Neighbourhoods

The interplay between formal and informal modes of operating

How much do tensions between formal and informal modes of operating affect what happens in the community sector? People in community groups tend to feel more comfortable with informality and may be intimidated by formal processes, codes and context. But formal regulations, structures and policies, as Alison Gilchrist made clear in her William Plowden Fellowship lecture at NCVO this week, can rightly be seen as ‘necessary mechanisms for mitigating risk and maintaining standards’.

Red tape and the sins of bureaucracy can restrict, delay and hinder progress. But if emotions are curbed and personal biases constrained, sometimes that can be a good thing; and formality may well protect collective goals so that these can be pursued regardless of the individuals involved.

Likewise, reflecting on the effect of informal processes we may see that while they can be liberating and creative, allowing people to nurture trust and loyalty, they can also mask and perpetuate hidden power imbalances.

Alison set out to challenge the default position of ‘formal as normal’ and concludes that

‘informal and formal modes are best regarded as neither opposite ends of a spectrum nor a dichotomy. A more nuanced, dialectical approach is needed.’

Watch out for her report and hopefully a few short articles expounding on this work. For the moment, I’d select the following from her recommendations:

• For policy: seek to enable, not control

Informal as valid and valuable;

Be aware of power/status issues;

• For practice: uphold responsive flexibility

Encourage opportunities for informal learning and exchange;

Use ‘just enough’ formality where functionally useful;

Build in conviviality - fun, food and face-to-face interactions.

 

Commons sense: CDJ special supplement

Occasionally my amateur interest in the history of the commons pokes through – for example while exploring the history of eating in public, questioning the present government’s attitude to public ownership, reflecting on the system of gebuurten developed in medieval European cities of Belgium and the Netherlands, or simply delighting in the history of neighbours.

Perhaps we'll all be thinking and writing more on the topic, on the grounds that

‘It is almost a law of contemporary social life that the more commons are attacked, the more they are celebrated.’

This quote comes from an article in a special supplement on the commons, published by the good folk at Community development journal. Here's the blurb:

Commons sense: new thinking about an old idea

All articles permanently free to download

Editors

Mary McDermott, Tom O’Connell and Órla O’Donovan

This Special Supplement aims to introduce the efflorescence of commons activism and thinking to people who are new to the old idea. In addition to celebrating how the commons can enrich our perceptions of the present and possible, the contributors caution us to look critically at contemporary discourses on the commons, recognizing how some actually reinforce capitalism, albeit with a human face. The articles demonstrate a high degree of reflexivity, along with clear and critical assessments by commoners themselves of their own projects. In articles focused on contemporary urban, water, knowledge and traditional music commons in contexts ranging from South Africa, Bolivia and Ireland, commoning right here, right now is considered.  True to the spirit of the movement itself, many of the debates taking place between commoners with different ‘common senses’ are explored.

The collection helped me appreciate how so many of the arguments and warnings about threats to the commons were offered by Ivan Illich years ago. It also gives us all a chance to reassess the relation between the commons and community development: could we have the latter without the former? As Maria Mies points out, reflecting on the village where she grew up,

‘no real community could exist without commons. All persons in the community were responsible to maintain and care for the commons, even children. This responsibility was not enforced by formal law, because it was evident to everybody that people's survival and subsistence depended on the commons and on free communal work.’

So take a look. Here you can have a think about paradoxes in the current momentum behind open access academic publishing, observing Orla O’Donovan’s ‘search for cracks in the pay walls that commodify and enclose much publicly subsidised research that should be common knowledge.’ You can reflect on the perception of traditional Irish music as ‘an artistic and cultural commons’ and the ‘annexation’ of sites of performance by the commerce of copyright. (Or as I did, just ponder how an author can describe himself as ‘radically rooted’).

I recall that Illich’s works were out of print for some years in the UK, presumably because there was ‘no market’ for them. Perhaps that’s as strong an indicator as we need for the counter-productive mismatch between the cultural commons and late capitalism.

 

Interdependence and a different kind of care in the community

Some years ago I wrote a piece on neighbouring and older people in which I placed some emphasis on the concept of interdependence. I certainly didn’t invent the principle but I was puzzled as to why it did not feature much in the literature nor among the expressed values of agencies working to promote the interests of older people.

I’m currently taking another look at the literature around neighbourhood support for older people and I note that the relative lack of interest in interdependence seems to prevail.

I’m not talking about the narrative in the popular press and broadcast media which problematizes the ageing population and implicitly presents older people as over-dependent on others and a burden on society. (This narrative is punctuated with patronising gasps of widespread astonishment at the occasional discovery of an older person who is active and involved). Nor do I deny that many older people are dependent and need committed care: looking after them is a social responsibility which should never be seen as unwelcome.

Researchers and commentators on ageing do not endorse the condemnatory ‘burden’ stereotype; but neither do many of them seem to grasp the fact that older people contribute to local neighbourhood life in many ways, subtle or emphatic. Nor do many seem to grasp the potential for even more older people to contribute, if the culture was supportive.

I don’t think it helps that policy is blind to the concept of informal support. As far as government is concerned, if you’re not volunteering formally – preferably under the aegis of a registered charity – you may as well not be doing anything for your fellow-citizens.

So it was with some delight that I came across this paper in the Journal of ageing studies, based on focus groups and interviews in Aotearoa New Zealand, which highlights the contributions made by older people to the places where they live (which the researchers call ‘care for place’). The analysis results in a framework of four categories of activity: volunteering, activism, advocacy, and nurturing – ‘helping and representing others, giving advice and support, or facilitating action, whether individually or as part of a group.’

This has always been the case I believe – from litter-picking to emotional support to informal childcare or taking in post or maintaining vigilance over local amenities, articulating public concern and spearheading campaigns and so on – but it needs to be described and acknowledged before the gravity of ‘the burden discourse’ drags us all down. So this is a very welcome piece of research.

And perhaps this is one of those rare occasions where some kind of locally-applicable ‘toolkit’ could be developed (sorry, I try not to use the word), to help community agencies demonstrate the extent of the ongoing contribution of those who society would readily discard. Quantifying the number of volunteer-hours would allow an estimate of financial value, in line with the WRVS study which showed that people over 65 made a net contribution to the UK economy of £40 billion in 2010. WRVS noted:

‘Our research shows that every year, each older volunteer spends an average of over 100 hours 'informally' volunteering and more than 55 hours in formal volunteering roles. This is worth £10 billion to the UK economy.’

 

Whatever happened to ‘publicness’?

Last week I chaired a panel debate on community managed libraries, at the national conference of CILIP (formerly and more recognisably The Library Association). It’s hard to keep up with this rapidly changing but hugely symbolic issue. I try to do so not least because – as I have argued often before - our libraries are one of the few things left that consolidate the public realm.

For three years now whatever is regarded as public has been under sustained, unambiguous attack by the present government under the guise of ‘necessary’ public sector spending cuts. Deliberate inaction in defence of the public library network, by the minister with responsibility for them, is in my view manifestly strategic. I am not likely to forget having been at the pre-election launch of the big society three years ago, when we were told that

‘Neighbourhoods will be able to bid to take over the running of community amenities, such as parks and libraries that are under threat.'

The ‘threat’ had yet to be articulated but the clear message was that if people really wanted their public amenities, they would demonstrate this in practical ways by showing a readiness to manage them unpaid: and if not, those resources, tainted by the ideology of being collectively owned, would be allowed to wither.

Some still haven’t seen the plainness of this particular writing on walls all round the country. Many people seem ready to blame their local council for the circumstances they find their libraries in, but it’s just too much intellectual effort to work out why those councils – and the economy - are in the state they’re in. Of those who recognise that the problem goes beyond local government, most seem to have signed up to the myth of excessive Labour spending (even though there is 'no evidence that increases in social policy spending caused a crisis in the public finances preceding the global financial crisis and recession’ - Lupton et al, 2013); the rhetoric of shirkers and scroungers; and the narrative of public sector profligacy and incompetence. All of which serves both to deny the culpability of the financial sector and to smokescreen the systematic dismantlement of things that are public.

And while we watch people in Greece, Brasil, Egypt and elsewhere express their anger against exploitation and manipulation by the Haves, in this country we go all quivery-mousy and get on with nibbling our own tails.

The sheltered, lethargic indifference and lack of political awareness seemed to have its dull echo at the CILIP debate last week, reinforced by the fact that those who work for local authorities are unable to express criticism of their employers’ policies. The tone of passive acquiescence in the room was largely about acknowledging the apparent inevitability of the current transformation of the library network into a mix of different, experimental forms of governance and day-to-day maintenance; but it also smacked of political naivety in a very English sense.

The speakers and I will be working on a short document based on the session, and I’ll make a little announcement on this blog when the time comes. In the meantime, I thought I’d just set down one of the points I made in my introductory remarks.

Several years ago, Martin Dudley and I published a short study on public libraries and community cohesion for the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. It included (p15) a framework of four essential attributes of public libraries:

• Library as resource
• Librarians as expertise
• Library as place
• Library as symbol of the public realm.

We claim no special credit for this model: it drew on the work of others before and around us, but it’s handy to have and to refer to.

More recently, the Arts Council (which has taken over the responsibility for libraries from the MLA, but with what looks like a stronger political steer from the government strategists) published the much-publicised The library of the future. The paper refers to the following three essential ingredients that ‘define the public library’:

• a safe, creative community space that is enjoyable and easy to use, in both physical and virtual form
• an excellent range of quality books, digital resources and other content
• well-trained, friendly people to help users to find what they want either independently or with support.

These will be recognisable from the list that Martin and I settled on, but there’s one missing. What happened to publicness? How is it that ‘being public’ is no longer an essential, defining characteristic of public libraries?

I can’t help wondering if the notion might just be politically inconvenient and inexpedient, perhaps? And its omission from that document and its elision in more general debate amounts to collusion in the destructive anti-public policies of the present government. Does anyone have a better explanation?

 

Think mutuality and reciprocity… and interdependence

‘Jacques is 14 years old. When he comes from school, he is welcomed by his mother and Paul H, their co-resident in the home, a man 70 years old. They are living together in one of the two kangaroo homes operated by the Public Social Welfare Centre in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek (Brussels). Each home accommodates four seniors with one single-parent family. Each resident has his/her own room, but the living areas are communal…

‘Paul, formerly a mail-sorter with the Post Office explains: "When I arrived here, I had lost my wife and was forced to leave my apartment. I felt cast loose, as if the world around me was collapsing. But since my arrival here I feel less lonely."’

This comes from a case study article on the European Urban Knowledge Network. It got me thinking about responses to the UK’s infamous so-called ‘bedroom tax’… Could co-housing offer an opportunity to emphasise mutuality and reciprocity over ‘traditional forms of support and care’ (to quote a recent UK Co-housing tweet)?

I thought I might find a one or two references to welfare policy on the UK Cohousing Network site, but just drew blanks. I can understand that they might want to steer clear of the torrid current politics. Wouldn’t we all.

But there’s an important theme here, and it’s reassuring to see how the movement promoting cohousing for older people is gathering momentum. Possibly, just possibly, it will give us all pointers for the future, for two reasons:

• First, just because it accepts a mixed economy to get things done, the cohousing movement doesn’t abandon the principle that many things are better for being collectively endeavoured, and that many things should be ‘public’; nor the principle that the existence of a public sphere is in everyone’s interests.
• And secondly, it seems to reassert the valuable notion of interdependence for older people (and I do mean ‘valuable’, in an economic as well as various other human senses). Some years ago when I was researching into neighbourliness and older people, there seemed to be some acceptance of this notion – pulling away from both a tiresome insistence on older people’s independence on the one hand and some inconsistent attitudes towards dependence on the other.

As a society we should have been exploring ways of providing infrastructure that makes interdependence and collective responsibility possible. We could pay a heavy price for our sluggish response to the looming crisis of old age, unless co-operative movements like co-housing serve to stimulate a widespread understanding of the necessity of mutuality and reciprocity.

(And I do hope you feel that this topic is a welcome antidote to the current desperate, morally bankrupt attempts to reify Thatcher).

Happy-clappy community engagement and the politics of disadvantage

Two years and five months ago I attended the (opposition) Conservative Party launch of an idea called the big society. I must admit it took me a few days to appreciate what it meant.

Since then I’ve heard people whose views I might once have respected, express enthusiasm for – even regret for the apparent passing of – this devious and snide attempt to theorise the demolition of the public, the suffocation of community action (manifestly not its liberation) and the justification for disempowering gestures of philanthropy.

Today - thank you Patrick Butler - we have a bitter-sweet example of just what big society amounts to. Patrick reports on how Children North East, a long-established organisation with a sound reputation for serving disadvantaged young people against the odds, found that the erosion of public funding for what they do stopped, abruptly, at the pockets of the charity’s staff:

They put their hands in their pocket and paid for the children's lunches themselves. The staff set up what in effect was a mini-food bank scheme. They bought ‘a little extra’ in their weekly family shopping trip, and used it to stock up the charity's new ‘pantry’.

The article quotes tellingly from the blog of the charity's chief exec, Jeremy Cripps:

So here we have a Government without the humanity to care for very vulnerable people until they are deported by giving them even a minimal amount of money to feed their children; a local authority providing shelter for those families but forced to cut back on its spending by the Government; passing that cut on to a charity which too has to economise; the buck passes to the charity's staff who cannot stand by and do nothing while in daily contact with children in basic need of food; so they take it upon themselves to make sure children do not go hungry.

The problem I have is not that this could be any kind of surprise to anybody who has been paying attention.

What bothers me is that the emergence of circumstances like these has been accompanied by a degree of encouragement among people in the new community engagement industry, who have been happy to promote a form of community development that ignores the politics of disadvantage: lots of jolly emphasis on happy-clappy ‘community’ but no recognition of the manifest and rampant social injustices that try to make philanthropy (and by extension, depoliticised community involvement) an acceptable substitute for social responsibilities.

I have suggested before that the assimilation of selective-value community development into public policy could effectively neuter the movement and marginalise the voices of anyone who protests against political injustices that cause great need. Further, it seems to me that collusion in such policies amounts to subscribing to the demonisation of the poor. That is inexcusable.

 

Anti-social behaviour and ‘the true nature of privilege’

Last week the RSA got some publicity for their idea that people should be ‘trained in basic community safety skills,’ meaning dealing with ‘antisocial behaviour and low-level public disorder’. Ben Rogers floated the idea a couple of years ago. It builds on the history of first aid lessons, and would fit into the tradition of adult education. The paper doesn’t acknowledge the fact that community centres have been running self-defence classes for women for as long as I can remember.

As so often with the RSA there’s that uncomfortable sense of appearing to say ‘we could try doing this to people’. Suggestions need to be based firmly on what people are already trying to do for themselves, in their own neighbourhoods. And if policy is to be influenced, it might be reasonable to acknowledge the value of, and strengthen opportunities for, informal and semi-formal interaction in local spaces.

Recalling the ‘respect’ agenda (lots more here, although of course the Blair government's respect website site has disappeared) I’d note that well-meaning ideas of this kind tend to lack appreciation of what it’s actually like to live in an area where the tensions of uncivil behaviour are consistently high; or that people are and always have been working to confront disorder around them.

So we read that the proposed approach ‘relies on training and skilling people to meet social challenges, rather than always resorting to the law or police’.

‘Always’? People aren’t always resorting to the law or the police. False start, immediate disqualification.

Residents almost always are already investing in the co-production of safety, often in a context where the police and other agencies are unresponsive and the law is simply not an accessible option. What's it like living on an estate characterised by civic absence? Draining, disempowering.

Lynsey Hanley, meanwhile, has stepped forward and admonished the RSA gently in this Guardian article. She goes on to point directly at the problem of ‘the true nature of privilege’ which is that ‘it allows you to live an entirely stress-free existence, should you choose to do so.’

‘Having lived for a long time in a poor area and then, for a much shorter time, in a rich one, it strikes me that the main difference is the overwhelming sense of control and "rightness" the rich area had. Anti-social behaviour was much rarer for the simple reason that people generally had better things to do and had no wish or reason to debase themselves in public.’ 

This is what I think of as the 21st century version of 'two nations'. Lynsey goes on:

‘The point is that we cannot do the work of the state without the back-up of internal as well as external resources. A fragmented neighbourhood of stressed and transient people is not going to be able to police itself as well as a settled area of contented and confident people.’

I'm sure there is scope for Ben Rogers' idea to be grafted on to existing community initiatives. As a movement of its own, I think not.

 

Footnote on collective ownership of renewable energy resources

A few weeks ago I commented on an inability in some quarters to recognise the potential of collective ownership of renewable energy resources. All credit to Adam Twine and others around him who really have been after this for a while...

This Gu article last week raises the question that I suspect the House of Commons science and technology committee, which I referred to, was really afraid of – if ordinary people get organised at local level to invest in energy sources, it’s just possible they might not choose nuclear. Tsk, what a bummer for the policy makers. As I noted, they want people to have a say in deciding on what they want them to decide on. Definitely a risky business, this democratic involvement.

 

Towards sustainable service involvement

When a bit of home decorating has to be done, old workshop flip chart sheets come in handy. I just discovered this one on the floor under a pot of paint.

I don't know where it came from but it’s definitely pre-recession, probably at least five years old, and would have been from a workshop in which I was helping participants to reflect on the relation between participation and governance. The sheet, with a quotation pasted in the centre, would have been passed round a few tables to get an accumulation of views.

Here’s the quotation, does anyone recognise it? I don’t know where it comes from, perhaps a recognised academic source or policy paper, or an online forum of some kind -

‘Community involvement costs public services significant time and money. Communities volunteer their scarce time and limited resources, taking away their energies from other activities in their community. If neither providers nor communities are clear about the objectives nor perceive any impact on decisions, on service quality or on citizen satisfaction, the policy is not sustainable in the face of tightening finances and difficult decisions about resource allocation.’

Allowing for the challenge being made, quite rightly, to the use of the word ‘communities’ rather than reference made to individuals, what struck me was that all the comments were negative, and some completely dismissive, about the sentiments expressed. ‘Wrong assumptions’, someone has scrawled. Does that imply blind faith in the ability of people in communities to bring about change?

FWIW, my own take on it would be that if community involvement proves not to be sustainable on these terms (which do not seem unreasonable in themselves) maybe it’s just not being handled properly.

Or maybe, given the current trajectory, it is subject to a gradual cultural change which is already well underway and which in time will render phrases like ‘community involvement’ meaningless: maybe we'll be talking about trying to stimulate ‘sustainable service involvement’ in what local people are doing.

So here’s a rewrite for a future workshop exercise:

‘Service involvement costs local communities significant time and energy. Officers commit scarce time and limited resources, taking away their energies from other duties in their area. If neither they nor residents are clear about the objectives nor perceive any impact on decisions, on quality of life or on citizen satisfaction, the policy is not sustainable in the face of tightening finances and difficult decisions about resource allocation.’

 

Neighbourhood planning is already being ‘re-thought’

Today saw the publication of a paper from ResPublica in association with the RIBA on Re-thinking neighbourhood planning: from consultation to collaboration.

Start with the document title and allow yourself a wee smile. Neighbourhood planning was introduced not much more than a year ago, but apparently this is long enough for it to need ‘re-thinking’ – by an organisation whose director is an acknowledged influence on contemporary Tory policy.

Then consider this: the paper argues that

‘involving communities in planning on a collaborative, rather than purely consultative basis will not only lead to more successful developments, it can also generate social capital and value…’

It’s really a bit scary if, as implied, neighbourhood planning policy hitherto had not absorbed this basic community development principle. I guess I haven’t been paying attention. It’s not clear how this cultural shift in understanding will be brought about.

But it gets better, and there’s a welcome emphasis on developing some SROI indicators. Among other recommendations it suggests that the government should:

‘appoint an independent panel of experts to define the metrics and structures required to capture the social value created through the neighbourhood planning process.’

And should accumulate evidence to:

‘create future economic indicators that can be used to monitor the social impact of neighbourhood planning as part of a ‘total neighbourhood’ approach.’

Bring on the total neighbourhood approach. Government, it is suggested, should also put in place

‘the legal framework to introduce a ‘Neighbourhood Consultation Deposit’ paid up-front on committing to a Neighbourhood Partnership Agreement, as a prerequisite for the planning application process. This should be used to fund the collaboration process and independent support for Neighbourhood Forums.’

One last thought. The words ‘expert’ and ‘expertise’ are used quite a lot in the paper, reminding me that there’s an overlooked skirmish going on in some of the dirty impasses of contemporary public policy: a fierce tussle between (often entrenched) professional defence of ‘standards,’ and political determination to break them down. (I have some sympathy with the politicians here, strongly favouring as I do an anti-professional ethos in community development and being distrustful of the way some professions become preoccupied with their own status). Oh that reminds me, by way of example, elsewhere today, the battle lines have been more firmly drawn on the question of volunteers replacing the specialised roles of staff who work in libraries. 

Planning is complex (unavoidably?) and the paper acknowledges that neighbourhood planning cannot move forward without an appropriate revision – but certainly not an abandonment - of the relation between resident and expert. This is not new but its restatement from this kind of source is very welcome.

 

When networks drift

Julian Dobson wrote a first-rate post last week on the struggle to keep the Our Society network going, reflecting on the viability of sustained action in such spaces generally.

But from where I sit, as someone who might have had something to contribute but knew from the outset that I’d not have the time to do so, Julian’s title, ‘When networks fail’, seems too negative: on what terms did it ‘fail’?

I certainly thought it was ambitiously broad-based, and I wouldn’t have expected it to thrive for years. Ambition is good, broad-based is good. I’m sure some people ‘discovered’ Our Society and made valuable connections or gained huge reassurance that they were not isolated; others got information or ideas checked out. And spin-off mini-networks will have been born or refreshed as a consequence.

Maybe Our Society will settle down as a little link-pad for the ethos it promotes. Energy has flared from it, now it's dimmed but other planets may be forming.

We simply know too little about the legacy of such efforts, making the same mistake that people in the Organisation Age did. If the evolution of our thinking is tied too closely to a name representing something highly organised (a body or a profession, a corporation, a discipline…), when the growth of that body falters, we might think our evolution has stopped. In a time of drift, go with the energy. We will have failed when we believe that drift is failure; and when we stop being ambitious.

At the end of his post Julian wryly quotes Beckett, so I can’t resist offering another quote from the master: ‘I can’t stop. I can’t go on. Let’s see what happens next.’

 

Building a sense of agency: community engagement in the age of consent

Last week Julian Dobson reported that the government “has been having a series of conversations about how to, in its words, 'mobilise neighbourhoods'”. I don’t know who these conversations are with but it sounds like they might have a bit of catching up to do. Julian reminds us that government seems to want a form of community action that gets people growing and picking apples for motherhood pie but doesn’t upset the cart.

I sense that a new phase of community engagement is emerging and I want to try and clarify what that might mean. First, four little insights from the past week or so.

• I heard how a Chinese restaurant had been inspected by the fire services, whose officers found several dangerous transgressions (not just out-of-date extinguishers) for which they could have been closed down. Rather than do that, the fire officers contacted the chair of the town’s Chinese Association, who intervened to help establish some quick fixes followed by managed upgrading, so that the business was able to keep going.
• I’ve been in conversations to facilitate a process of community engagement in an area of west London that is anticipating extensive regeneration. Our approach will be to help ensure that residents recognise that it is legitimate to have ideas and aspirations for their area; and that local agencies should provide a responsive environment in which such ideas can be tested and opportunities provided.
• I heard some trading standards officers talking about moving from a triggered prosecution approach, when a business transgresses (for example in under-age selling), to an advice and training model, encouraging traders to learn, appreciate and abide by the law. They call it ‘community protection’.
• I ran a workshop with young people who experience exclusion, who were part of a young inspectors’ scheme, whereby they gain confidence, acceptance and employability skills in return for helping local services (like libraries, surgeries, activity centres) through systematic evaluation. The young people’s role was welcomed by the receiving agencies and they could only tell me of one throw-away remark that might on a bad day have been construed as patronising.

Examples like this confirm to me that we are moving into an age in which governance is far more about permissions and consent – in both directions - than about top-down decree. This may be consistent with what has been called ‘permission-based policy-making.’ You can’t do that without genuine engagement. Most politicians haven’t spotted this, because politicians don’t tend to notice change that they haven’t brought about themselves. All four of the above examples were instigated by some of those hugely innovative, under-rated, committed people in modest-ranking roles in local public services.

This change in the relation between local people and service providers is profoundly related to the nature of the network society, which is characterised by the erosion of hierarchies and the emergence of powerful horizontal communication systems. That’s been going on for at least 20 years and is nothing whatever to do with political direction from the centre. The transformation draws on, and depends heavily on, people’s connectedness at local level.

So if government wants to understand the context of ‘mobilising neighbourhoods’ (I think that phrase probably means community action around local issues), it first needs to appreciate how neighbourly recognition and interaction underpin readiness to mobilise in time of need. That’s always been the case. The bit that I think is emerging now is about building a sense of agency at neighbourhood level, which you don’t do with flimsy rhetoric about ‘innovation’ and silly competitions and decimating the public sector.

What this is leading to is a space where people who have previously experienced only disempowerment, come to feel that they have consent to act.

 

 

 

Co-op capitalism

I'm not an economist and I've been puzzled at how little open practical debate there has been over alternative forms of capitalism during the recession.

Now here's Noreena Hertz in a Co-Op think piece outlining the potential of a capitalism associated with collaboration, loyalty and trust, interaction, social connectedness, and respect for process not just outputs.

Here are four of the features of co-op capitalism that she offers:

• The collective has value
• How we interact matters
• The network has worth
• Collaboration can trump competition.

It's a list that you might readily find on a flip chart after a workshop on community development.

I've often noted that there is a fresh receptivity to social values, albeit sometimes in a shallow way; and the evidence of their widespread application in local entrepreneurship is plentiful. As so often, we are waiting for our leaders, so-called, to catch up.

 

What are councils for?

Why do taxpayers invest in services like education which don't help people to understand why taxpayers should invest in services?

Uncritical and uninformed condemnation of the notion of state services funded through taxation is so embedded in our society and heavily reinforced by our media, it comes as a surprise to find even a public sector broadcaster taking steps to redress the balance.

The beeb went to a street in Preston, withdrew council services for six weeks and reimbursed people with their council tax. The programme involved quite a lot of interference, juggling with the logic of relations between different public services, economies of scale, the need for expertise and adherence to the law, and so forth. The result, The street that cut everything, can be seen here for a few more days.

I will pass over the trampled ethics of powerfully invasive forces, like television and all its accoutrements, provoking disagreements between neighbours.

One of the more easy-going of the televised residents observed,'you don't realise how dark it is, do you, when you turn the lights out'. The turning-off of street lights was an eye-opener, you might say. And it helps to keep the metaphors simple. On the whole, what happened was that people came to realise the point of paying for, and the complexity of, public services, some more readily than others. The woman who says at the outset, with regard to her council tax, 'I just can't see any value for money' completely revises her opinion at the end.

Behind that, there were curiosities, like the single mother insisting 'I'm not used to relying on anybody' without acknowledging that the state support she receives might just count.

With creaky logic, although the council 'doesn't exist', the programme makers require residents to invest in other council services by volunteering their time. So we see two neighbours cleaning city centre public toilets with the poignant observation,

"If you wanna use 'em you should be prepared to clean 'em."

And why not? What is to stop us organising a rota so that council money is saved and we all contribute to the maintenance of such an essential public resource? Pragmatic democracy, anyone? The big society theorists may have been missing a trick. Start with the bogs. Has anyone done the arithmetic I wonder? Depending on population obviously, it might be a duty you'd have to carry out a couple of hours in a year. Not quite the same as jury service I know but the idea's there.

John Crace in the Guardian suggests the programme helps to explain why 'the big society is probably a doomed project':

'However much people might talk up their community credentials, when given the financial choice most are only really happy to pay for the services they believe they benefit from directly and not for those they might one day need or are required by the more vulnerable. So a civilised society depends on a state which removes that choice.'

That seems a little cynical to me. The programme summarised a social experiment, and we saw plenty of evidence of mutual support and the recognition that people have differing needs for support at different times of their lives. On the whole it avoided trivialising the issues, which is more than can be said for some of the big society rhetoric.

For me the irony is always that we invest through our taxes in an education system which leaves so few people equipped to reflect on these issues. Wouldn't it be a good idea if we all as citizens emerged from the education system appreciating the reasons for democratic structures used to take decisions on public services?

 

 

It’s the civic economy

OK you need to commit a few minutes to this, please, cos it really is a bit special. Yesterday saw the launch of the Compendium for the civic economy: I’m tempted to write, ‘and the rest is history’ and leave it at that.

Speaking at the launch at NESTA, Tom Bolton, from the Centre for Cities, raised the question of how you describe an economy when its distinguishing feature is its ways of working (and, I would add, its values) rather than in terms of traditional business sectors.

The compendium gets at the question, what are the economics of localism? I think it’s possibly the most important document I’ve had my hands on so far this century. It was prepared by the ever-dependable Indy Johar, Joost Beunderman and their colleagues at 00:/. 

It records and celebrates a number of examples of civic entrepreneurship, and reflects on their significance for our understanding of how people who are not part of formal public services, and not part of the traditional private sector, are making a difference to civic and social conditions, by coming up with transformational projects and involving others in carrying them through. Some of the examples are already well-documented, and justifiably so, like Incredible Edible Todmorden and Southwark Circle. There are 25 described in the book.

Now I want to quote from the second of the authors’ six key messages, on page 169, which sums up why this matters. But I can’t copy and paste it, because for some reason someone has decided to disallow content copying on the pdf – which is obviously hugely ironic given that the text extols initiatives that promote sharing and collaboration.

The heading for this second message is (and I type): ‘Civic entrepreneurship can actively contribute to increasing the resilience, prosperity and well-being of people, places and communities’.

Next, I’d like to quote from the first message (also p169), to explain the drivers for the flourishing of civic entrepreneurship:

 

 

 

(Don’t be put off: go read it).

And next I want to quote from the fourth key message, on page 170, which clarifies the new relationships that are needed to help the civic economy evolve more widely:

 

 

 

 

I tend to be a sceptic about NESTA events which often seem like empty-syllable contests, but yesterday’s launch was inspiring, full of lucid and concise insights from panel members and other participants. Here are a few points from my notes.

Indy talked a lot about ‘respect’, for example that the new civic economy requires agencies ‘to respect groups’ human capital’ and to be ‘respectful of in-kind investment’. This is an important point, and I’d add that activists and residents sometimes need to be more respectful of the efforts made by some council officers.

Sam Coniff from Livity showed how readily this movement can be reconciled with commercial entrepreneurship. He also clarified how it is partly a network society phenomenon, noting that because the technology allows people easily to start things up, they do things that are closer to their values. Don’t pass over that too quickly: it’s a very profound point about our age.

Pam Warhurst, from Incredible Edible Todmorden, argued passionately that if you give people a positive environment to work in, they can do remarkable things. Pam insisted vehemently that people with the necessary skills and energy are there, we just have to ensure the creative environment for them.

But this is an ancient community development issue: not everywhere has a Pam Warhurst and she can’t be cloned. As I’ve noted before (eg), not all neighbourhoods have confident, articulate, respected, energetic local champions. The dynamic activists don’t think they’re particularly special, but actually they can’t be found everywhere. In many areas they simply will not emerge, at least not without in-depth community development in addition to the uncomfortable institutional change that is so widely discussed. We need to acknowledge that and not pretend that this new economy is going to spring up readily all over the place.

I suspect there’s a slight danger from reading this inspiring collection of narratives that councils and other overseer agencies will look to develop templates, in order to get similar projects running in their localities. What matters I think is to ensure that the conversations about contributing and participating take place in the right language – as Indy said, ‘engaging respectfully with people’s strengths’. The local authority shift, as Tom Bolton pointed out, requires fewer bureaucrats and regulators, and more facilitators.

In conclusion, I want to mention how well this book is written, and what a reassuring pleasure that is. The design, on the other hand, is best described as unfortunate: I shouldn’t have to get a magnifying glass out just because someone thinks 8pt grey looks good on a light brown background.

 

 

Local online network supports co-production: 'we don't expect to have to do this on a regular basis'

Hugh Flouch and I have been doing a routine for some time now talking about the way local online networks help residents to co-produce the quality of their local environment. Now here's a little gem of an example, from Harringay Online, the site which Hugh set up four years ago.

On April 18 at 14.13 Darrell Osbawn posted the following message:

'Fairlands Park is in a bit of a state. The Council knows about it and is organising some staff to come and empty the bins etc. However, there is a lot of small litter spread across the grass areas and rocks/sticks all over the play areas which the Council probably won't get. Is anyone interested in meeting at the park sometime in the next few days to spend an hour of so to help sweep the play areas and pick up the loose rubbish? If so, please send me a PM on here and we can organise a time to meet and clean.'

Less than two days later, thanks partly to the way social media helps people to organise informally, eight residents had turned out, filled ten bags of rubbish, notified the council to pick them up, and the job was done. Follow up is here.

Note the observation:

'We don't expect to have to do this on a regular basis. It was only necessary because the Council has/had not emptied the bins for 2 weeks.'

Subsequently it has been noted that due to recent public sector funding cuts the Parks Hygiene Team has been reduced from 15 to 5 persons; and the question raised:

'How can a borough be covered by 5 people, bins & litter picking?'