Through a serendipitous series of connections I find myself having agreed to 'speak out' on population issues in February.
This will be no special hardship, as population is a matter on which I have shared my thoughts on occasion already; but the difference is that this time I shall be doing so in the company of hundreds of others across the globe who also have concerns about population.
The Global Population Speak Out is a programme promoted by the Population Institute in Washington DC. It is, they say:
... designed to bring new voices into the realm of population activism and public education. By demonstrating that population is an approachable issue, especially in the context of international sustainability initiatives and discussions, the capacity of the human community to achieve long-term sustainable living scenarios with our planet is strengthened.
2011 is the year in which the global population will reach 7 billion people - a truly unimaginable number of human beings on the same small planet as when the population was just a tiny fraction of that figure.
And it is, as we know, critically important that those of us blessed with (sometimes comparatively) fortunate lives and well-being in the so-called 'developed' world recognise that population is ultimately just as much an issue for westerners as it is for others elsewhere. It is wealthy families whose children happily will survive to adulthood which consume the most resources, not impoverished ones with heart-breakingly high early years mortality rates.
But how does this relate to the here-and-now in, say, the UK?
Evidence suggests that up to half conceptions in the UK are unplanned, and that about a third of babies actually born were unexpected. This amounts to more than 300,000 'extra' babies every year in Britain alone.
Put like this, perhaps policy makers and service deliverers will become more convinced that they need to think very carefully about population issues on our own doorstep.
The analysis for 2008 just published of preventative work on teenage pregnancy indicates that the rate is falling, and that, in the words of Marie Stopes International:
'When men and women of all ages are given sex and relationships education coupled with access to a variety of contraceptive methods, real reductions in unintended pregnancy rates, and consequently abortion rates, can be achieved'.
Writing recently about climate change and Cancun, the Guardian's Peter Preston said that best way to cut emissions is to have fewer babies – but in his view you won't find that proposal in any politician's vision.
Fewer (unexpected and unplanned) babies would however reduce not only emissions but also pressure on housing, infrastructure and resources of all sorts, as well as on all UK (and other nations') public services - whilst at the same time increasing opportunities for well-being for children and parents alike. So it must surely be just a matter of time before politicians start to address this vital issue in an open and sensible manner.
If the powers that be are currently willing (as we know they are) to impose draconian fiscal measures on the citizens of the UK, should they not also be willing to offer a genuinely helping hand to those same citizens when they seek to take considered responsibility for the size of their families?
Call it nudge or call it entitlement, good and fully accessible family planning services are something which most people welcome and the state, in all parts of the globe, has plenty of reason to provide.
Perhaps you too will want to Speak Out on this fundamentally important issue?
]]>The euphoria of being selected to host one of the established "mega-events" is now almost the equivalent to winning the event itself. The benefits are assumed: a lifting of public morale, the potential to "showcase" the nation, the chance to build on tourism and business links, to be the focus of the world's attention. At the same time, costs for hosting an event like the Olympics are vast and the economic returns for a country as a whole are not entirely tangible.
The intangible benefits, then, need to be exploited to the full. The opportunity for excitement, motivation and engagement must be looked at in detail so that hard outcomes are felt by communities. Education is central to this issue.
‘Mega-events’ are an ideal focus point for learning schemes and for improving levels of aspirations and achievements. The fundamental principles behind the Olympics are based on the celebration of both body and mind, explicitly joining sport with culture and education.
High-profile, imagination-seizing, once-in-a-lifetime moments like these are ideal as platforms for reaching people - and particularly young people - who would normally switch off from any "official" initiatives. It's the perfect time for setting new goals, encouraging broader involvement in projects, to get young people learning about other cultures, as well as picking up on relevant practical skills.
There has been investment in 52 ‘mega event’ education schemes worldwide since 1992 - but there is little evidence of what this has actually meant for learners, education institutions and communities themselves. We need to make sure that London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 change that.
What limited measurement of educational legacy to date there has been has tended to focus on numbers involved at ‘mega events’ - for example, in Vancouver, the number of students involved in the Action Schools programme is said to be 400,000.
In these cases, however, there is rarely any sign of follow-up study looking at engagement beyond the event. There are no publicly available, official evaluations of mega event education programmes. It should be pointed out that the Get Set programme for London 2012 is currently being evaluated, and the process is due to continue.
The lessons from a new research report into this area - What lasting educational benefits can be created from mega-events? - has highlighted how education legacy can be developed into one of the principal benefits from a games, picking up on both some of the successes of the past, as well as some failures.
There needs to be early planning. If possible, education should be part of the pre-bid work, and be a means of embedding the connection between the event and the hoped-for legacy, tackling any obstacles early and allow for a longer running time.
Vancouver 2010 tied its education project to the Canadian Olympic Education programme from 1988. Advocacy and accountability needs to be happening at the organising committee level, as well as the relevant national government departments.
Legacy work needs to make sure that teachers and tutors themselves don't just see a mega-event as just another initiative, but understand the one-off potential. Organisers need to link their plans into current education targets, for closing the attainment gap or involvement in particular learning schemes, and once targets are agreed the right kind of scale can be determined for the event.
There should also be clear measures of the real impact on people's lives so the education community and the public can at last understand what the role of mega-events can be.
One of the best examples of successful education legacy was from Manchester 2002 and its volunteer programme. 19 further education colleges in the north were signed up, getting more than 10,000 people onto education programmes to learn new skills in event management, large-scale hospitality, security, and health and safety. Volunteers found permanent jobs on the back of the programme and their work at the Games, many still get called up to work on major events in the region, and all felt an increased sense of being part of a community and benefited from a memorable experience.
Legacy projects succeed when they spark excitement and a change in attitudes about what education can lead to. Other schemes - which demonstrate how small-scale activities might be, but at least have a direct impact on people's lives and local areas - include a Neighbourhood Renewal scheme (Victoria 1994) where after school activities were run in a disadvantaged area; and a construction training scheme to improve employability (Atlanta 1996). Sydney 2000 ran customer service training for up to 50,000 people.
Schools in the UK are building up programmes ready for 2012. Schools in Lincolnshire, for example, will be setting up learning passports based on Olympic values; creating a bunch range of resources linking Olympic values to the National Curriculum; an online Lincolnshire calendar of events for schools and communities to join in with alongside the Lincolnshire VLE, and using videos to capture the Olympic legacy.
The success or otherwise is being measured through looking at participation rates by September 2013; the number of schools participating in Lincolnshire's Olympic/Paralympic Legacy Passport Schemes; the number of schools with Film Mark, Arts Mark, Sports Mark, International Schools Awards and Healthy Schools status and numbers children and young people participating more fully in sports, arts, culture and media, as well as coaching, volunteering and leadership. In Lambeth, schools have been taking part in joint arts schemes with schools in the next host city, Rio de Janeiro, leading to shows at the Southbank Centre and Young Vic.
‘Mega-events’ aren't just about being on the world stage. They have the potential to be a platform for working on some of the toughest problems in UK society, educational disadvantage, the skills gap and inequality.
A copy of the new report, What lasting educational benefits can be created from mega-events? is available here.
]]>In their forewords to the essential guide to the Decentralisation and Localism bill, Nick Clegg and Greg Clark seek to emphasise that the bill is about ‘power shift away from central government’. It’s against ‘dominance of central government over the public sphere’ and seeks to get rid of ‘bureaucratic micromanagement’, they say.
Overall, this chimes with the theme from the coalition government, which is on a mission to energise and unleash creativity in local democracy and the delivery of services. This bill, and the creative disruption of power it creates, is envisaged as the means to the move from big state to big society.
I am supportive of localism and decentralisation. However, on reading the bill, and browsing across the range of commentary, I conclude that there is a significant gap between the overarching mission of the bill and its contents. The mission is bold and radical, encapsulating a radical control shift.
However, the bill is rather bureaucratic and filled with regulations, rules and guidance, imbued by Whitehall centralism. This is a problem. Long-lasting and radical legislation, must have detail, but it also needs to add up to a coherent vision and direction.
Thus, the bill, in some ways, is less a gearstick connected to sophisticated cogs and wheels, but more of a magic wand, with a box of tricks. I am all for disrupting power and a radical bill which confronts overly centralised England.
However, to make things really happen and to ensure no unintended consequences and to reduce perverse negative effects, we need a mission that is fully wedded to practice. This flaw may be ironed out as it moves through the legislative process. If it is not, however, this bill will be a huge missed opportunity for a radically reforming government.
One of the key areas where this is apparent is the bill’s approach toward local government. Like it or loathe it, local government is a form of localism. However, this bill does not give a clear future meaning for local government and what it sees its future role to be. If the bill is truly ‘radical’ and ‘decentralising’, then it will inevitably disrupt further the already uneasy relationship between elected representative democracy through councillors and the participative democracy of community action and big society.
Whether you think this is a good or bad thing, the bill needs to detail what the representative role of local government and councillors is going to be in the future. It needs to be more explicit about how the envisaged new range of delivery mechanisms are going to work with representative democracy.
There is a fundamental representative democratic question here: are elected councillors going to become just contract managers of a range of outsourced and divested services? Also the bill needs to give us a glimpse of how communities, groups and others forms of participative democracy are going to create transparency, through non ballot box forms of accountability and scrutiny.
As it stands these fundamental problems are left for others to solve. However, and this is the nub of the flaw, they may well solve them in ways which will not live up to the radical mission. For example local government (of any political complexion) may well manage the transition of service delivery to the ‘big society’ of neighbourhoods and communities, by divesting services too swiftly, creating power vacuums, which are filled by ‘big business’ delivery.
Or the divestment may create a sea of providers, serving to atomise services and increase costs in the long run. Lest not forget, whoever delivers, they will still be using funds from the public purse. We may also see more centralism, with delivery voids becoming filled by big social enterprises with no local attachments, or it is possible that some activity may have to resort to central government departments.
Furthermore, there is an elephant in the bill. Any radical localism without an appreciation of how localism is fettered by the central economic power is stunted. The bill shies away from the very challenging, but needed, radical decentralisation, which shifts the balance away from the 80% of local government finances derived from central grants.
In all of this, the coalition government has an easy retort to this type of commentary. It could well say that these views are standing up for vested interests and are missing the point – it’s not up to central government to preach and prescribe. However, 406 pages of bill must address the fundamental underpinnings of what radical decentralisation really means, to local government and citizenry and follow the logic through. It has to tackle economic centralism. There are no vested interests here. I want real decentralisation, a big society and plural localism. This bill needs a lot of work.
]]>I find myself in something of a unique position, which upon reflection, has allowed me to examine and explore weaknesses in my armour. Having trained as an NLP practitioner, and kept up my skills while studying in another field at university, I now find myself poised upon the edge of an abyss. However, this is not due to having doubts about the uncertainty of a business venture in these current recessional times. No, this is something completely different.
I declined to seek work as a mail sorter, apparently suggested to me because while at university I worked for Royal Mail as a part time collections driver, a link as tenuous as sticking stamps on envelopes, in my opinion. I am apparently being very negative and unaware that this country is in a recession. My intentions to start up in business being brushed aside, I was informed that I would now be coming under New Deal 50+, because in the last six months I had failed to find employment, which I cannot deny. Truthfully, yes, there is work out there, and I do appreciate that I might be being a tad picky, but I cannot get excited about the prospect of working in a job that only pays the minimum wage.
When I first met my personal advisor, who is allegedly a specialist of some kind, he informed me that I would be trained to obtain an SAI licence in order to obtain work as a security guard, because apparently everyone else is also being trained to become security guards. When I expressed my doubts as to the validity of this assumption I was informed that for the next 13 weeks I would have to attend an induction course where I could be expected to undertake training.
When I last met my personal advisor he stated 'If I was in your shoes I'd get a job as a cleaner'. At this point I realised that he was trying to manipulate me into thinking proactively, and embrace the notion of taking a low paid job, presumably by encouraging me to undervalue my self worth. So I mentioned that I had unqualified skills in mentoring and I asked if it was possible to obtain an accredited skills course in mentoring. He dismissed this by saying that I had set my sights too high and that I should consider working as a retail assistant. Fortunately I was able to supress my indignation, and by return, I jokingly accused him of using brain washing techniques in order to tick some boxes. My comments were not well received and he denied that he was using any techniques, though in the next breath, he suggested that I work as an auto parts driver for a garage.
I have since discovered that I can advance my mentoring skills by volunteering to do unpaid work with a charity. Somewhat ironically there are also unpaid vacancies for employed persons to work as mentors in order to encourage men of my age group to find employment which may lead to a City and Guilds qualification in Community Mentoring. Personally, I do not envy any mentor who undertakes this position if my experiences are typical rather than unusual.
]]>Traditionally, an age of austerity is thought to be an age of community. Neighbours pull together, individuals and families find support in their local church or social clubs.
These bonds still exist in some communities, but the reality is that employment patterns have changed and the population is far more mobile. There are fewer networks of local relationships and frameworks of shared values and interests upon which to rely.
As a result we face a difficult mixture of isolated groups and individuals combined with increasing pressures from lack of job security and economic uncertainty: the natural breeding ground for blame, tensions, misunderstandings and extremism.
The potential for solutions created by local authorities is obviously limited in the current funding situation. Community cohesion projects and schemes are under pressure from cost-cutting and despite more evidence of ‘mainstreaming’, where cohesion functions are seen as part of the day job in areas such as housing, education and other services, support is limited.
And the cuts which will have the greatest impact on communities will be those for grassroots schemes, with groups involving just a handful of local people which have a vital role in providing the glue to hold communities together.
It could be a false economy if the areas which have schemes run by communities themselves – often the most important in terms of helping people through the economic downturn – become tarnished by stories of violence and unrest.
Anecdotal evidence shows that businesses will make area-changing investment decisions about location based on local reputations and the need for stability and security, and negative views could lead to much greater levels of intervention from government.
As far as possible, funding needs to be directed towards the schemes where communities are working for themselves rather than where projects are ‘done’ to them.
Anything preached or enforced will be subverted and eventually fall apart. Ideas which spring up and are kept going by local people have a real life of their own, a relevance and spirit which wider groups can easily feel part of.
For example, the Barton Hill Together Project in Bristol, which was organised to address community tension in and around Ashmead House, a tower block in Barton Hill, east Bristol. The community has changed in recent years with new migrants, including Somali communities moving into what was a traditional white neighbourhood, facing a rise in racist behaviour and violent incidents.
Following local engagement, an action plan was put in place to tackle these issues. Residents involved in the project were encouraged to learn about and explore different cultures through different activities, including multi-cultural feasts and a ‘play rangers’ scheme. As a result, residents became ‘community bridge builders’ and an evaluation has shown less fear of crime and better relationships.
The work by The Muju Crew in London, which brings Muslims and Jews together to devise, write, act and perform together had a similarly positive effect. Created in 2008, the scheme has tried to stem mistrust between young Muslims and Jews in the wake of events in the Middle East.
In the Shankill area of Belfast, another scheme – The Take 2 Project – has given locals a chance to express opinions and hear different points of view as a way of leading them away from politically-motivated violence. This has found a way to reach older men, a group which has been rarely targeted and been difficult to engage in the past.
The smallest schemes can have a hugely disproportionate value because they involve the specific ‘insider’ knowledge, insight and commitment which would take major investment to replicate through a public sector service.
Instead of overlooking the community schemes, now is the time for funders to look more carefully at what is really important for communities, what works and which cash needs to be protected to keep areas working for each other.
]]>The government has recently made a number of bold statements about rebalancing the economy so that prosperity is spread more evenly across places, and in making communities stronger and giving back power where it belongs - at the local level.
But if they don’t provide sufficient resource for places to help themselves, how can localities improve their prospects, particularly those weak economies characterised by market failures and entrenched structural economic problems?
The government plans to simplify its business support offer, moving away from tailored help for businesses.
It is cancelling elements of assisted area policy for example, such as Grants for Business Investment (GBI), which are proven cost effective incentives for private businesses to invest or expand their operations within UK designated assisted areas.
In the place of tailored interventions that have helped individual businesses survive and thrive in weak economies, the government is planning a broad package of support for business through changes to regulation and boosting the business environment.
While the government calls for the creation of sustainable private sector jobs, in removing such important tailored support mechanisms in favour of a broad-brush approach, this aim will be made all the more difficult.
Its new approach relies on LEPs to provide the necessary help for local businesses. Clearly, big questions remain over the function of LEPs and their capacity to make positive change.
What about the role of the Regional Growth Funds (RGF), which are focused on boosting private sector growth? The likelihood is that on its own, the RGF will not be enough to tackle the structural issues faced in England’s weaker economic areas, particularly at a time when the market place is becoming ever more competitive.
To be able to compete in the rapidly changing economic climate, our weaker economies need focused, practical support that will make a difference for their business bases. However, the government’s current approach may not allow that to happen.
We therefore face a clear choice: either accept and support England’s weaker economies and give them the proper tools they need to compete, or accept that they will decline.
Decline means increased costs in the loss of productivity and the rise in benefit claimants, as well as increasing levels of entrenched deprivation. Dealing with decline through expecting relocation of people to more prosperous areas would only result in putting increasing strain on other labour markets, particularly at a time when the economy is at the beginning of a fragile recovery.
The other consideration that government needs to face is its welfare to work policy. For this to become a success we need to create jobs in deprived areas. Withdrawing targeted support and funding vehicles would not be conducive to realizing welfare ambitions.
Then there is the issue of Big Society. If we leave our less prosperous areas without the targeted assistance they need, then the social capital that is at the centre of Big Society will simply be eroded.
Our idea is to provide the tailored help that weaker local economies need to both build this capital and be given the platform to become self sufficient and competitive.
Big Productive Society: Making deprived areas strong again is available for download from www.cles.org.uk
This blog was written by Adrian Nolan, senior policy consultant, and Helen Stacey, research consultant, at the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES).
]]>Last week, when a CLG statement heralding the Localism Bill outlined how communities might be given a leading role in shaping Neighbourhood Plans, our response at Action for Market Towns (AMT) was that planning is about more than bricks and mortar.
Now, the Government statements covered in this weekend’s media, almost read like a direct response to AMT’s initial concerns by suggesting that communities will be given a right to influence how services are run and even potentially take them over along with buildings they are housed in. This seems to go further in transferring power to communities, than the intent in the 2008 Empowerment White Paper.
Community-led planning AND solutions, is something that AMT has long been championing following its work with small towns across the country. We have hundreds of examples of how enterprising communities have worked with enabling local authorities to map local issues and develop tailored solutions. My optimism from the statements seeping out of CLG ahead of the Bill, is that they offer the prospect of giving more weight to carefully-formed community views and time to construct well organised businesses cases for running local buildings and services.
Examples of how such community enterprise can improve services for local people, includes the Number 8 Community Arts Centre in Pershore, Worcestershire. Winner of AMT’s National Market Towns Awards as far back as 2005, the centre is the product of supportive council officers and the determination and enterprise local volunteers. Hundreds of thousands of pounds were raised locally including through a shop refurbishing and re-selling electrical goods and high quality plans were drawn-up for building and running a cafe, theatre and workshops behind the facade of a boarded-up shop on the High Street.
Community-run services like Number 8 do not happen overnight and without talented local leadership. If the genuine intent behind the Localism Bill is to unlock more such community-led solutions, I think that is cause for optimism! But of course a lot of the right detail must follow.
What are you wearing - stilettos or brogues? Flats or Converse? Or Uggs, or Puma, or just chunky walking boots? And do your shoes show you’ve got good taste?
It matters. For the country. And for the economy.
My partner, Sam, spent six dark months learning Russian in a Minsk winter back in 1993-4, with snow like it is today here in Southend – a foot deep. Although still very Soviet in style, foreign exchange was opening up. Moneymen stood shifty on snow covered street corners, looking for trade.
“They always know that you are a foreigner,” Sam told me when I went to visit. “They look at your shoes.”
On the 17:18 from Maidstone to Victoria last Wednesday in size eights Clarks, I read some more of Will Hutton’s Them and Us.
He writes “Britain has a long tradition of viewing the poor as a race apart, not adhering to the mores of good society and not deserving efforts to improve their lot.” (p285). He criticises the use of the word ‘chav’ and the vitriol it pours onto those it is meant to describe - “they supposedly lack taste” (p286).
This is Pierre Bourdieu’s argument in Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste from 1984. We stitch together an arbitrary patch work of actions and attributes – the shoes we wear, our tipple of choice, the paper we read, the style of our hair – and call the resulting tapestry good taste. And the tapestry of people we feel better than? We call that bad taste.
And this matters. It matters for the country because the more ‘distinct’ the richest, middle and lowest income deciles feel from each other, Hutton argues, the less they will help each other out in the tough times. It is not that some have more than others, but in consequence some think they are different to others.
And so it matters for our economy, because we are in tough times. We will spend £18 billion less on welfare in 2014/15 than previously planned as a result of changes to the budget in June and the spending review in October. Now is the time to look out for each other, not down on each other. People with less money - or with more - are not foreigners in a far-away country of whom we know nothing.
Back in Minsk, how did the money changers pick out the foreigners there? It was the material. If you wore leather boots you must have dollars to change. If they were anaemic grey plastic, you only carried Belarusian roubles. Simples.
I’m not suggesting we move to a Soviet penury of life painted in equal shades of grey before we can look out for each other.
But it does matter what the commuters on the train from London think of each other, the formal black leather rocking gently in unison with the carriage, and the white scuffed trainers. Can they imagine being in each others shoes?
Just as GDP is not the only way to measure progress and development, measuring wellbeing is not the only way to understand it. We just need to remember the benefits or the advantages or qualitative research too.
Asking closed or even open questions through a survey or questionnaires certainly has its advantages but having a more detailed conversation, conducting a fuller interview and getting to the bottom of some of these issues, or at least understanding why, is also important, especially for something as complex as wellbeing.
Over the last few years at CLES, we’ve been working out ways to measure, value, assess and understand what wellbeing gains. Indeed it’s really useful to know what impact certain policies, interventions, activities, actions have on how people feel, how they live their life and what they do as a result.
We’ve used measures much like those proposed but we’ve also used interviews, focus groups and much more besides. Both quantitative measures and qualitative research are valid and we mustn’t forget that.
Hopefully the rewriting of The Green Book – the government guide on appraisal and evaluation of all policies, programmes and projects – won’t either.
In terms of wellbeing, few people dispute its value and understand that improving wellbeing is a positive thing. Although in the past the focus has tended to be on material wellbeing, more and more people are coming round to the idea of nurturing personal and social wellbeing.
However, what is less understood is how we can use a better understanding to influence policy and practice in a whole range of public policy areas.
Much has been made of a measure of general wellbeing as an antidote, addition or alternative to GDP in measuring overall progress. Indeed, in his speech launching a consultation on how to measure Britain’s wellbeing, David Cameron echoed Robert Kennedy and this is how it has been applied in France.
But I think it can also tell us a lot about particular policies, interventions and programmes as well as the impact of everything taken together.
The reform of ‘public’ service design and delivery is one area that I see measuring wellbeing as being key.
With an increasingly diverse range of commissioners and providers, understanding the impact of these services is even more important. We need to know not only that the services themselves are working but that they are having the desired impact more broadly, on individuals and communities. For example, how they make people feel, what they are able to do as a result, the wider social impact and what difference it makes to people’s goals and intentions.
Whole population studies and those just looking at a subset of the population both have their benefits. It just depends on what you are trying to do. If you are looking at the wholesale direction of policy within a country then of course you need a set of measures, and I think it has to be a set – there’s no way just a single question, item or issues can encompass this massive area.
Work we have done for the Big Lottery Fund uses takes this form and previous indicators from things like the Place Survey or national indicator set went part way to doing this. A household survey takes on board this type of ‘set’ approach will be strong. The ONS is consulting on exactly what we should measure here.
What the government’s announcement will mean for those of us interested measuring wellbeing is we will have something to benchmark against. We will be able to say not only that certain activities or interventions have had an impact or not for those involved – directly or indirectly – but also how those people compare to the general population, both at that point and in terms of trends.
Other more specific ways that exploring wellbeing can help shape and assess policy and practice include:
Targeting services, reducing inequalities and preventative work
We already know the benefits of having someone close by to call on in an emergency or the advantage of getting out and talking to friends, family or those that have the same interests as you. But knowing who or where those that don’t are, and targeting services interventions at them, is potentially powerful stuff. Just like in the past we have targeted health services at those most at risk of developing diabetes we can now do the same for social isolation and community cohesion, for example. With an ageing population this will become increasingly important. The same goes for a whole heap of other services and interventions. With limited public resources and the need to deliver more for less this is really crucial.
Assessing the real value of services
By fully understanding the wellbeing impacts of a particular service/project or intervention we are also in much better position to assess the real value of the service in terms of costs and benefits, non market values or return on investment, however you wish to phrase it. Guidance on how to assess wellbeing returns will be in the updated Green Book or you might be interested to know that CLES Consulting has been doing this for a while now.
All in all, the announcement of the National Wellbeing Project is most definitely positive news but we need to think about how best to use it and not to forget the benefits of assessing wellbeing at the local level while we look at what ONS are going nationally.
If you’re interested in measuring wellbeing then please respond the ONS consultation. Or if you want to talk through any of these thoughts please call me on 0161 236 7036 or email me
]]>Trevor Phillips was in my kitchen the other week. He was in bullish mood. “Do you know what people value most about Britain when they come to this country? The queue. The fairness of it. Everyone gets their turn.”
He might have been in your kitchen too, or even the car, as he had arrived courtesy of Radio 4.
I was reminded of Trevor when I read the report from the National Worklessness Learning Forum, chaired by Cllr Steve Houghton. New Start reported on its call for new job creation schemes.
Steve Fothergill and colleagues from Sheffield Hallam analysed the prospects of job growth in workless areas - the prospects of the private sector bouncing back with enough force to:
It concludes that the prospects are grim. Which is where we come back to Trevor Philips.
Steve Fothergill takes the metaphor of the bus queue. As all Britons know, you start at the back of the queue. If the first bus is full, then you patiently wait for the next to come along, work your way to the front - and get on.
But if you have low skills and poor health this is not how the job queue works. You start at the back. And then every person with better qualifications, more experience or better health pushes right in front.
And to press Steve’s metaphor a little: in a recession, you are suddenly in London - as this morning - in a tube strike. Thousands of people fresh off the last bus - or expensive commuter train – are milling around you, with the tools of the trade, suited and booted.
The front of the queue - even the bus - recedes into the distance. Unless you get more qualifications, or somehow your health improves, then you wait until all those others have hopped on a bus or train,before there is space for you.
And while the buses – the jobs - might come back to London first, the report argues they are not likely to come to the North and Midlands, Wales or Scotland. 455,000 extra jobs came to Britain’s weaker economies in the long boom from 1999- 2008. As I have heard Steve Houghton say, “How many were in the private sector? Take a guess."
The answer is just 25,000. That’s five percent.
Steve Fothergill concludes that within the present policy framework:
“in Britain’s weaker local economies there is little hope of reducing worklessness on benefits to acceptable levels within the next ten years. There is also little hope… of more than a marginal narrowing in the gap between the best and worst parts of the country.”
Which explains why if not queuing, then fairness, is a hot topic right now.
]]>People think 30 Millbank is a more interesting address than it used to be. But that’s not so. It has always said something about power.
On Wednesday 10 November I took the 12.05 back from Leeds to London to run a briefing for Audit Commission colleagues facing redundancy. The topic was ‘moving into the voluntary sector’. We discussed working for a charity, and what the big society might mean.
I was surprised at the number of young people queuing at Pimlico for tube tickets. There was a stream of placard carriers flowing past the big issue vendor at the station entrance as I exited.
I picked up a mobile phone message from our training department in Bristol. There was a demonstration near Millbank and it was busy; I would not be able to get in. I called back: “I’m round the corner; no problem at all. I’ll be there in five.”
Which I was.
A man gave me a red leaflet as I passed the Tate gallery. Clumps of people milled about holding banners. A woman screamed in surprise and ran across the street to hug an unexpected friend from another university.
The glass slab of Millbank Tower is the only significant office block near the palace of Westminster. So it attracts organisations which are close to government but not of it. The Tower is neighboured by a smaller annexe – a curving quadrangle with the front section to the river and road set on stilts. Inside the quad is a cobbled courtyard and the annex entrance: 30 Millbank.
The Audit Commission head office fills much of a figure of eight around Tower’s lifts and the annexe’s quad. We moved in when the Labour party moved out. Apparently Peter Mandelson gave a famous speech to the party faithful from the steps that now take you from our London staff up to the Studies team on the mezzanine.
But the spot’s resonance with power is much older than New Labour, or even the Sixties tower block itself. It is built on the site of a former nineteenth century prison, designed by the utilitarian Bentham in an octagon. A single warder looked down all the wings and into the cells as they fanned out from his central point.
In his Birth of the Prison, Foucault took this ‘panoptic’ design as an image for the power of the modern state. In pre-modern monarchies, says Foucault, authority drew on spectacle. We looked in awe as criminals were hung, drawn and quartered in front of us. But the modern state was not so showy; it was powerful enough to look at us. The panoptic prison was, for Foucault, the embodiment of the surveillance state.
Now at Millbank, I wanted to get in the Tower entrance, but staff had secured the door handles with plastic ties from the inside. It meant going in through the annexe.
The courtyard was packed with people and placards. I made it underneath the stilts. Waves of noise erupted from the front of the crowd responding to some unseen event by the entrance. The café next door, Etsu - seemed to weave and flicker; as if melting in the heat from a fire.
Then I realised figures were inside 30 Millbank’s entrance hall. And I saw all the spider web fractures stretching over its glass walls.
I calculated the effect of a suited man in a camel hair coat politely asking to get through, slipping out his pass to get in, and popping up stairs. It was finely balanced.
But I decided against it.
I weaved my way back to the street and called the training team over the din. We agreed to re-schedule the briefing.
It was not until the next morning I realised what had happened. All the papers had the same photo, a hooded figure launching his foot at the glass. But caught in the right hand edge of the image hung a ring of camera lenses, all seeking the same shot.
Not us watching in awe in the crush at a public hanging. Not us over-watched by a surveillance state; but us watching a - dangerous - piece of drama. Its power was not in what happened – or even what might have happened. The power was that millions of people saw it happen, on the telly, in the papers, on youtube, on blogs, on twitter...
So, 30 Millbank is still interesting.
And I am looking forward to actually running the training this Thursday.
]]>So the government has published the much vaunted welfare reform white paper.
In are new single employment programmes and benefit channels; together with benefit sanctions for those not responding to employment opportunities.
Also in is a significant ‘hardening’ of the language of welfare reform where claimants may be forced to undertake mandatory work to ‘develop labour market discipline’ and demonstrate ‘compliance with the jobseekers regime’.
The problem for the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) with the myriad of reforms is that they appear to have been developed in a manner which appeases voters as opposed to offering individualised and personalised support for the claimant and recognising the bespoke barriers they face in the labour market.
Over the last three months CLES has been working with different groups of workless in Bristol to try to identify some of these core barriers and come up with effective solutions to the challenges of worklessness. Through our discussions with lone parents, young people, over 50s, BME communities and people with disabilities we have found a group of people not only willing to work but crying out for respect from the very agencies which are meant to be supporting them into employment.
The benefits and employment programme system in the UK simply does not work as effectively as it should do.
Single parents face barriers in matching affordable childcare to sympathetic employers. Young people and those over 50 find that connectivity between communities and employment opportunities is sparse. And those with disabilities and from BME communities often feel left marginalised by potential employers.
More fundamentally, work has not provided a financial incentive for too many people outside the labour market. All too often this message was reinforced by ‘in work-better off calculations’ which highlighted that work didn’t provide any significant uplift compared to welfare benefits.
The ambitious and long-term proposals to introduce a universal credit and critically, the ‘single taper to withdraw support as earnings rise’, is therefore welcome.
Our research has found that while a small minority of those out of the labour market need a push, most are in need of individualised support, underpinned by a strong level of trust with the personal adviser. A trusting relationship where support can be gained to overcome the often multiple and complex challenges they face in entering employment, the transferable skills they have, and the support and training they require.
Punitive measures which sanction via a mandatory work programme, and the potential to remove benefits for up to three years, threatens to undermine any attempts to develop a supported and trusting support which helps people find work.
The role of the personal adviser is going to be more critical than ever before given the discretion to implement such stringent sanctions on individuals.
Over the course of the last couple of days, CLES has brought together unemployed residents from Bristol, strategists from Bristol City Council, and representatives of public, private, and voluntary and community sector employment brokers to discuss how the issue of worklessness can be tackled in an age of austerity.
What we found is a joint commitment to innovative and creative ideas which will overcome the issue. Not once did we hear from the participants the phrases ‘I don’t want to work’; ‘I am not well enough to work’; ‘I want to live off benefits’; or ‘I can’t work’.
What we did hear was a community committed to finding employment but in need of support and respect to overcome barriers and access those opportunities.
These messages echo our research in towns such as Oldham, Rochdale and Blackpool which highlighted the often multiple and complex personal circumstances claimants face when out of work.
Issues of housing, childcare, personal finance and access to opportunity are often fundamental and must be taken into account before mandatory work is required. Otherwise increased poverty, social exclusion and inequality will inevitably follow.
I'm finding the Big Society so far no fun at all. I seem to be spending my time (voluntarily) offering www-style tea and sympathy all round.
Almost daily emails are arriving from hard-working and committed contacts, saying that their job, role and whatever else is coming to an end, and they as yet have no clear idea what, if anything, will happen next.
No provision it seems is being made by these people's organisations to retain core knowledge or maintain legacy. Basically, it's all off.
The unemployment stats are dreadful and will get worse,but they still tell only part of the story. More is being lost than is visible and measured.
Many people on short-term contracts, or sitting as appointees on committees and councils etc - surely the very essence of the Big Society? - are finding their role is no more (and often without so much as a Thank You note because the organisation which they served has disappeared). These invisible, uncounted folk, with their more evidently cast aside 'employee' co-workers, provide a backbone of knowledge and expertise which is easily destroyed and very difficult to replace.
On a smaller scale, observers with long memories may recall something similar happening when the Inner London Education Authority was summarily abolished in 1990. Along with the political baggage which some discerned went much of value.
Is it simply unthinking failure to grasp the underpinnings of our complex civic society, or is it actually plain knowing neglect, which will soon lose the current rich seam of expertise across public life?
It would be good if some of those urging us to 'work with' the Big Society were also promoting vigorously the need to conserve the skills and knowledge which are at such serious risk of being lost.
]]>The comprehensive spending review has highlighted this government’s priorities for spending and reform over the period 2011-2015. By far the largest reductions experienced by any significant area of government activity have been located in Eric Pickles’ DCLG.
Excluding local government the budget for communities, housing and regeneration will fall by two-thirds by the end of the CSR period.
The concept of regeneration has been replaced by a focus purely on economic development with the announcement of a Regional Growth Fund (RGF) with a three-year budget of £1.4bn funded largely by a near £900m contribution from the DCLG budget.
The changes in funding for housing and regeneration tell us quite a lot about this government and its priorities. The RGF was conceived as a response to issues of uneven economic development and as a fund to stimulate the private sector in areas which were overly dependent upon welfare and public expenditure.
At the last minute the RGF also became responsible for finishing the housing market renewal (HMR) programme in the north and midlands as capital funding identified for this purpose was also transferred into this new initiative.
The local growth white paper which accompanied the new fund and local enterprise partnerships listed all the things the RGF was expected to cover: housing regeneration and supply, economic development, transportation and other expensive infrastructure.
These are areas which have been targeted for massive cuts, the HMR programme and housing growth resources would have accounted for the same level of resources as the RGF in the previous spending review period.
The regional development agencies’ previous budgets dwarfed the allocation to fund this new approach. When considering the scale of spending reductions in the most disadvantaged areas, it would seem a reasonable assumption that government ministers and officials know that the finance available for their new policy tool is completely inadequate to achieve the government’s stated objectives.
Despite its inadequacies, the fund has been opened up to a national competition which has no published rules and there appears to be no recognition that the funding which has been appropriated to fund the private sector renaissance has been taken from unfinished regeneration programmes such as HMR areas which are primarily located in the most distressed neighbourhoods and areas most affected by cuts.
One can’t miss the irony contained in the guidance to applicants for the RFG that they must demonstrate additionality for their bid to be successful.
Unless substantial extra resources are found to support this new approach to economic development and urban renewal, history is likely to view the RGF as a political statement rather than a serious attempt to use public money to reverse decline.
There is greater clarity to the government’s approach if one ignores the issues of resources and unfinished existing regeneration programmes.
The new approach to regeneration and housing is about reform. This is the most free market government we have experienced since the 1920s and certainly more radical than the Thatcher government. It is a coalition led by economic liberals who believe in a small state and the primacy of the market in distributing resources.
Reducing public expenditure is ideologically a positive outcome for economic liberals, hence the comments of David Laws, the Liberal Democrat who was briefly the First Secretary to the Treasury, who reportedly said he had waited all his life to do the job that his colleague Danny Alexander has now completed.
Similarly, allocating resources by competition, incorporating free market principles into public sector resource distribution, has an equally ideological flavour.
The belief in the free market is so strong that research and evidence, plans or strategies are not needed to predict or deliver results. Hence David Cameron has been able to tell parliament that unemployment will fall every year of this government as the private sector responds to the withdrawal of the public sector to create two million jobs in the fastest period of employment expansion since the war.
Similarly the prime minister sees no reason why the predicted 82,000 households who will be forced to leave central London as a result of new caps on housing benefit should experience homelessness.
Rents, he believes, will fall to accommodate new levels of public subsidy. Social housing newbuild will cease after 2013 and a new system of funding newbuild will
be implemented, funded by rents set at 80% of the market rent. This innovation will produce 150,000 new ‘affordable’ homes according to ministers, the largest
newbuild programme of its type in a generation – all being achieved with a cut of 74% in capital expenditure.
There are major differences between the Thatcher government of the 1980s and the coalition. Many in the Thatcher cabinet had a good grasp of economics, tended to have had successful careers outside of parliament, were delivery focused and had an attention to detail in this respect. This government could not be more different; it wishes to see reform immediately and claims to have learned from Tony Blair’s cautious first term.
A difficult 2011 could be on the horizon. Reform without a delivery plan can lead to chaos. Making predictions of an immediate golden future for economic growth, employment and housing can be problematic when the everyday reality tells the public something entirely different is happening.
Equally the British parliamentary system of scrutiny demands that evidence is produced to justify decisions. This evidence may be somewhat short on the ground, simply stating beliefs will not do.
To paraphrase Vince Cable as he explained his conversion to lifting the cap on university fees, the road to Westminster is littered with the skid marks of those politicians who have had to reverse at speed.
Parliament may be enveloped in the smell of burning rubber during 2011/12 – so expect to see more resources for economic development, urban renewal and housing benefit.
]]>The cuts in themselves may not be fair. However, we must work to ensure the future delivery of public services and the local places are. The economic context in terms of public spending has been made.
We are entering a new era in terms of how we think about and deliver public services and how they relate to place. We now need to get on and build a new and progressively fair future. For this to happen, we have to shake off the doom and gloom associated with cuts, and see them just as the beginning of a journey to a fair and socially just end. They cannot be the beginning of an age of unfairness and growing inequality.
In this new journey, it would be perilous to assume we can replace traditional public service producers with new producers from the social or commercial sectors and hey presto, fairness happens! They may be able to do some things cheaper or more efficiently, but this swapping of deliverer may well exacerbate unfairness.
The real change will be about the public, private and social sectors finding bespoke solutions which are grounded in values around creating good local places, with high levels of equity, social inclusion and fairness.
There are many options around co-production, mutuals, cooperatives, public sector trading arms, social enterprises, employee-owned companies, partnerships and other special purpose vehicles in which different sectors, producers and consumers of public services come together. These options have the exciting potential of bringing together public sector know how, commercial sector savviness and the ability to identify social sector needs.
However, these models cannot be or become UK-wide monopolies which are insensitive to local social circumstances and need. And they must not race to the bottom via second-rate salary levels and poor employee terms and conditions.
They should be about quality, excellence and reflect the best of public sector values and ethos. If they are just the ‘cheap’ option they will create, through their working practices and conditions, inferior public services. Institutional second-rate organisations will merely reflect unfairness, not solve it.
The shift in how we deliver and view public services will not be forthcoming. It will just be the start of a doom loop, in which we usher in a painful goodbye to public service ethos, with standards and quality at the core, and a hello to a race to a cheap and unfair bottom.
So the task in the next few months is to throw away the axe and bring in the knitting needles and weave progressive and fair quality local patterns of service delivery. These local patterns must be innovative, creative and be exemplars of inclusion and fairness.
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