The future for citizen-run services

Big Society, Citizen Engagement, Community Action No Responses »

Jun 202011

Researchers and practitioners met at the University of Birmingham on 9-10 June 2011 for the first seminar of series funded by the Economic and Social Research Council on ‘third party government’. A slightly ambiguous term which nonetheless draws the attention to an often neglected but major plank of public policy over the last two to three decades, the location of public policy making at arm’s length from the institutions of representative democracy. A discussion of ‘third party government’ opens up questions democracy, delegation of authority, transparency, and autonomy in the contemporary state. ‘Third party government’ is also a focus which allows discussion across public, private, voluntary and community spaces where public policy is being shaped and delivered. Core themes of discussion included:

Who are the actors and stakeholders who ‘fill’ these ‘spaces’ of third party government?
How do these different actors interact and co-ordinate?
How can third party government be considered in a comparative perspective particularly between the US and UK?

Discussions included a number of highly policy relevant topics from the commissioning of public services to the role of the third sector in delivering public services to the potential for citizen-run services.

Citizen run services have been central to the current Coalition government’s policy agenda of the ‘Big Society’. ‘Big Society’ builds upon but also challenges the role for citizens outlined by the previous New Labour government. The challenge comes in the shift from citizens ‘influencing’ or shaping decisions which affect their everyday lives and the public services they receive to actively ‘doing’ and becoming involved in the delivery and even running public services. The ‘Big Society’ has been relentlessly (arguably deservedly) critiqued since its emergence in the run up to the 2010 General Election and is now somewhat of a beleaguered brand (it was recently re-launched for the fourth time), but what does it mean for the future of public services?

There are some initial concerns that the ‘Big Society’ raises for looking at citizen-run services. ‘Big Society’ has been pitched as a response or correction for the ‘big State’ associated with the previous government. However, delivering on the ‘Big Society’ cannot mean the ‘small State’ espoused by many. Extensive and varied evidence shows that the community action demanded by the ‘Big Society’ is importantly catalysed by state intervention and sustained through state support, advocacy and brokerage. This ongoing role for the state is particularly important in disadvantaged areas to ensure that the Big Society is not something which only includes those with the existing skills and opportunity to get involved.

This is an argument that citizen-run services should not be about citizens delivering services on their own, but in collaboration. But it is not about apologising for the current role of the state. Demands for citizen engagement have long been swimming against the tide of a managerial revolution in public services. Indeed, opportunities for citizens to get involved have often been structured to allow the ticking of a box rather than reflecting what citizens are interested in and informed about. There are often mismatches between citizens’ needs and priorities and what they are assumed to be. Public bodies can often be narrow and inflexible. Innumerable policies have been developed with the aim of engaging citizens, but rather than looking at citizens in the round, such policies have often caricatured citizens, focusing only on ‘real’ or ‘ordinary’ people. Such measures have also often been set in a context of contradictory measures which have pathologised or ignored some citizens whilst seeking to ‘activate’ or ‘empower’ others.

So, where do we go from here? Well let’s not under-estimate or assume that the state, notably in its local form doesn’t have the capacity to respond to the challenge of the ‘Big Society’. Many public sector staff, notably those who engage regularly with citizens in their communities, have the expert ‘local knowledge’ to inspire and catalyse action in those communities. In order to deliver the ‘Big Society’ we should be encouraging these skilled public sector staff to collaborate with citizens, communities and organisations of the third sector to shape and deliver services that best meet the needs of communities. But, these individuals who ‘work’ the spaces of third party government are the same people being targeted by current cuts to public spending. The Government should be cautious that it is not losing the very people who can deliver on their policy ambitions.

Local Government beyond the fragments

Big Society, Commissioning, Localism, Spending cuts No Responses »

Jun 172011

Recently this blog hosted an article urging local government to set out a positive and compelling vision that will guide the sector through an ever changing environment. There can be no doubt that local government is facing an unprecedented set of challenges, having to respond to increased levels of need whilst at the same time working within vastly reduced budgets. Yet current developments in public policy seem to actually remove the ability of local government to respond effectively to these challenges. Indeed the moves towards radical public service reform wrapped up within the discourse of ‘Building the Big Society’ seem to sit most comfortably within the conception of a residual local authority acting primarily as commissioners rather than deliverers of local public services.

This approach risks the continued hollowing out of local capacity from local government with complex strategic issues reduced to a disparate set of contracts. It is always interesting to hear about local authorities like Enfield who reject this fate and are instead determined to redefine their role, establishing clear plans for service delivery. Last week Enfield Council hosted a conference which sought to consider what the role of the co-ordinating council should be in a landscape where services are becoming increasingly fragmented. In an article prior to the conference Enfield’s Council leader Doug Taylor makes the highly salient point that common services such as street cleansing can only be provided within a single area wide framework. Just imagine different waste vans competing to collect rubbish from the same street? He opened the conference by emphasising the importance of a strategic co-ordinating role for local government and this was very much the theme for the rest of the day.

Setting out the current opposition thinking

Caroline Flint (Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) pitched her address well by emphasising that the breadth of services that local government provides as well as its unique democratic mandate means it is well placed to be a place shaper as well as a service provider. The Shadow Minister then went on to outline the three pressing challenges that the sector needs to address;

Restoring the public finances in a way that is fair and supports jobs and growth
Improving public services, making them fairer and more efficient
Reversing the trend of disengagement from the political process and civil society

When seeking to predict future opposition thinking around the future of local government, it is important to understand that market based orthodoxies have very much become the prevailing public policy norm regardless of which party is in power. The real test of opposition thinking is likely to come when the Shadow Local Government team set out with clarity how they will ensure that the capacity, knowledge and expertise to intervene in local communities is both retained and enhanced.

Should the role of the local authority be as a co-ordinator of services and provider of last resort?

It is clear that if the result of government policy is to increasingly fragment service provision, then local government will have to carve out a vastly different role for itself. There are however radically different and competing views on what the future role for local authorities should be. Too often this debate has been driven by a comfortable acceptance of orthodoxies such as markets, competition and choice rather than seeking a strong values framework within which to make decisions and drawing upon evidence of what has actually been shown to work. The conference clearly set out two quite distinct visions for the future, which could be summarised as collaboration vs competition.

The standout speech of the day was definitely the one given by the Chief Executive of Family Action who put across a compelling case for greater collaboration between the public and voluntary sectors, pressing home the point that local government is key to the size, vibrancy and quality of the voluntary sector. There have been many commitments from Government ministers to put the voluntary sector at the heart of public service reform, opening up new opportunities for them to deliver public services as part of the Big Society. Yet what came through very strongly was that yes there does need to be much more of a level playing field between sectors; but between the private sector and the voluntary sector, where there are often vast disparities in the length of contracts that are awarded to deliver public services. This would seem to be contradicted by recent soundings from Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, implying that the Government will not scale back plans to use for profit providers in public services in an attempt to boost charities and social enterprises.

Really vital issues were raised about what the co-ordinating council means for democracy. Who will be accountable as service delivery gets more fragmented? Service deliverers or commissioners?

In light of some of these issues that were raised around democracy and accountability, it was great to hear the speaker make the positive case for local government and urge the sector to reclaim some of its ground as a deliverer of services. Equally, the narrative that is often propagated amongst certain elements of the media that the public sector is inefficient and creativity can only come out of the private sector must be challenged.

An altogether different vision for the future of local government was articulated by other members of the panel who sought to emphasise the importance of choice and competition in public service delivery. Clearly there is a belief amongst certain stakeholders that more competition will generate the entrepreneurial spirit that is necessary to redesign services. This narrative should be challenged because real innovation must come from those closest to the frontline rather than a top down, one size fits all approach to redesigning services that has been proven not to work.

What role for the co-ordinating council?

No local government event would be complete without Tony Travers, Director of the Greater London Group at LSE who closed the event by giving his views on what the future landscape in local government might look like. Emphasising that whilst fragmentation of service provision is likely; all the basic units of the state will still be in place. The overall message from the conference as a whole was that there is a real necessity for an institution with the specific accountability that is derived from the ballot box and which has the capacity to shape an area.

The conference itself outlined a really interesting vision for the future of local government styled around the idea of the ‘co-ordinating council’. Only the local authority can join up services and shape the local area, only the local authority can advocate across the whole of the local area with one single voice and only the local authority can distribute services and spending fairly. This isn’t an arrogant out of touch vision that says that the local authority is irreplaceable; but one that draws upon a deep sense of responsibility and straightforward accountability to local people and local communities.

This represents a clear and compelling vision for the future of local government. Yet some of the potential problems with the co-ordinating council became much more apparent after listening to Tony Travers’ closing address. There are unresolved contradictions between increased fragmentation of service provision and the logic of place shaping and local democracy. The conference was very much focused around how to respond to a more fragmented service landscape yet, it seems to me that the challenges that local government faces are so big that there needs to be much more focus on avoiding this service fragmentation in the first place. In light of this, I came away with two key questions that must be answered about the co-ordinating council before it can be considered to be a workable alternative model to what the Government are driving forward;

Is there a need to retain a strong core of directly delivered services in order to ensure that the capacity to shape the wider local place is retained?

What are the implications for democracy and local accountability if service provision becomes increasingly fragmented?

Written by Adele Reynolds

Housing: Bricks or Bubbles?

Big Society, Co-ops and mutuals, Community Action, Uncategorized No Responses »

Jun 102011

No longer seen as ‘safe as houses’, there has been a recognition following the financial crisis, that the housing market is inextricably linked to the health of the wider economy. When the bubble bursts for housing, the effects are felt widely. A recent report: Forever Blowing Bubbles, by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) makes the link between the fate of the housing market and the fate of the economy very clear. It suggests a number of solutions:

Increase the supply of housing – ‘clearly necessary…, but alone it is insufficient and slow to take effect’
Explicit consideration of house prices in monetary policy
and fiscal policy too – ‘but arguably tangential,… and politically highly fraught’
Regulation of credit – is suggested by IPPR as the key area of focus (and they state this also what IMF and OECD want to focus on).

IPPR does also suggest ‘improving the strength of substitutes to owner occupation’ through, for example, reform of the private rented sector, improve market pricing, and to prevent ‘moral hazard’ (e.g. the assumption that house prices can only go up).

But is there another way? The IPPR suggestions are still framed in the discourse of ‘market knows best’ and that we should tweak the regulation of markets to mitigate the effects of housing bubbles and the after-effects of them bursting. This persistent orthodoxy of the markets (in addition to suggesting a collective amnesia of the banking crisis that preceded the recession) prevents more radical solutions being mooted.

In her blog, below, Adele Reynolds, also seems frustrated at the pervasiveness of the orthodoxy that the principles of private sector markets still rule the discourse of local government. Adele’s analysis of KPMG’s concept of what a ‘Brilliant Council’ should look like demonstrate the need for us to boldly offer alternative ideas.

An idea that is worth examining in more detail in the provision of housing and the avoidance of overblown bubbles, is the idea of de-coupling the vagaries of the market and the provision of affordable homes. One example of this is the Community Land Trust (CLT) model in the United States of America. At a recent National Housing Federation conference the example of providing homes through CLTs was provided by Dev Goetschius and John Emmeus Davis who urged us to “take a stand on the land”.

In the USA, and very important to the success of the CLT approach, the value of the property is not linked to value of land, it is independent of the market. It is linked instead to average income and earnings in the area. In a number of schemes the leasehold of the home is available to the occupier, but the freehold of the land is retained by the Trust – the land itself always remains debt free and detached from market prices. There are varying models in U.S – but the key is that the resale value of homes is independent of land value.

There are some excellent examples of CLTs closer to home, at High Bickington in Devon affordable homes are being provided’ and at Lyvennet in Cumbria the model is being expanded to include a village pub and other community resources. In the U.K these CLT models share many of the values of their U.S counterparts, but the value of land and property is still wedded to the market. Successful CLTs in this country are dependent on generous landowners gifting land, charitable organisations providing start-up capital funding, or public sector agencies providing land and support for projects.

CLTs are an exciting part of the solution to provide affordable homes following a recession. There are some excellent home-grown examples. However, perhaps it is time to think more radically about how we value land and property – there may be some scope for the model from the U.S.A where the value of the home is linked to average incomes, rather than over-inflated market prices which have a tendency to balloon and then burst.

Written by Jo Richardson. Editor and contributing author of the policy press book (2010): From Recession to Renewal.

If you’re happy and you know it….

Big Society, Spending cuts, Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 142011

The movement Action for Happiness launched earlier this week with members buying cups of coffee for strangers and giving out ‘free hugs’. With 4,500 initial members across 60 countries it has big aims to become a mass global movement.

Anthony Seldon (one of the three founding members of the movement) writing in an article for the Telegraph[1] recognises the challenges to happiness and provides examples of depression in young people, closing post offices and the impact of the wider economic pressures. However, he suggests that there is scientific evidence that ‘happiness’ can be taught and it increases productivity. Action for Happiness teaches 10 steps and Seldon summarises these ideas in his newspaper article. In addition to keeping physically fit, we are encouraged to ‘do good to feel good’, to ‘go out on a date with one’s partner at least once a week’, and to ‘take time to bond deeply with one’s children’.

10 steps to happiness

Do things for others
Connect with people
Take care of your body
Notice the world around
Keep learning new things
Have goals to look forward to
Find ways to bounce back
Take a positive approach
Be comfortable with who you are
Be part of something bigger

Basic human needs and wellbeing

To position oneself in opposition to the general notion of happiness would be miserly, however there are some difficulties in accepting the notion of ‘self-help’ in the happiness stakes without some of the fundamentals being in place. Maslow, in his (1943) Theory of Human Motivation, referred to a hierarchy of needs where the most basic needs such as food, water, shelter, safety and security had to be in place before social, ego and self actualization needs could be met. Seldon says that happiness is not about materialism, but there must surely be some basis on which happiness is built. Glimpses of happiness are perhaps possible without access to water and a safe place to live, but these glimmers dwell in spontaneous fleeting moments and cannot have permanence as a state of mind for those who are without stability and security. How does someone who is homeless, or jobless, follow the 10 steps to happiness?

In line with the idea that happiness goes beyond materialism, Wilkinson and Pickett (2009)[2] looked at wellbeing in rich countries in their research, and they found that it does not grow exponentially in line with economic growth and individual income. They suggest that economic growth has largely done its work in rich countries, instead they find that lack of wellbeing – whether social, health or some other measure – is dependent more on inequality than overall levels of poverty. This also echoes Sen’s (1999)[3] notion that it is the freedom of opportunity to achieve wellbeing, rather than well being itself which is a more appropriate measure in the study of inequality.

Sandel (2009)[4] has called for a new public debate about the moral limits of markets and a more robust public discourse engaging with moral issues. In making a case for a ‘politics of the common good’, Sandel suggests that this would help rebuild institutions and the structure of civic and public life. He suggests that altruism is not a scarce resource, but that this and moral guidance are characteristics that, like muscles in the body, can grow stronger with exercise.

The tyranny of positive thought

In her book Smile or Die, Ehrenreich (2010)[5] discusses this notion of individual responsibility to be positive. In her particular study, the encouragement to be positive is in order to secure a successful outcome in the context of illness, specifically cancer. She suggests that there is a ‘tyranny’ of positive thought which means that an individual can secure health, wealth and happiness if only they themselves are positive. Ehrenreich goes as far as to suggest, in a different context, that unfettered positivity could have in part led to financial institutions and governments ignoring the warnings of individuals that the financial system could not be sustained, because their views were not ‘positive’. Ignoring the negative could possibly have ultimately led to the banking crisis. Equally, she suggests that if individuals are held responsible for their own destiny (if you’re positive then redundancy is an ‘opportunity’ rather than a threat) then it negates the need for the state or private employers to support those who find themselves out of a job due to the current economic climate.

Support happiness

There is of course value in happiness, wellbeing, altruism and other notions discussed, not just by Action for Happiness, but thinkers such as Sen and Sandel. Optimism must surely beat pessimism and happiness has to be better than unhappiness – very few people would want to position themselves in opposition to these aims. However, the warnings of Ehrenreich and others should be heeded – the instructions to ‘take happiness seriously’ and to follow the 10 steps to happiness should not rest solely on each of us as individuals with the assumption that we have ultimate control over our own destiny. The wider context and the impact of inequality must be considered. In the current economic climate, there are real barriers to happiness – cuts to local public services are seeing communal neighbourhood spaces closing. If you live in an area where the local swimming pool has closed, it makes it that much more difficult to follow step 3 (Take care of your body) and if the library has shut nearby then step 5 (Keep learning new things) may also be a challenge. If we are to follow the 10 steps to happiness then there is still a need for government to lead and support communities to enable the very institutions and facilities that might help increase welfare and happiness. We need to support happiness, not leave it up to individuals and blame them for their own unhappiness when they have been failed by the market and the state.

Written by Jo Richardson

[1] 12^th April, Action for Happiness: why tackling the nation’s depression is long overdue, www.telegraph.co.uk (particular page offline at the time of blog publication).

[2] Wilkinson, R and Pickett, k (2009) The Spirit Level, why more equal societies almost always do better, London: Allen Lane

[3] Sen, A (1999) Commodities and Capabilities, New Delhi: Oxford University Press

[4] Sandel, M (2009) Reith Lectures 2009: A New Citizenship, Lecture 4, BBC Radio 4, 30^th June 2009

[5] Ehrenreich, B (2010) Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World, London: Granta Books

Community Organising: Personalising and Polarizing

Big Society, Citizen Engagement, Community Action, Localism No Responses »

Apr 012011

Lord Maurice Glasman came to De Montfort University on 31^st March to talk about a wide range of issues encompassing Big Society, faith, research and community organising. Glasman is known for his critique of the relentless march of the free market in his book, Unnecessary Suffering, a point of view which has been echoed in the analysis of the recession in our book From Recession to Renewal

I was particularly inspired by Lord Glasman’s lessons, in the talk at DMU, on community organising and the links with my own ideas on the co-production of research with minority groups. The grass-roots approaches to solving the problematic shortage of accommodation (particularly for Gypsies and Travellers) through community land trusts is an area of current research, specifically examining one new pilot project in the South West.

Lord Glasman has already neatly outlined the important lessons in community organising in his own blog examining the secrets of Obama’s success. Some of these lessons were key in the Citizens UK fight with banks and other organisations to get a living wage for employees. In his talk to DMU, Glasman referred to the rules of ‘personalise’ and ‘polarize’ taught by Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals (1971). There is a need to ‘Always work inside the experience of your people’ (personalise) and to ‘Wherever possible go outside the experience of your opponents’ (polarize). A short film on Citizens UK explains how in the early 1990′s one man (Mr Abdul Durrant) put the Chair of HSBC (Sir John Bond) outside of his own experience when he explained that although they worked in the same office (one as a cleaner on less than a living wage, the other as head of the bank in line for millions of pounds in potential bonus) they lived in different worlds. The result of this personalising and polarizing technique was a living wage for all employees in this bank, and then later in other banks and organisations. Having had success in the university sector too Citizens UK has its sights set on the big supermarkets now.

Working with community groups, particularly the Gypsy and Traveller communities who are often marginalised in society and who do not have enough places to live, or sufficient access to healthcare and education, I am particularly interested in engaged research co-produced with the community. This is so that problems are truly understood, and community members are empowered as part of the research process – rather than having research ‘done’ to them. Lord Glasman’s speech on the importance of independent community action gave renewed meaning to this approach and provided fresh confidence that ‘academic’ researchers do have a mandate for getting involved in communities rather than attempting to maintain a distance. Practitioner academics (or as Kevin Orr might say ‘pracademics’) have a role to play in the co-production of ideas with the communities they aim to help.

Glasman’s speech also reminded me of why I got into ‘housing’ in the first place. As a senior year student in the United States 20 years ago I volunteered for a brief period with an organisation called New York City Relief to help the homeless in New York[1]. This was a faith based charity providing food, clothes, some medical treatment, plus housing and employment advice to the very neediest people in New York society; it was community organisation in action and the project is still growing in capacity and reach. My involvement with New York City Relief prompted me to think about issues of social exclusion, community, housing need, poverty and discrimination – it is refreshing after a time in academia to remember this sense of purpose and to inject this into my ‘pracademic’ work.

Written by Jo Richardson

[1]This was before the time of Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his punitive policies on homelessness in New York.

Community action works! Levenshulme Baths saved!

Big Society, Citizen Engagement, Spending cuts 2 Responses »

Mar 032011

As part of the current Coalition government’s deficit reduction strategy, October’s Comprehensive Spending Review handed local government the toughest financial settlements across the public sector. This budget cut was passed down to local authorities with Manchester City Council receiving one of the harshest and unfair financial settlements - compounded by the loss of substantial additional funding which reflected the level of deprivation in the city - resulting in a front-loaded budget cut of 25%.

Manchester City Council recently announced a plan to make these savings - £109 million in the next financial year and £170 million in the following year- proposing: the cutting of 2000 jobs, 17% of the current workforce; a cut in children’s services of 26%; 21% in adult services; along with the closure of public toilets, libraries, leisure centres and swimming pools. The council has been attacked by central government, for making party politics by targeting front line services. The council has responded by saying that this level of cuts simply cannot be absorbed through efficiency savings.

One of the swimming pools under threat of closure is in Levenshulme, a diverse and deprived area of south Manchester. Levenshulme is also the place where I live. I have used the baths two or three times a week since I moved to the area nearly three years ago. The baths are always busy and act as a social hub for the area, being well used by a wide cross-section of the community including local primary schools.

On 9 February, following the announcement of the proposed closure, over 150 people gathered outside the baths in a spontaneous protest which received national media coverage. A community email list, Facebook group and online petition were quickly organised. On the Friday of that week, a meeting – attended by over 200 people – was held at the local community centre, Levenshulme Inspire to plan action to save the baths. This action meeting was followed by a protest the following day where over 500 people marched along the high street to the baths. Regular action meetings have been held weekly, other protest and fundraising events have included a ‘swim in’, a banner making workshop, a beacon event which made the link between the closure of the baths and the Olympic legacy pledge. A local youth group is now making a documentary about the campaign.

The campaign has been by the community and for the community and particular mention should be made about the activities of the children from local primary schools which regularly use the baths. Pupils made banners, signs – many saying ‘I learnt to swim at Levenshulme Baths’! – but most impressively, several spoke at meetings and presented about the importance of the baths to them and why they should be saved.

This campaign is undeniably political. But there has been a strong consensus amongst campaigners that it should not be party political. Indeed all three of the main parties have received criticism about the proposed closure. Councillors and local MPs have had an opportunity here to really be champions of the communities they espouse to represent and it is one that shouldn’t be squandered by political point scoring which only angers the community further. Councillors have however listened to this strong campaign from the community and made a u-turn and have now asked officers to find funds for a modern, most cost-effective facility for Levenshulme and to keep the existing baths open until this replacement is available.

The decision to save Levenshulme Baths has been met with a degree of surprise and a great deal of relief and happiness in the community. Moreover, it has given confidence that community action can work even in the seemingly most difficult of economic situations. Being involved in this protest has been inspiring not only for its impact, but for the energy, organisation and enthusiasm of the campaign. The lessons I will take from this campaign are: believe you can succeed, act quickly, get organised, be inclusive and try and make it fun.

The wider campaign against the cuts in Manchester continues with the real concern that whilst Levenshulme Baths may be saved, it is likely that another public service in Manchester will be hit. For all its espoused enthusiasm for community organising and action in the so-called ”Big Society’, the Coalition government is likely to find that much of this action is likely to be resistance to its policies as cuts begin to impact on the lives of ordinary people.

What does Big Society mean?

Big Society, Citizen Engagement No Responses »

Mar 012011

Does Big Society = a + ß₁occ + ß₂qual + ß₃eth + ß₃age + ε?

This is not April 1^st arrived early! Consulting Inplace has published a report on which local authority areas are best prepared for the big society. It has also had extensive media coverage.

As with much quantitative statistical research, the relevance of the findings depends on the adequacy and availability of information i.e. rubbish data leads to poor research findings. In this case, the emphasis is on formal volunteering and participating in decision making. It makes claims that these are prerequisites for swift progress on Big Society and further argues that factors such as occupations, qualifications, ethnicity and age are critical. These latter points are hardly earth-shattering! Localities with people having high-level qualifications and managerial occupations do indeed get more involved formally in activities compared to other areas.

More fundamentally, a key issue is whether formal volunteering and involvement in local decision-making is an adequate measure of Big Society. What about informal activities such as helping neighbours, supporting local facilities and investing time in grass-roots organisations? There needs to be a new unit of measurement in any analysis of the potential for Big Society, rather than a ‘time served’ approach to how volunteer-minded a city is. Some of the ‘invisible’ volunteering that has been happening without a government sanctioned framework needs to be recognised – a grey volunteering economy that is difficult to measure now needs taking into account when examining and evaluating Big Society.

One example of measuring and recognising activities that may, hitherto, have gone unnoticed is the Active Learning for Residents programme at the Chartered Institute of Housing. Employees of housing organisations have undertaken training to become official ‘recognisers’ so that they can mentor tenants through a series of learning activities to gain a level 2 qualification. This may help tenants who have contributed to their communities and who do not have the formal qualifications to get access to the workplace, to have their achievements recognised. But, does it change the nature of community action and volunteering? Are we in danger of changing the very thing we study, by imposing top-down frameworks of measuring and ‘recognising’?

However, before we all denigrate quantitative research, we ought to take a step back from the current confused debate and discussions on Big Society. There is little substance in many of the contributions. We, therefore, badly need robust research on Big Society, community engagement and capacity building. Ten years ago, Robert Putnam’s research on social capital was in vogue. His work was also criticised for its emphasis on formal groups and societies; but it generated considerable interest at the time too.

We, therefore, ought to revisit the work on bridging and bonding capital and link it with current studies to take forward the Big Society debate as part of a robust research framework. Rather than undertaking research from an detached point of view, future work to analyse Big Society should perhaps take the form of ‘co-produced’ research in partnership with the very communities it seeks to observe, in order to properly understand the connections and contributions that people are making in their society but which are not formally measured. Such findings could have impact locally and might produce evidence to question ‘Big Society = a + b₁occ + b₂qual + b₃eth + b₃age + e’ and instead attempt to properly understand hitherto unrecognised contributions to community, from the community, and according to communities’ own frames of reference rather than externally imposed methods of measurement and recognition.

Written by Tim Brown & Jo Richardson

Alistair Campbell talks to the DMU Politics Society

Big Society, Localism, Spending cuts, Uncategorized No Responses »

Feb 232011

Alistair Campbell came to De Montfort University last week to talk to the Politics Society. He was keen to promote the latest edition of his Diaries (1997-1999) as well as two novels – both of which have been nominated on separate occasions for the ‘Bad Sex in Fiction’ award! However, beyond the book promotion and declarations of love for Burnley football team, there were some key themes in his answers to students’ questions.

On Localism and Big Society

There was a sceptical back-drop to the discussion, with Campbell suggesting Big Society was ‘dreamt up’ without really thinking about the implications. It was suggested that the Prime Minister should consider the need for expert advisers in the wake of ‘idiotic policies’ such as selling off forests, which showed the centre didn’t know what the departments were doing. Insofar as there is a philosophy to the Big Society, it is about people ‘sorting themselves out’.

On the Coalition Government

‘We’ve got a Tory government now’…

Whilst recognising that Conservative politicians like Osborne are on a completely different part of the political spectrum he seemed to show some respect for clear political agenda. Osborne, like Thatcher, has an ideological agenda to retract the state and Campbell seemed to respect politicians who have a clear vision.

On NHS Reform

Campbell suggested that if the government went through with reform that in, say, two years they would come to regret it – ‘it’ll become their poll tax’.

On Deficit Reduction

‘There are always alternatives…’

Whilst there is criticism in some of Campbell’s answers to the DMU Politics Society, on the current Government’s ideological and practical responses to the economic situation; some of the issues are not new to Coalition policies, but an extension of what was already happening under New Labour. The lack of co-ordination between departments and with the centre, for example, was something consistently targeted at New Labour, in spite of the former Prime Minister’s expert advisers.

So, Alistair Campbell came to answer students’ questions (and sell some books). The nature of the event meant that there was not a speech with a coherent focus, but instead a series of responses to a set of disparate questions; but nonetheless, this was a lively and entertaining peek into the mind of the former government spin doctor. We should also not forget that Campbell has moved on from the front-line political fray and so does not speak directly on behalf of Labour politicians any more.

The strength and speed of the Coalition government’s policies on Big Society, health service reforms, Localism and public spending cuts have perhaps taken the wind out of Labour’s sails in mounting a coherent opposition to the proposals. Let’s hope that the DMU Politics Society can get Ed Milliband to come to talk later in the year with a stronger message in the face of such sweeping Coalition government changes to our public services.

Is regeneration dead?

Big Society 1 Response »

Feb 142011

In the recent financial settlement for local government, many urban authorities have been hard hit by the removal of specific grants for regeneration. The tail end of the New Labour administration saw an erosion of faith in holistic regeneration initiatives at the neighbourhood level, as evidence emerged of the limited impact of policies such as New Deal for Communities. Has the time of holistic regeneration strategies now passed? Does this matter? What will we see in the future?

The early period of the New Labour government saw a proliferation of targeted policy initiatives aimed at ‘narrowing the gap’ between the most deprived places and the national average, with interventions across sectors including health, education and economic development. As evaluation evidence on these initiatives began to emerge, central government seemed to have a crisis of confidence in their ability to deliver. In a context of widening social inequality and slowing social mobility, evaluation evidence seemed to suggest limited lasting value of these resource-intensive interventions with positive change in the physical environment being coupled with limited change on social indicators such as worklessness.

Many commentators have framed New Labour’s neighbourhood regeneration policies as part of a ‘roll out’ of a wider neo-liberal project aiming to open up new market possibilities, for example the Housing Market Renewal initiative. Our take is that New Labour’s neighbourhood policies implied, certainly towards the end of its reign the opposite: a government in disarray without a clear strategic agenda. Neighbourhood policies seem to have addressed some of the symptoms of poverty in disadvantaged areas but have been reluctant to address some of the underlying structural problems. For all the criticism, from the standpoint of crushing cuts to local authority budgets and by extension to voluntary and community organisations it seems now that this period may seem a ‘golden age’ . The current Tory-led Coalition government seem ‘intensely relaxed’ about the potential for widening inequalities in all areas of social policy representing a radical break from New Labour’s paranoia about the so-called ‘postcode lottery’ but also a move away from targeted interventions in disadvantaged communities. Whilst ‘neighbourhood’ is a theme in the ‘Big Society’, it is not clear what will happen to existing structures or what new structure may be needed to deliver on this agenda.

Does the shift in economic context and a change of government herald a death knell for regeneration? Or does the current policy agenda create space for ‘localist’ neighbourhood regeneration? Can localist approaches develop and flourish in the context of a financial settlement for local government, particularly where urban deprived authorities have received the worst deal?

Catherine Durose is Senior Research Fellow in the Local Governance Research Unit at De Montfort University

James Rees is Research Fellow at the Third Sector Research Centre, University of Birmingham

Big Society and Spending cuts

Big Society, Citizen Engagement, Commissioning, Spending cuts No Responses »

Feb 092011

What does big society mean? This appears to mean different things to different stakeholders and until there is a coherent and shared viewpoint frictions and possibly fractures within the system will ultimately be a detriment to the very people it is intended to serve.

Is it about involving people in the community and transforming us in to a social society rather than a individualistic?

Is it about finding alternative revenue streams and methods of delivery for essential public services given the spending policy decisions of governments and local authorities?

Has due consideration been given to the current volunteers and their motivations which are predominantly beneficiery or ideologically driven.

The NCVO is highlighting problems in funding cuts to the volunteer sector under cutting the development of the “Big Society” but this is only a tip of the iceburg.

Volunteering and social activity is becoming a way for many young people to enhance CVs and stand out from the crowd. Even talk of future care benefits in return for volunteering.

There is a move to outsource large contracts to private providers who will commission third parties (including charities) to carry out the work. This is causing ethical concerns for volunteers working freely for profit making organisations at arms length.

Most of the current voluntery sector is beneficiary driven and this group seems to be getting least consideration in the debate, which is causing great dilemmas for many in the voluntery sector who are desperately looking for ways to mitigate the impact of cuts on their constituents.

We seem to be having a three way (at least) pull. Some seeing compassion as a commodity to be used for future benefits (CV or other rewards) as per the Public Choice theoretical background. Some seeing it as a way (possibly contractually) to devolve some essential services to unpaid volunteers in a a Principal-Agent relationship based on needs to meet minimum standards. And others seeing their advocacy and enhancements roles for beneficieries being replaced by the need to protect beneficieries by changing their ethos.

We are in danger of commodifying compassion and achieving the opposite outcome of the aims of encouraging a community ethos.

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Big Society and Spending cuts

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