people’s wellbeing had, at least in 2020, on average, remained surprisingly stable.

This demonstrates that our wellbeing is not inevitably linked to the fast-paced economic system that we have become used to – and suggests that it is possible to sustain good lives with a lower impact on the Earth.

To effectively address the climate crisis, positive changes we see on the Happy Planet Index need to be much more rapid. To do that, we need to rethink how our global economic system is designed. All signs point to a Wellbeing Economy.

Author: UK Govt

Overview

The UK government is committed to levelling up across the whole of the United Kingdom to ensure that no community is left behind, particularly as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

That is why we are now making the biggest changes to the way we support local economic growth in a decade, in order to regenerate our town centres and high streets, support individuals into employment, improve local transport links and invest in local culture, while giving communities a stronger voice to take over cherished local assets that might otherwise be lost.

This will involve the UK government decentralising power and working more directly with local partners and communities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, who are best placed to understand the needs of their local areas and more closely aligned to the local economic geographies to deliver quickly on the ground.

To support these objectives, the UK government has launched three new investment programmes to support communities right across the country. All share common challenges and opportunities, which the UK government is determined to address in collaboration with local partners. These new investment programmes are:

• The UK Community Renewal Fund
• The Levelling Up Fund
• The Community Ownership Fund

As we look towards the UK Shared Prosperity Fund next year, we are conscious of the need for an evolution of the way we support local economic growth so it can best support levelling up for the long term. The UK government will work with local partners throughout 2021 to develop an approach that delivers the infrastructure and regeneration priorities local leaders want to see in their area.

We will also be working with local businesses on the future role of Local Enterprise Partnerships. We want to ensure local businesses have clear representation and support in their area, in order to drive the recovery. We will work with Local Enterprise Partnerships over the coming months, with a view to announcing more detailed plans ahead of summer recess. This will also include consideration of Local Enterprise Partnership geographies.

Later this year we will publish an Investment Framework for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund – the replacement to European Union structural funds – which will commence in 2022.

Author: Les Huckfield

Not enough has been written to recall the alternative local social economy which the Greater London Council, Sheffield and other local councils previously worked hard to create. Fortunately, Community Wealth Building is once more beginning in North Ayrshire and elsewhere in Scotland.

The analysis in Les Huckfield’s book shows that, based on directly relevant contemporary precedents in Quebec and France, which have been largely ignored, a wider interpretation and promotion of a non market alternative social economies might have been possible beyond London.

With antecedents in worker cooperatives and community organisations in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, the book argues that, in recent decades, as opposed to providing an autonomous alternative to capitalism – social enterprise is, in fact, in danger of becoming one of its central components. More government policies now seek to put community controlled cooperatives and social enterprises into competition against the private sector to deliver public services.

While readers may not agree with all it says, it is nonetheless an important contribution for anyone interested in the role of the social economy within society. Please see the link here to register for book launch 

You are invited to attend at 1900 on Thursday 18 November 2021 for the launch of Leslie Huckfield’s important book, now published by Manchester University Press. Les has been involved with co-ops, social enterprise and the third sector since the 1970s so that for academics, those in the Cooperative and Labour Movements and from various parts of the third sector, this is an important contribution.

The launch will be chaired by Owen Hatherley, Author of “Red Metropolis” – the Greater London Council. An introduction by John McDonnell MP, who was Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, will be followed by a presentation by Les, then questions and discussion.

In his book review, Matthew Thompson from the University College London wrote:

“This is the book that many of us in the field of social economy and the cooperative movement have been waiting for – the definitive contemporary history of the fascinating politics behind how co-ops were sold down the river.

… Unlike other contributors, the author does not naively present the social economy as an autonomous alternative to capitalism but rather takes a critical perspective to identify how it has become a central component of its functioning – without losing sight of its progressive potential

“How Blair Killed the Co-ops”

Author: SCA

Submission to National Care Service consultation

By Scottish Community Alliance

Introduction

The Scottish Community Alliance is a coalition of Scotland’s leading community led networks. There are currently 24 networks that comprise SCA’s membership and they extend their reach into communities the length and breadth of the country. They are involved in a vast array of activities which touch on virtually every aspect of community life – for example planning matters, social housing, health, horticulture, land management, arts and culture, and renewable energy. While many of these networks have specific areas of interest and offer highly specialised support to their members, what they all have in common is a shared commitment to enhanced levels of empowerment and greater levels of resilience for Scotland’s communities. This is the overarching theme which defines the work of the Scottish Community Alliance and which draws its membership together.

Response 

The scale of ambition set out in this consultation – to create a comprehensive community health and social care service that serves the needs of the whole population regardless of life stage or circumstances – is one that will undoubtedly find support, in principle, right across the spectrum of its multiple stakeholders. 

However it is also clear that there is considerably less consensus in terms of how this ambition should be delivered or indeed even whether a consultation as wide ranging and comprehensive as this, should have been launched in the way that it has been. 

That said, due to constraints of time and capacity, SCA does not propose to comment on any of the detail as set out in the consultation other than to offer three simple observations based on experience.

Scotland’s community sector is a significant national asset, the potential of which continues to be underestimated by both national and local government in the pursuit of national outcomes laid out in the National Performance Framework. 

The sector is, by its nature, heterogeneous, reflects local conditions and functions at many different levels of formality. At one end of the spectrum, the sector is the myriad voluntary, informal associations of citizens who self-organise around a common interest or need – the value of which was widely acknowledged during the pandemic. At the other end, there are the more formally constituted, highly organised and professional providers of a wide range of public services (development trusts, social enterprises etc). The key feature that all these organisations share is that they are run by local people and accountable in a variety of ways, to their wider communities.

Specifically, many specialist providers of community led health and social care services have evolved in recent years in response to increasing gaps in statutory provision. However these community led health providers have remained in the ‘shadows’ and tend to operate in the cracks that have opened up as the NHS and the care system has increasingly struggled in the face of rising demand. 

Observation 1. The community sector sits closest to the point of delivery of health and social care services and yet continues to be overlooked and ignored as a full partner in the national provision of community based health and care services. 

Observation 2. At a local level, the lines between the social care needs and the health needs of a community become blurred and it is not useful in the context of trying to develop a new service to see them as separate. The more holistic approach to community wellbeing that the community sector intuitively adopts across the range of its activities, is one that should be reflected in the foundational principles of the new Community Health and Care Service. 

Observation 3. The health, social care and wellbeing needs of the nation are inextricably bound up in one another and the root cause of the current problem is that this is not reflected in the design thinking of the existing services. Therefore this reorganisation should not aim for a National Care Service to sit alongside (even with assumed parity) a distinct National Health Service. It should be as one. Arguments will rage long and hard as to the new name, but a Scottish Community Health and Care Service would at least make it clear that the new service is both community focused and inclusive of both the social care and health needs of the nation.

2/11/21

Author: Hut of Wellbeing

Woodland huts are small, simple, low-impact buildings that allow people from stressful urban situations to have a connection to nature and the countryside without costing the earth. They are common in most Northern European countries but quite rare in Scotland for historical reasons.

Reforesting Scotland pioneered a recent change in planning law to make getting permission for and building a hut easier in Scotland. One of our members, who has cancer, had the vision of one of these huts that could be available for short stays for people in situations like his own. Contact with nature is good for both physical and mental health, but someone in poor health or a difficult situation cannot be expected to build a hut themselves.

Local organisations supporting people suffering illness or other hardships, and their carers, will be able to refer them for a weekend or midweek stay. The Hut of Wellbeing will be built in an existing woodland hutting community in Fife. Being embedded in a supportive community will be an important part of looking after the hut and its users.

This project was conceived before coronavirus, but the pandemic has both made people more aware of the mental health benefits of access to nature and put pressure on Scotland’s landscape and accommodation, so we believe that the need for the Hut of Wellbeing is more urgent now than even before.

Reforesting Scotland has already put in money to engage an architect and builders, to make sure that the hut gets planning permission and suits both the site and its users. A steering group of hut users and care organisations is working with us to make the project a reality. We now need to raise more funds to build the hut itself and then run and maintain it once it is built.

If we do not raise enough money to make the project viable and we are not able to get match funding from elsewhere, all money raised through the crowdfunder will be donated to the Maggies Centre in Kirkcaldy instead.

Please watch our video in which Reforesting Scotland member Tony Carter describes how he came up with the idea for the hut and Lesley Riddoch talks about the links between huts and wellbeing. You can find out more about the project on our website. We have some wonderful rewards available, donated by Scotland’s hutting community in support of this project. All the offers of accommodation or events must be worked out with the person offering them, and bear in mind that not all dates will be possible for them. Contact us if you need any further details about any of the offers but remember that when they are gone they are gone!

If you’d like to support the Hut of Wellbeing – click here

Author:  Stephen Delahunty, Third Sector Magazine

The charity sector is missing the bigger picture and becoming an “internal service agency for the government”, delegates at the think tank NPC’s annual conference have heard.

Indy Johar, founding director at Dark Matter Labs, an organisation that works to transition society in response to technological revolution and climate breakdown, made the remarks during the last day of NPC’s conference during a Question Time panel event. 

In response to an earlier question about the distribution of funding in the sector during the pandemic, Johar said: “I think it’s very easy for us to be squabbling about crumbs, when actually we’re looking at a vast, large scale transition to deal with climate change, which needs about about four and a half trillion globally a year to deal with.”

In highlighting the scale of social and ecological transition, Johar called on the sector to focus and get ahead of the argument on some of the big issues such as climate change, inequality and social care. 

He added: “I do sometimes worry that our sector gets locked into talking about a million pounds here and a couple of million there, when actually the scale of a transition is so much larger. I think philanthropy and also the charity sector need to get out of their little box and start thinking about the scale of what we’re about to be in the middle of.”

Johar was asked whether the sector has a problem of not seeing the bigger picture. 

“I think it’s a problem that we become an internal service agency for the government. To become a service agency for an extended arm of government, either directly or indirectly, the reality is, we’re here to look after the public good. That is our focus, on the public good, and that is greater than the government.

“We need to get our heads out of our own self-interest and short-term interest and look at that avalanche of issues over the next 10 years. I think it is the responsibility of philanthropy to look outside incumbent interests. That is the power of philanthropy.”

Johar was part of a panel that included Pavan Dhaliwal, chief executive of Revolving Doors, who agreed that the sector could be too reactive to the political cycle.

“I think that there is a risk that we are sort of inward looking as a sector, as a result of that we ended up being very reactive, in many instances, to the political situation and to political cycles,” said Dhaliwal. 

“To apply that long termism that Indy was talking about we need to think about what we want, let’s set the agenda for the next 10, 20, 30 and 40 years, as opposed to being so reactive.”

Dhaliwal said the sector also needs to try and avoid the traps being set around the culture wars.

“If people want to set those traps, that’s their business, but we need to make sure that we actually focus in on the issues that we know matter, and we need to work with people to come up with those solutions, and be so tight as a sector that we can’t be divided in the way that we have been over the last few years.”

In the previous day’s session NPC boss Dan Corry called on the government to stop “bearing down unnecessarily on campaigning” and making “woke attacks” on charities that are “politically useful in the short term”.

Author: Martin Geissler BBC Scotland News

Scotland has the oldest system of land registration in the world but finding out exactly who owns the buildings, parks, landmarks and empty spaces in our towns and cities can be surprisingly difficult.

In the first of a new two-part BBC series Who Owns Scotland? I’ve been looking at the latest information on land ownership in urban Scotland and exploring not just what we do know, but also what we don’t, and why.

Land equals power. It’s an equation as old as humanity and it’s still true today.

If you own land it gives you economic, social and often political muscle. And the more of it you own, the more potential power you have.

That’s why we’ve been keeping a pretty close eye on who owns what in our country for centuries.

For more than five hundred years, in fact, whenever anyone has bought a house – or land – the information has been stored away by Registers of Scotland. It’s the oldest national land register of any country on earth and, gradually, that’s become a problem.

The records – called the Sasine Register – are still stored in their original form – some are so ancient they’re written on calfskin. There’s lots of detail, in one form or another, but much of it’s laid out in vague and outdated terms. Put together it paints a patchy and often baffling picture.

Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, Jennifer Henderson, told me: “If you think of land you would typically think of a map and being able to point to the map and say ‘what is that piece of land and who owns it?’

“The Sasine Register doesn’t have a map. Maps didn’t really exist in the form we would understand them these days when it was first created.

“So it’s actually quite difficult to point to a piece of land and say ‘show me the Sasine Register that relates to the piece of land’.”

The system needs a huge overhaul, and it’s getting one. A modern digital land register is being created to give a clearer picture of who owns what but it’s a massive job. Forty years after work started, less than half of the information has been transferred.

Now though, the boosters have been fired on the project – the target is to have it finished within the next four years.

“Most typically, now when a property has been bought the new owner will be coming to us to register their purchase in the new digital land register. There is no longer the option to register in the Sasine Register,” said Jennifer.

In the first of two hour-long Who owns Scotland? programmes, I’ve been taking a look at what we’re discovering as our national land register moves from parchment to gigabytes. And it turns out there are big gaps in our knowledge. Places which have, for whatever reason, slipped down between the folds of history.

We recruited the help of a digital mapping company, Lateral North, who used the data from the digital land register to create a multi-layered picture of modern Scotland.

“Although the process is slow and painful. It will be a really invaluable resource,” said Tom Smith from Lateral North.

The data tells a fascinating story – geographical, obviously, but there are clear social and political aspects to it as well.

Image caption,

Maps were produced for the BBC Scotland programme, including this one showing public and private land ownership across Scotland

When we talk about land here in Scotland, the conversation tends to get bogged down in highland estates and tweed clad grouse-shooters.

But our programme delved deeper than that to look at the problem of vacant and derelict land and empty buildings and the direct link to poverty.

There are 47,000 long term empty homes in Scotland – the number’s doubled since 2005 – bad news, given we’re in the grip of a housing emergency.

To put the problem into perspective, if you were to place all the vacant and derelict land in Scotland together in one space, the area would be twice the size of the city of Dundee.

Using information from the latest survey by Scotland’s vacant and derelict land task force, the team at Lateral North put every one of those patches of derelict land, big and small, on to a new digital map.

The results are pretty stark, perhaps unsurprisingly the most concentrated areas of dereliction are spread through west central Scotland and down the Clyde coast. A clear visual explainer of the past half century in that part of the world. Traditional heavy industry has gone and the economic impact has spread through communities which used to thrum to the sound of pit wheels, shipyards and steelworks.

In the city of Glasgow itself, the derelict properties seem to be spread out, spanning much of the city with no obvious pattern – until you add another layer. When you superimpose the areas of greatest deprivation onto the map, they sit almost precisely on top of the places where you find the most derelict land.

Tom Smith explained: “When you add that layer (to our map) there does seem to be a direct correlation between the vacant and derelict land in Glasgow and its deprived areas.”

If you don’t know who owns a building or a piece of land, you can’t take action to improve it. And even if you do, there’s no way to force an owner to do something with it. That can hold back progress and, ultimately, deprive communities of a chance to grow.

And the negative impact an adverse physical environment can have on a local community is something social scientists have long highlighted, according to Shona Glenn from the Scottish Land Commission.

“What you see when you look out the window in the morning, or when you come home from work at night, affects absolutely everything,” she said.

“At the moment the balance of power really sits with landowners and we need to shift that so that communities and society at large have much more of that power.”

In Huntly, in Aberdeenshire, local residents came together to set up a land development trust

But it’s not all bad news. Not at all. In fact there’s a growing trend of small communities taking matters into their own hands.

Some have done so very successfully, like Huntly in Aberdeenshire, where the community trust bought a farm, put up a wind turbine and is now making plans to spend the millions of pounds it’ll generate in the years ahead.

Donald Boyd, from Huntly Development Trust, said: “There’s a feeling that it’s difficult, in a world that is changing so fast, for a town like Huntly to keep up, so it’s time for that to be turned around.

“We are harvesting the wind and we are growing a community.”

Image caption,

Donald Boyd from the Huntly Development Trust explained how money generated from a community-owned wind farm is being used to help redevelop buildings and spaces

The town’s old market square, pockmarked until recently with a depressing array of vacant shopfronts, is on the up again. The old department store, a substantial and prominent property, is now in community hands. Soon it’ll house a café, a “hot desking” business centre and a cinema.

And other Huntly properties are earmarked for takeover and turnaround, too. A major shift in the town’s fortunes, generated largely by a bit of initiative and a lot of wind.

It’s wonderful in its simplicity, so could that be the future for much of Scotland? Small community groups investing on their own doorsteps and taking more control of the way they live?

Carolyn Powell, from the Trust, added: “It’s taking the future into your own hands as a community, rather than seeing other people doing things for you.

“What could be better than a community building its own future?”

Scotland’s land ownership is complex – it’s grown over half a millennium after all – and there aren’t many solutions that’ll please everyone, but what is clear from the data we gathered and the maps we built is that the sooner we find out exactly who owns Scotland, the sooner we can work on solving the problems of the past.

The first of two programmes in the Who owns Scotland? series will be broadcast on the BBC Scotland channel at 21:00 on Sunday and available afterwards on the BBC iPlayer.

Author: South Seeds

South Seeds is 10 years old!!

We were set up in April 2011 to enable people living in South Central Glasgow to lead more sustainable lives.

In our first 10 years, we have:

1. Brought the fight against climate change to the high street

An estimated 13,000 people have visited our base on Victoria Road, in the heart of Govanhill, for advice and information since it opened in April 2011.

2. 2. Lent out more than 1,000 tools

We run the Southside Tool Library, allowing residents to borrow our selection of 500 tools for free. This service has saved over a tonne of carbon and over £10,000 in tool purchase costs. Our most popular tool is the power drill!

3. Made homes more energy efficient

Over 90% of residential property on the southside of Glasgow was built before 1919. We help local people to make their homes more energy efficient in order to reduce carbon use and save money. Our hints and tips can include using clotheshorse pulleys, draught-proofing and installing chimney balloons!

4. Created five community gardens

We started with Agnew Lane community garden in 2011 and we have built five community gardens across South Central Glasgow – including the newly opened space around the derelict Old Changing Rooms on Queen’s Park Recreation Ground. Sadly two of the gardens no longer exist, the spaces have now been cleared for building works by landowners. These vibrant spaces are an antidote to paved backcourts, giving residents a space to grow food and learn about gardening.

5. Pioneered the adopt-a-raised growing bed scheme

At the Croft, one of our community gardens, we built 24 raised growing beds so residents could have an individual yet supported growing experience. Since the Croft opened in 2015, more than 500 people have ‘adopted’ a raised bed and grown their own fruit and vegetables – an incredible transformation for a tennis court that hadn’t been used for 20 years!

6. Produced a strategy for decarbonising heat

We published a series of investigations looking at energy efficiency, renewable generation and district heating in 2013, 2015 and 2017 – which together form a decarbonisation plan for Glasgow’s Southside. These reports show how carbon can realistically be saved and provide detailed information, on a street-by-street-basis, taking in to account both local knowledge and high level technical know-how.

7. Shared our expertise beyond the Southside

South Seeds’ experience of developing effective community based solutions to mitigating climate change has been recognised by citywide decision-makers and the Scottish Government. We were asked to give evidence at Glasgow’s Citizen’s Assembly and Scotland’s Climate Assembly, both held in advance of COP 26 arriving in Glasgow later this year.

8. Published newspapers that tackle climate change

Between 2014 and 2019, we published newspapers exploring carbon reduction opportunities such as active travel, composting, air pollution and littering. The newspaper format allowed us to explore the issues and giving detailed local information about solutions. More than 10,000 people read these newspapers, increasing understanding of climate change in our local area.

9. Ran an energy saving handyman service

South Seeds pioneered the energy saving handyman service across the Southside between 2015 and 2018. Using energy saving solutions for pre-1919 tenement buildings identified by our energy officers, our handymen made over 1,500 energy saving installs in all tenures of homes. Since our service has ceased a number of local handymen offer home energy saving solutions.

10. Worked with migrants struggling with the UK energy system

Glasgow’s Southside is an area with a high number of people who have come to the area from elsewhere. Over time, we have learnt how to work effectively with residents who don’t have English as a first language and had no previous knowledge of the energy system. By working effectively with the migrant population, South Seeds has become a trusted organisation and has supported thousands of migrants to effectively manage their energy at home. Our work in this area was shortlisted for a Herald society award.

Author: Wellbeing Economy Alliance

What should be the purpose of the economy, and the goal of public spending: promoting the wellbeing of people and the planet, or reacting to immediate, avoidable problems? Put this way, the answer seems obvious, yet the prevailing economic model forces governments towards the latter.

WEAll’s new report, “Failure Demand: Counting the costs of an unjust and unsustainable economic system”, written by Mark Anielski, Anna Chrysopoulou and Michael Weatherhead, examines two case studies of Scotland and Alberta, Canada to demonstrate that in pursuit of economic growth – a stated goal of almost all governments – harm is caused to people and the planet. Governments then need to spend money to respond to these harms – which in turn becomes a justification for growth.

In other words, we are caught in a cycle of paying to fix what we continue to break. This is known as ‘failure demand’.

Download the report now

Of course, governments will always need to be reactive to immediate needs. There will always be unavoidable demands on public spending. That is not in dispute. This report is concerned with demands that are avoidable: damages incurred through economic choices – the purpose and structure of the economy. These are damages that necessitate deployment of a government’s financial resources, but which could have been avoided in a Wellbeing Economy scenario.

The report asks the questions: is this the best we can hope for? Is it good enough just to help people survive and cope with the current system? And what about value from our taxes? Are payments that allow us to survive all that we should be using our taxes for, rather than investments and configurations that help us to thrive?

The research focuses on three key interlinked sectors that illustrate the impact on the financial resources of a state, directly and indirectly. Those sectors are: paid work, the housing sector, and the environment, with Scotland, a devolved part of the UK and the province of Alberta, Canada used as the two territories to articulate the story of failure demand. Even within just these sectors, the report considers just a small subset of the true picture and makes conservative estimates.

It finds that in Scotland:

• Due to the existence of low pay, the state provided over £596 million in 2014/15, over £635 million in 2015/16, over £890 million in 2016/17, over £840 million in 2017/18 and over £774 million in 2018/19 in welfare payments, free-school meals and work-related ill health 

• The total excess cost (failure demand) of healthcare for people who have ever experienced homelessness is over £900 million

• The failure demand costs for various levels of government due to the effects of global warming in Scotland can be estimated at £771 million and £956 million due to air pollution per year.

Whilst in Alberta, Canada:

• In 2019 an estimated 310,363 Albertans lived in poverty (or 7.1% of the population) with an estimated societal cost of poverty of $9.1 billion

• The average cost of homelessness in Alberta is estimated at $142,500 per homeless person per annum. This suggests the societal cost of homeless in Alberta was $1.05 billion in public programmes and other supports

• Weather related disaster costs increased by over 2,500% to approximately $9 billion with the Alberta government incurring an estimated $2.3 billion from 2010 to 2016.

Co-author Michael Weather explains: “Of course, the primary driver for changing towards a better way of doing things is the reduction of harm to people and the planet. Fiscal implications are secondary, but this report seeks to demonstrate that taking a Wellbeing Economy approach also makes financial sense, reducing avoidable demands so that public spending has a longer-term positive impact.”

Author: Jonathon Reilly, The Scotsman

PLACE, an organisation representing residents on the Scottish Government’s Short-Term Lets Stakeholder Working Group, has written to social justice, housing and local government secretary Shona Robison to highlight the consequences of the sudden U-turn she announced on the scheme last week.

The residents’ body insists Ms Robison’s reasoning for the removal of overprovision powers in licensing legislation shows a misunderstanding of the scope of the new short-term let control areas in planning legislation.

PLACE says short-term let control areas are only effective when combined with specific amendments to a council’s Local Development Plan, which can only be achieved every five years. Only Edinburgh Council has this process in motion.

If over provision powers aren’t granted in licensing, PLACE states almost all councils will be unable to deny licenses to short-term lets for reasons of housing shortages for the foreseeable future.

A PLACE spokesperson said: “In June, Airbnb released their white paper, which set out how they wished their ideal ‘regulation’ to look like across the UK.

“The changes proposed here by the Scottish Government seem to mirror these disappointingly closely: self-certification, no checks on overprovision and a weakening of the ability to enforce planning permission standards.

“Corporate lobbying behind closed doors cannot be allowed to win over the needs of communities. We implore the Cabinet secretary to read our evidence and reconsider her position.”

PLACE wrote to Ms Robison to request the following additional changes:

– Robust tools to address overprovision of short-term lets in licensing and planning legislation;

– Platform accountability – experience shows licensing is only effective if platforms can be fined for advertising short-term lets without a valid license number;

– Robust checking of home sharing applications for fraud by commercial hosts;

– Mandatory planning permission for commercial licenses, especially in tenements;

– Cancel temporary exemptions which incentivise the use of homes as short-term lets;

– A live short-term letting register with natural names for commercial hosts;

– Guidance for lawful home-sharing and home-letting;

– Policy statements on overprovision which must consider the supply of accessible and affordable housing;

– Removal of the ten-year rule which gives immunity to short-term lets which have been operating unlawfully for a decade;

– No more delays.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Regulation of short-term lets is vital to balance the needs and concerns communities have raised with wider economic and tourism interests. Our proposals ensure that all short-term lets across Scotland adhere to a common set of safety standards.

“The powers given to local authorities to establish control areas are sufficient to implement overprovision policies, where they wish to do so.

“We intend to lay licensing legislation at the Scottish Parliament in November. We are committed to getting this important legislation absolutely right, and monitoring its implementation.”

Councils have been given a grace period until October 2022 to set up a licensing scheme, with all short-term lets to be licensed by April 2024.