Books and Papers, e.g vibrant villages
Dr Dick Atkinson, the Balsall Heath Forum’s Chief Executive was once described by the great American Sociologist, Professor Robert Nisbet as “the radical sociologist of our day.” Little surprise that when he left the Ivory Tower 30 years ago to work in Balsall Heath, he continued to use the pen to clear away the tangled undergrowth of bureaucracy which held Balsall Heath and other neighbourhoods back and limited the horizons of ordinary people. In addition to his Tool Kit, useful books included:-
The last of these, Civil Renewal, is probably the most valuable and can be ordered from the Balsall Heath Forum 0121 446 6182/3 or by email Carrie(at)balsallheathforum.org.uk
Dick’s recent paper, Vibrant Villages maybe of even more use. It is to be found in the next section. Feel free to down load it, give it to colleagues and, if required, ask for a visit from R4R or a Tool Kit or both.
Other useful
papers will be added from time to time.
Vibrant Villages:Building quality lives in quality neighbourhoods
The
Purpose of this Paper
For most of
the last century, well intentioned politicians and civil servants in Whitehall
and the Town Hall created top-down, one-size-fits-all services to cater for most
residents. This worked for a while. It fed the hungry, housed the homeless and
educated people. But, we now know that this has not produced the desired
results.
Public
housing now haunts us in graffiti strewn, high crime, no go areas and most
people feel excluded and powerless to improve their life chances. The Welfare
State has not worked. And, costly renewal initiative after costly initiative
have failed to improve matters.
Hitherto, there have been two possible solutions to this problem:
1.
To tax people more, create a
larger collective state and try to do even more from the top-down to help
people.
2. To tax people less, to create a smaller state, do less to help people directly and to privatise services.
Today, all the parties are beginning to understand that neither of these impulses connect with what works and that a third way forward makes far more common sense:
3. Maintain taxation, but create a strategic and enabling state and, in line with the principles of subsidiarity and mutualism, empower people to help themselves by helping each other in the neighbourhoods where they live.
Central Government now understands it has omitted to empower and involve people, to enable them to own and take a part in the process of recovery. Birmingham's response, like that of some other Urban Authorities, is to begin to devolve services from the centre out to Districts and, beyond, to the neighbourhoods where people live and with which they identify.
The flip side of the local coin of empowered Active Citizens and vibrant, diversem, villages is an enabling authority which does less (but better!) and challenges ordinary people, voluntary and faith organisations to build Civil Society, accept responsibilities and do more to help themselves.
This paper spells out a little about what has gone wrong with service delivery, the wasting of the taxpayer's money and the reasons for the failure of the Welfare State. At the same time, it shows how the integrated working parts of vibrant neighbourhoods can be built up in a rolling programme of recovery which leads to a Welfare Society. Further, it shows how this will only happen with the dynamic coordinating leadership of a new Department of State.
Much has gone wrong. So, not everything can be put right at once. But, if we learn from the few examples of 'what works' and allow and empower local people and organisations to flourish and act responsibly, we will get there in the end.
Introduction
There are four components to life in neighbourhoods:
1. The Voluntary Sector or Civil Society, which is made up of:
· The Back Street
· Families
· Voluntary Organisations
· Faith groups
· An overarching Neighbourhood Council or Forum
· Communications
· The High Street
· Small and large enterprises
· Business Associations
· Streets and open spaces
· Parks
· Houses
· Health
· Police
· Schools
This paper looks at each of these components in turn and how they can affect life in the neighbourhood for good or ill depending on how well or otherwise they are managed and organised.
Families
The family is in trouble. Once it was robust and large enough to look after young and old, keep boys on the straight and narrow and care for the individual.
Every parent knows the delights and traumas of raising a child. If there is but a single pair of hands to cradle the child, it is all too easy for its wants and temper tantrums to win and spoil the child's character so that when they come to assume adult responsibilities they are not able to discharge them. This is no criticism of the single or even two parent family. It is merely to remind us all that if two parents exist and have the support of two sets of grandparents, uncles, aunts and god parents it is an awful lot easier.
Too often today, the single and two parent family has to try to re-invent from scratch the art, skill, love and pain of being a good parent. Before, grandparents and the extended family ensured that there was no need to reinvent the wheel and risk buckling it. Rather, all the inherited skills of parenthood were easily passed on from generation to generation with hardly a conscious thought.
In the absence of the profound teaching mechanism of the extended family today it is important to provide the prospective parent with:
· A reminder to parents of the need to support their children-as-parents as much as possible and to keep in as close and supportive touch as possible.
· The teaching of parenthood in each and every school.
· A close at hand Sure Start or Home Start scheme in the neighbourhood where experienced parents can act as friends/surrogate grandparents to new parents.
· A reminder to the whole 'village' that every neighbour has a part, even a small one, to play in helping the parent to raise the child.
Such positive measures will be of value to most parents and the modern version of the extended family will succeed - if everyone works deliberately to achieve that success.
However, in case it fails, and for some it will, early intervention and clear support and firm sanctions are needed. This is where such mechanisms as ASBO's (anti social behaviour orders) come in. If a parent(s) fails and children run wild, they can hold a whole street and neighbourhood in fear. Too often in recent times those in authority have turned a blind eye to this. Social Services and the law must act swiftly and decisively. If parents can't or won't apply the sanctions needed to control the child, others must intervene at as early a stage as possible. Waiting until the child is 16 is little help. Most teachers can spot a difficult child at the age of 5 or 6. Early intervention is both socially and financially more cost effective than dither and delay.
Voluntary Organisations
Each neighbourhood needs its share of Voluntary Organisations constructed with the help of active citizens and capacity builders. These might include one or more of the following:
· A baby-sitting network
· A pre-school playgroup
· A resident's group which welcomes newcomers and clear the litter.
· An elders' club
· An adventure playground and/or youth club
· A Bingo club
· A football, cricket, darts or simply anything club.
· Amateur dramatics
· A credit union or skills exchange
· A village hall
The list is endless. But, without some of these, people will live 'in' the neighbourhood but not be a part 'of' it. They will lack the support needed to keep them engaged and will become socially isolated. Voluntary organisations are the leavening of the neighbourhood. They are the ladder up which the unconfident person can climb to view a wider, more ambitious, horizon.
Faith establishments
We may never return to the time when the Church was the pivot around which the life of the whole village turned and gave it point and meaning. However, newcomers from Pakistan, India and elsewhere remind us that Faith Establishments can not only help to hold the family together for the sake of the developing child, they can also provide a compass by which the whole of life can be directed.
Even those who do not worship in a Faith Establishment “can't live by bread alone”. They need values and standards by which to live a life of which they can be proud and which connects them to both their neighbour and the stranger.
If a person is lonely and hungry in one of the nation's inner areas, there is one place where food, shelter and fellowship can be found every day of the week, every week of the year - the Mosque or Gurdwara. That's a rare island in a social desert which demands praise and reminds us all that if something has gone from the centre of our lives, we probably have to find some modern way of replacing it.
The Faith Establishment is the place where the faithful:
· Worship
· Marry their partner before the witness of a wider congregation
· Celebrate the birth of their child, name it and vow to raise it well.
· Induct the child as adolescent into the faith
· In turn see them marry
· Depart and be remembered
Faith in the City, a report by the Archbishop of Canterbury's commission on Urban Priority Areas, was published in 1985. It was ahead of its time in calling on all faiths to play a more deliberate role in reaching out to people, not to convert them, but to act in the wider community to provide some of the meaning and stability which the above rites of passage reinforce.
There is a wise saying by the sceptic that: “If God does not exist, he may well have to be invented in the spirit of mankind so that we can have faith in ourselves and each other.”
Good neighbours - street stewards
Once, the street and corner shop were the places where good people met, passed on views, supported those in need, welcomed the stranger and deterred the criminal. No neighbourhood which flourishes can manage without a network of good neighbours street stewards. So, where one does not exist, it must be created and, where a unifying church does not exist, the street stewards must invent a modern, secular, communal equivalent.
Together, the street stewards, voluntary and faith organisations need to give their neighbourhoods:
· A village green
· A village hall
· A village voice
· A village code
· An identity
Communications
An important part of defining and dignifying a neighbourhood is to produce a Neighbourhood Newspaper.
Normally an excluded neighbourhood will not only have no press of its own, but it will get a bad press from the commercial media of the wider City or Town in which it is situated. The bad news stories will abound with graffiti, crime, grime and despair.
Thus, a recovering neighbourhood may need to print and disseminate its own good news stories, say, in a once per month dozen page paper which is pushed through every letter box on the patch.
Just one editor is needed who collates, lays out and prints the good news stories and photographs from the healthy living centre, safety centre, village hall, voluntary organisation and business association as well as the functioning of the governance of the neighbourhood. Or, it might be that the locally based housing association or school sees the point of doing this and, in effect, produces an in-house magazine for the whole neighbourhood.
A newspaper is, of course, not the only means of communication. Other important ones include:
· Word of mouth via residents groups and good neighbours.
· The internet and websites. Every neighbourhood should have one. Indeed, it might be possible for the whole neighbourhood to be 'wired for sound' and have interactive discussion.
The Private Sector
Not every village will have its own high street of shops and small businesses who could come club together to form an association. There might just be a corner shop or two, perhaps boarded and shuttered because the owner was too frighten to stay.
However, BitC (Business in the Community) is a national organisation with the Prince of Wales as President. It invites larger businesses to put back into the urban villages, where its workers and customers live, a little of what it has gained from them.
There isn't, but should be, the Trades Union flip side of the BitC coin, a Trades Union in the Community (TUitC). For, the organising skill of the shop steward which generates better conditions at work is surely needed in the weakened neighbourhood where their members live.
Many neighbourhoods have benefited from BitC and TuitC practices. Much more can and should be done.
Civic Services - the public sector
The Street, confused space and public place
The back street where people live and high street where they shop are collectively owned and administered by officials who are remote from the village. Perhaps that is one reason why:
· The street in which children once played is now deserted because too many parents fear for the safety of their child and, even, themselves.
· The shutters on the high street's shop and the graffiti on the gable end walls tell a similar tale of lack of care and local ownership.
· Many neighbourhoods have what Alice Coleman termed 'confused spaces', patches of grass at the end of a street, an alley way or concrete car park the ownership of which is 'confused'. The statutory public agency which does own it -housing, economic development, leisure - has long forgotten. So, it lies untended. And, because nobody cares for it, everyone abuses it and litter, rubble, black bags and rats abound.
Worse still, there are public spaces and walk ways whose municipal ownership is very clear, yet which have become the meeting ground for beggars, anti social youngsters and drug dealers. They have become frightening places past which ordinary folk rush, head down, eyes averted so they avoid each other altogether.
There is only one solution for these ills. The back and high street, confused space and public place have to be recaptured so that ordinary folk can use them, flowers bloom in place of black plastic bags and rubble and public places become caring, social, spaces in which people slow their pace, meet each other and sit.
In leafier suburbs, the leisured walk-way with flower bedecked planters, seats and outdoor market stalls are taken for granted. Inner and outer areas would benefit from them. It can be achieved there too. Indeed, it must be achieved if a high quality life is to be accessed by everyone and not just the privileged few.
Success depends on the localisation of the relevant services and the management of the neighbourhood by a person and process which is locally accountable.
Parks
Parks are, of course, merely large, green, public places. Most of them have also been through difficult times. Once maintained with the help of an old fashioned park-keeper and a maintenance contract which used to tend the rose-beds, putting and bowling green and tennis court. In the absence of the park keeper and a maintenance contract, the benches and bins have been burned, the putting and bowling green have become overgrown and the rose-beds have become empty and filled with litter, bottles and cans. Once a valued leisure amenity, they have become one more place to avoid - unless you wish to deal in drugs or worse.
Again, the solution is clear - local management, ownership and care and the return of the park-keeper in modern guise. Just as streets have residents groups to ensure they are cared for and litter free, so parks need a 'Friends of the Park' group of residents whose houses over look it or who use it. The 'Friends of the Park' are probably better placed to assist with the management and direction of the park-keeper than the remote official who took them away 10 or 20 years ago and forgot to replenish the roses.
Parks and open spaces are the green lungs which can enable the urban village to breathe fresh air. Rural villages have a village green next to the village hall. Most urban villages could have their own principle village green on which communal carnivals and sporting events can be held. More important, they can and should be the place where every day end in the evening and weekend parents can take their child in a pram, relax and feel safe and secure and pass the time of day with the neighbour who they now know and recognize because they can glance up without fear and look them in the eye.
Housing
Many of the 3,000+ excluded neighbourhoods of the country consist of little more than municipal housing. Some have a mixture of Municipal and Housing Association properties and some are a mixture of these and private housing.
Normally, there is a very noticeable difference between the way a private house is managed and looked after and the way a public sector one is cared for. The former looks distinctive, the garden is well looked after and it is painted in a different colour to the houses on either side of it. In stark contrast, the public sector houses all look the same, are painted in a standard colour, their grounds are often overgrown and litter-strewn.
They are, of course, managed by officials whose office may be miles away. Tenants do not feel a sense of ownership beyond their front door. So they do not look after lifts, stairways or gardens. The phrase 'one-size-fits-all', which is so often applied to state services seems especially appropriate to housing. This can give the whole neighbourhood the image and feel that nobody really cares for it. Indeed, it is as if the area is one large 'confused' municipal space.
In some parts of the country this depressing scene has been transformed by 'giving' public housing to the people who live in it. For example, in 1996, Castle Vale's municipal houses were given to a Housing Action Trust. Then, people who lived there died 7 years sooner than the Birmingham average. Now, they die only 2 years sooner. Unemployment has dropped dramatically and the whole feel of the neighbourhood has been transformed. Elsewhere Tenants Cooperatives and Tenants Management Organizations have been formed enabling residents to gain control over their housing and play a decisive part of managing it. Professor Anne Power calculates that this can redirect the way rents are spent in more sensitive and appropriate ways. Her estimate of how a tenant managed Community Based Housing Association can budget to create high quality maintenance for the neighbourhood in which they are based is seminal. Every municipal estate would benefit by applying the principles and practices which she outlines.
Health
Of course, we will always need the local medical practice and the General Hospital which serves many neighbourhoods. But, the old saying that 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away' has been forgotten by those of us who smoke and drink too much, eat too much instant junk food, do not exercise sufficiently and drive our children to school.
The fact that more children die and life expectancy generally is shorter in excluded neighbourhoods is not just due to a creaking health service, but because people who live there live less healthy lives than people elsewhere.
The notion of a Healthy Living Centre is part of the solution. It's less of a Neighbourhood Centre and more of a well organised network of caring practitioners, doctors, health visitors, teachers and classroom assistants who organise school children into a 'walking bus', enable the constructive use of parks and other leisure facilities and facilitate the better use of gardens, not just to get people digging but also growing healthy vegetables and fruit.
Good health is not just the product of good diagnosis and the cure of illness but the practice of healthy living and the way the daily life of the neighbourhood is organised.
Safety
If you are ill, you go to a doctor. But it may be more advisable to go to a Healthy Living Centre before you are ill so that you remain healthier for longer and do not need a doctor. We need to think in the same way about safety. Instead of the local police station being associated with arresting and locking up people who have done wrong, we need to see it as a Safety Centre.
A Safety Centre mends gates and cuts hedges behind which a mugger might lurk. Once a house has been broken into it becomes very susceptible to repeat offences. But, a security light and a window lock make it far safer.
Of course, as with good doctors, we need good police. But, for them to do a successful job in the community, we need a veritable army of lay people, some employed, some volunteers, who will help to reduce the context in which crime occurs and heighten people's confidence to report crime.
Look at it this way and ask: Of 100 people employed in a hospital, how many are highly paid consultants? The answer is: less than 10. The rest are sisters, nurses, caterers, ambulance drivers, para-medics, a host of people in a team who ensure that the doctor gives all of their time and skill to the direct medical needs of the patient. The rest of the team ensure that the context of the doctor-patient relationship is conducive to both the needs of the doctors and the patients.
Yet, look at a police station. There, 9 out of 10 people are expensive police officers. They have no team of civilians to ensure that the police can concentrate on crime because they are looking after all the others factors involved in reducing crime and the fear of crime.
A few strategically placed CCTV cameras monitored by trainees or OAP's are invaluable. A reception desk staffed by vetted and trained volunteers so the police station is open to the public 7 days a week would help. A few neighbourhood wardens funded from the Housing Budget would help both the tenant, resident and police and could answer people's requests to 'see a uniformed presence on the street.' A well labelled 'bobby van' loaded with locks, window catches and wood to mend broken fences which can instantly visit the victim of a crime can be very reassuring.
Schools
In place of several distinct, centrally managed, schools a neighbourhood might develop a cluster of independent schools with shared facilities, a federal academy, not a single building. One of the several buildings might be a community oriented facility, say in an empty nursery or primary building or in a purpose built annex. It might operate as a village or neighbourhood hall which enables all the schools to reach out to the rest of the neighbourhood. Indeed, it or the library or Community Hall might house the neighbourhood's Civic Centre in which all of the above services are joined-up and locally managed with a distinctive local agenda.
The identity of neighbourhoods
· This paper started by recalling that the growing child needs both love and security to develop a character and also pride in place to develop an identity. Ask any child where they live and they will say Odsell, Kirkstall, Hume, Brixton, Handsworth, the name of their neighbourhood.
· They wish to say so with pride. It's my place. It's my identity. I feel safe there. It's my home. A host of things follow which adults must do before the child can say and feel these things, such as:
· Beating the bounds of each neighbourhood - the way villagers do.
· Having clean streets and parks you can safely play in.
· Having an image, like a product for sale has a brand image, which might take the form of Welcome Signs and a badge or flag.
· Having a Village Hall and an open place where celebrations can be held.
· Welcome packs for newcomers and an introduction to a good neighbour or two.
· The serious recognition and valuing of role models.
· Communal celebrations of the seasons and the rites of passage from birth to adolescence to maturity, marriage and death.
· Etc, etc,etc.
Redressing the deficit of identify starts not as a national thing but as a local one. It's to do with growing up not in an atomised, lonely, uncaring, excluded urban village neighbourhood but in one which has a social hinterland and a local tradition.
Assets
The way we look after public land and buildings as well as services is vital. People who own their own houses generally look after them, paint them every few years, repair the roof and replace the rotting fence. Local authorities are less good at looking after municipal housing. Castle Vale was a municipal estate in Birmingham's outer ring. Ten years ago it had almost as unenviable a reputation as Balsall Heath. In 1996 a local Housing Action Trust (HAT) was given all of Castle Vale's municipal housing to manage. Previously, of course, it had been overseen from the centre of the city. As a consequence, the feel and image of the neighbourhood has been so transformed that people even live longer and businesses which once would not have dreamed of investing in Castle Vale have now set up shop there and created local jobs.
In different parts of the country Tenants Management Organisations have had a similar effect. Residents in The Royds area of Bradford run their own business park and use a variety of assets to generate income which drives capacity building activities.
If 15 school governors can look after, manage and feel proud of their school and raise its standards, they and other local people can also own and look after such assets as these:
· Public housing
· Parks
· Small and medium sized patches of public land owned by various statutory bodies.
· Swimming baths and libraries
· Community and Leisure Centres
· Public buildings and land
Local communal ownership will inject the sense of pride which individual ownership evolves. As a result, these assets will not run down and eventually require large sums of renovation money. Rather they will be maintained.
Further, the judicious use of rents from housing can be used to manage other aspects of life in the neighbourhood. Selling land for housing or other buildings and managing the public assets of a neighbourhood imaginatively can produce income which might turn a 'bankrupt neighbourhood' into an 'enterprising' one. It's all, as they say, in the mind, in the culture, in the way we think about how to care for each other and the public common-wealth. Institutionalise it and we can kill it. Liberate it, enable ordinary folk to look after it and it can be brought to productive life. J.J. Gallagher are in the process of building two new towns complete with baths, libraries and schools entirely from the private sector and without a penny of public funds.
Governance
Much of the case presented for the renewal of civil society in this paper turns around creating a Commonwealth of semi-self-governing neighbourhoods in place of the existing Empires of urban authorities. Being able to govern oneself is a vital ingredient of pride and care. It is possible to picture the governance of the neighbourhood and its relationship to the wider area and nation as follows:
The reviving urban neighbourhood is a lively and active place. It might have a safety and health centre and its public spaces are becoming well used meeting places. Its parks are used and its school(s) might become community and family centres, perhaps also housing the urban village hall and the accessible office of the neighbourhood manager. It might look like this:
The Village Hall and its Neighbourhood Network of services and facilities
The old top down culture looked like a pyramid sitting on top of a quiescent, atomised, community. It departments and agencies operated in self-contained silos.
We are moving from that to something which resembles a maypole with each ribbon of the maypole representing a distinct neighbourhood. In place of silos will arise inter-agency, joined up, horizontal teams able to respond to the particular plan of the particular neighbourhood. They will look a little like this:
Local ownership, local management
For many decades, most neighbourhoods where people live and where all the above takes place have not been acknowledged by the top down administration of public services and assets. On the contrary, these services and assets have been delivered in a bog-standard, one-size-fits-all, manner by remote specialists who are not accountable for the quality of life in neighbourhoods. This has contributed to the decay of the quality of life in neighbourhoods and the exclusion of ordinary people from any say over how improvements might be made.
Neighbourhood Management solves this problem. It:
· Creates tailor made services to suit the specific needs of the neighbourhood.
· Provides the neighbourhood with an accountable neighbourhood manager.
· Constructs and implements a Neighbourhood Development Plan.
· Creates a Neighbourhood Budget from the wider specialist budgets.
· Supports Capacity Building and localised service delivery by Street Stewards, Voluntary and Faith organisations.
A Civil & Civic Centre - A Neighbourhood mini- Town Hall
Nobody disputes that a Town or City needs a Town Hall or Civic Centre, nor that a rural village needs a Village Hall which is a focal point for communal activities and pride. If an urban neighbourhood is to flourish, be vibrant and well managed, it too needs an Urban Village Hall or Civic Centre from which some of the devolved services operate and where the neighbourhood manager is based. People need a one-stop-shop which solves their problem or takes up their idea and which some good neighbours can help to manage.
Each neighbourhood has at least one building which might qualify. It could be a Library, Sports Centre, School or Community Centre. Either way, what is certain is that few deprived neighbourhoods will recover unless such a centre and manager exist to drive recovery forward and respond to the needs of Active Citizens.
Easier said than done? How can the above be achieved?
Policy makers and politicians are increasingly able to get the words right. The policy papers say the right things about neighbourhoods and empowerment. But, they struggle to know how to put them into practice. For they have no real experience of building up capacity from street level, of forging the alliances needed between the street, neighbourhood and a transformed local and central government machine. So, we need to listen carefully to the words of the experienced practitioner, those at the coal-face who know how to do it.
1. Capacity Building - Empowerment
· There are good and caring people in every neighbourhood who know what they want for themselves and their children. But, most often, they do not have the confidence or support needed to achieve it.
· So, a skilled Capacity Builder is needed in each neighbourhood who has the time and patience to identify and build the trust of key local people, then give them the confidence, organisational support and caring association with like minded others which is needed to begin to do and achieve things.
· A local Voluntary Organisation and Faith group might supply the Capacity Builder, if one exists. They could be attached to a local school or some other agency. But, before long, they will wish to form some residents group, association of good neighbours or Village Forum which is able to learn how to manage them and can tell them what the local agenda for action should be.
· As a local team of Active Citizens emerges, the Capacity Builder will wish to see that it is drawn from:
· Different parts of the neighbourhood.
· Avoids the usual suspects who might inhibit progress and stop others from coming forward.
· All interest groups.
· People of varied skills and abilities who are each interested in one or more of a variety issues such as safety, welcoming new comers, organising, leaflet distribution etc.
· There is now a reasonably good library of work on Capacity Building and there are a number of people in each urban area who know how to guide and manage the process.
· They will be helped if a learning-through-doing School for Social Entrepreneurs is set up along the lines of the Regen School in Sheffield or the Young Centre in Bethnal Green. It could serve and support Active Citizens from all the neighbours of a local authority area.
· There are three obvious sources of funding for the Capacity Builder which every neighbourhood needs:
· Lifting and shifting existing staff who can be found within the community or public sector.
· NRF
· Statutory agencies who can be persuaded that resourcing a Capacity Builder is a wise investment which will enable them to target services more effectively.
· See appendices 1,2 and 3 for further details.
· In Birmingham's case, each of its 11 Districts will wish to begin the process of mapping where its neighbourhoods are. As like Pompeii, many of these have sunk beneath the ash of forces beyond them, it will take time to excavate them. So, the map may change and develop from year to year and can only be drawn with the help of local people. But, if people are to be given point, identity and focus, the effort has to be made.
· An audit of assets of buildings, people and services in each neighbourhood is also required:
· Once mapping is underway, we need to audit each neighbourhood and ask:
· Where are its Active Citizens?
· Do they have any existing networks?
· What are their skills?
· Where and what are the Voluntary organisations?
· Where and what are the Faith organisations?
· Where and in what state is the Municipal and RSL housing?
· Where and in what state are the parks, schools and other public buildings?
· Is there a particularly enterprising Head or Housing Manager or Police Officer who could become a Neighbourhood Manager or join a Neighbourhood Team of Strategic Partners?
· Where are any existing leisure and community staff, what do they do, are they joined up or not, can they be 'lifted and shifted'?
· What kinds of local businesses exist?
· Is there a building which could be the Village Hall or Civic Centre and a space which could be the Village Green?
· Where are the entry and exit points of the neighbourhood?
The state of the neighbourhoods chart
· Once the mapping exercise and audit of assets are underway, it should be possible for each District to begin to identify and chart:
· How many neighbourhoods it contains?
· Which of its neighbourhoods are failing and getting worse?
· Which are failing, but stable?
· Which are making some progress?
· And which are succeeding?
· What are the strengths and weaknesses of each neighbourhood?
· Whether the successful could help the failing?
· Which resources the Capacity Builder and Active Citizen need to give them strength and credibility?
· Each District will wish to use this information to set itself targets which entail reducing the number of failing neighbourhoods and increasing the number of succeeding ones by devising plans of action with the help of Capacity Builders, Active Citizens, Neighbourhood Managers and Neighbourhood Development Plans.
· Then, as each year goes by, each District must ask: Are these targets being met? If not, why not and what remedial action must be taken?
The Neighbourhood Development Plan - the route map to recovery
· A business needs a Business Development Plan to chart its way forward into profitability and growth. Each school now has a School Development Plan which it reviews every year and updates.
· It is not possible to see how a neighbourhood can move from failure to success without a Neighbourhood Development Plan which residents, their Capacity Builder and all their strategic partners agree and then implement.
· A Neighbourhood Development Plan can only be constructed once the Mapping Exercise and Audit of Assets described above have been undertaken, the Capacity Builder and Active Residents have devised a Plan of Action and their Strategic Partners have considered how they can deliver services and use their devolved budgets in ways appropriate to the neighbourhood's needs.
· Preparing a Neighbourhood Development Plan is not an easy task, partly because no neighbourhood has previously had one and those concerned will, therefore, be devising one for the first time. But, if businesses, schools, RSL's and others can do it, so too can neighbourhoods.
· A crucial part of the plan will be the funds, resources and team needed to deliver it. In place of centrally donated to a few selected neighbourhoods, these can only be assembled for all neighbourhoods from what previously were vast top-down, specialist, one-size-fits-all mainstream services and budgets. Disentangling and disassembling these, then reassembling them into the tailor made needs of far smaller neighbourhoods will not be easy. Old habits and interests will be tempted to resist. Those charged with devising the plan and its budget will have to persist and will need the active support of both the Citywide CSP and District wide DSP.
· Once devised and in place, the Neighbourhood Development Plan and the team of strategic partners are the route map and guide which will take a neighbourhood along the path to recovery.
· See appendix 4 for an example of a Neighbourhood Plan.
A Rolling Programme of Flourishing Neighbourhoods
· It is not possible or desirable to try to do everything in every neighbourhood all at once. So, it is wise to envisage a Rolling Programme of recovery in which at first a few failing neighbourhoods in a few Districts are targeted, then a second phase in which a few more are involved until, over a period of time, all Districts and neighbourhoods are included.
· Castle Vale and Balsall Heath are already identified as Guide Neighbourhoods and have been asked to support some failing ones. No doubt other neighbourhoods or parts of neighbourhoods and associations they relate to are also able to help in this way.
· An Action Group is now in place which includes 4 District Directors. It is charged with the task of starting and guiding the Rolling Programme of Recovery until it has gathered its own momentum.
· The Action group and the 4 District Directors are identifying the failing neighbourhoods to be included and supported in phase I of the Rolling Programme.
· In Leicester a similar Rolling Programme is under discussion by a Guide Neighbourhood and Leicester Council with the advising help of Balsall Heath. The 10 Home Office funded Guide Neighbourhoods are undertaking similar work. Every urban authority area should adopt its vision of a Rolling Programme of recovery.
Leadership
Metropolitan sophisticates are not sure that the skill of leadership is needed to improve the quality of life in neighbourhoods. For, the collective system should be sufficient. Most ordinary folk know better and, as with a successful football team, a successful neighbourhood and empowering system need a good captain, manager and coach. Indeed, civil renewal requires 3 kinds of leaders:
· The role of these three kinds of leaders is explored further in appendix 1, 2, and 3.
Concluding remarks
· Without Capacity Builders, Neighbourhood Mapping and Auditing, checking the state of neighbourhoods, devising neighbourhood Development Plans and initiating a Rolling Programme of Flourishing Neighbourhoods, the picture painted in this paper of what a diverse and vibrant neighbourhood might look like will be an unattainable aspiration. With them, everything is possible, but only over a lengthy period of time. It has taken more than a generation for most neighbourhoods to wither. So, it will take a generation for them to recover. Thus, all concerned must:
· Be prepared for the long haul.
· Turn the above into a well-organised, major, initiative which is given the highest priority by all sectors and which is not unique to Birmingham but can be replicated across the country, perhaps at first via Civic Pioneer Authorities.
· The one-size-fits-all services of a centralised Welfare State have slowly come to do too much for too many people and places. It has eroded neighbourhood identity, pride and people's sense of responsibility.
· Moving from the Welfare State to a kind of Welfare Society will be pinned high on the mast of every Active Citizen , recovering neighbourhood, local authority and central Government. All four now need to come together in a new, productive, partnership which is informed and guided by 'What works'.
Appendices
Appendix 1
Leadership-a forgotten, underrated yet vital art
· Those few neighbourhoods who have recovered have all experienced the effect of a strong, dedicated and visionary leader. Royds had Barry Schofield. Castle Vale had Angus Kennedy etc.
· They have needed other resources too. But, neighbourhoods who lack such a leader have not recovered, even if they had the resources needed.
· So, a good, strong leader is an essential part of recovery and we must ask which particular qualities of leadership are required and how these differ from the kind of leadership offered by elected members, whether Councilors or M.P's.
Councilors and M.P's - Representative Democracy
· The first point to note about Councillors and M.P's is that, hitherto, they have engaged personally with residents as voters respectively only once every year or 3 or 5 years. Before and after that, they do not knock on our doors. So, when voters see a Councillor or M.P they tend to ask: “Is an election in the offing?”
· If they are not elected, you don't see a candidate again - ever. If they are elected, you only see them next when there is another election, or:
· As an individual with a problem in a surgery.
· In the newspapers when they seek publicity.
· In the Council House or House of Commons where they aim to legislate for change which will trickle down to help their community, but is also intended to help lots of others in other communities.
· Thus, it is not generally supposed that they actually do anything personally to affect change in their Ward or Constituency.
· So, the 'leadership' exercised by elected members tends to be exercised within their political parties and/or within the government or its official opposition. It is aimed at becoming a Council leader, Cabinet or Committee Member, the PM or a member of Government.
· Further, there are a finite number of Councillors and M.P's. Indeed, maybe there are already too many and the number of them should be reduced?
· Normally, no elected member envisages being any kind of day to day leader in their Ward or Constituency, let alone the neighbourhood where people live. And, if they did, there would be confusion. For, how can a Councillor of one party lead citizens of different parties who know they will be seeking their next vote at the time of the next election and, thus, seek to ensure that their own party is not elected? The only situation in which this would not happen is if politics were to become non-party-political. It's unlikely!
· A number of virtues (or vices) follow:
· If you are good, you enter the local or central government cabinet. Lower calibre applicants don't take this path and find themselves without very much to do other than spending their time paying attention to their Ward or Constituency, which does not really make sense.
· Political leaders are 'in' for a period and then 'out' if they are defeated and only one of them can be 'in' at anyone time. This kind of leadership is (a) competitive and (b) exclusive.
· So, those who argue that Councillors and M.P's are the natural leaders of the neighbourhoods within their wards and constituency are mistaken for these reasons:
· They are needed by voters to spend time in the corridors of the Town Hall and Whitehall to frame good policies and help to oversee Statutory Services and ensure that these are appropriate to modern and diverse needs.
· A number of neighbourhoods where people live exist in each Ward and Constituency. So, members do not have the time to spend on the kind of leadership needed to redevelop an atomised neighbourhood on the day-to-day basis which is required.
· There is a conflict between parties and political interests and the needs of neighbourhoods as a whole.
· No criticism is implied by any of this. It is simply the case that the leadership which a neighbourhood needs is of quite a different order from the political leadership of a member who does not live in the neighbourhood but in the realm of politics, political parties and the public sector.
Community leaders, Active Citizens - Participatory Democracy
· Community leaders in neighbourhoods are quite different from political leaders. They are chosen differently, have different aims and modus operandi. They perform a quite different function - and we need far more of them.
· They are too scarce on the ground. We need to consider ways of supporting them and multiplying their number. There simply can't be enough of them.
· One lot are not 'in' and another lot 'out' because of elections. For, we need as many Community leaders as there are people willing to come forward and be part of the renewal process of a neighbourhood.
· Elsewhere, we have learned that each neighbourhood needs:
· A street steward for every street.
· Active Citizens are interested in a variety of tasks - safety, the environment, caring, odd jobs, welcoming newcomers, being a school governor, Sure Start Director etc.
· Key neighbourhood leaders will identify and support such people, 'grow' them, weld them into an integrated effective team, allocate them to areas in which they can excel and help them to avoid tasks for which they are not suited.
· Legitimacy is not conferred on Community Leaders by a vote but:
· By the regard and respect in which they are held by their neighbours.
· By what they do and how effective there are.
· By how friendly and accessible they are every day of the week.
· By how irrelevant their party political affiliation is. Indeed, they must be above and beyond party politics.
· By how much they contribute to the fun and day-to-day life of the community.
The Town Hall and Whitehall exist. They may need to be brought up to date and transformed, but they are 'there' and have 'been there' for a long time.
There are no devolved neighbourhood or Civic Centres, no mini-Town Halls. They have to be created from scratch. So, the Social entrepreneur's J.D reads a little like this:
· Create your own job.
· Find the money to pay yourself.
· Construct a management group to employ you and help them to manage you.
· Construct your own team of activists.
· Help your statutory colleagues and the Local Councillor(s) to deliver some services themselves.
· Find and equip a Civic Centre and support struggling voluntary organisations.
· Spend as long as it takes 'institutionalising' all of the above so that when you leave, a more ordinary mortal can apply for a more routine job which is part of a sustainable neighbourhood infrastructure.
· This is not easy. This is why we need a reformed Civic Democracy which understands and supports this Civil role and duty and does not inadvertently, as in the past, undermine it.
A School for Social Entrepreneurs
After Christopher Columbus set sail for America saying: “I think there is something out there”, we added schools of Geography to our Universities so that others could arrive safely and follow a more secure route. We did the same for physics and chemistry after we discovered that Alchemy did not work. Environmental studies are now mainstream as we teach the next generation how to conserve the planet.
As ever, ahead of his time, Michael Young set up the first school for Social Entrepreneurs in Bethnal Green a few years before he died. Today, every urban area needs its School for Entrepreneurs to support, teach and accredit what in future must be an army of Active Citizens and competent professionals.
Appendix 3 spells out the point in more detail.
Moral Authority
The Councillors and M.P's authority is conferred by the vote. This authority is withheld and vanishes when they lose an election. The authority of most Active Citizens and Entrepreneurs is a very different, moral one. For, they are upholding the fact that we 'cant live by bread alone'.
Social Entrepreneur's are advocating the shared values which bind people together in mutual support. Further, they help with the process of binding by enabling people to form social and cultural networks, which add value and purpose to the quality of life. From a despairing, atomised neighbourhood they construct a social hinterland. They build a strong community. They create Social Capital.
In centuries past, this task belonged to the priest who baptised people and welcomed them into the weekly communion and fellowship of the Church, then married and buried them. There is no going back to those days. But, we do need to remember not the form, but the function of mutual support which the chartists, co-operators and mutual societies applied in the 1800's. We need again to assert that function in modern times to help people to find point and purpose to their existence.
In this sense, the Social Entrepreneur is less like a Councillor and more like a kind of secular priest who will wish to persuade the leaders of any and all the faiths in their neighbourhood to help not just their own congregation but also the whole community.
Appendix 2
Mapping Neighbourhoods
· The Mapping of Neighbourhoods can be started easily and can be initially completed fairly quickly - in the way kids on a park can put their coats down to mark the 4 corners of a make believe football pitch.
· However, drawing the more exact lines of a neighbourhood is part of a more lengthy on-going process and, as with the grounds man of a premier club, when the initial lines fade they have to be re-marked often in slightly different places.
· Indeed, it may be useful to remember the age old rural village ceremony of 'beating the bounds' when each village would set off on a procession to mark the boundary of their village.
· An outsider can easily make the start of this process of beating the bounds for a modern urban village by asking a few locals for their help. Together they will need to go through this process with them:
· Get a large board or piece of cardboard, say, 4 feet by 4 feet.
· Copy a large-scale map of the area with the relevant neighbourhood in the middle, but with surrounding neighbourhoods scattered around the edge.
· Identify some of the key local features, a corner shop, main road, school or bank so that people can easily see what territory the map covers.
· Then get a few coloured drawing pins or small post-it notes and challenge a few locals with the question: “Where does our neighbourhood start and end? Mark the centre of it and the boundaries”.
· Then take the board to the central location, a corner shop, school, central avenue or park, put it on a table and ask passers-by the same question.
· Also ask them to name the nearest adjacent neighbourhoods and ask them to mark where they begin and end.
· There may be fairly instant agreement. For example, in Leeds, everyone knows where Headingly is, partly because of the cricket ground. In Birmingham everyone will be able to identify the centre of Sutton Coldfield, but may be a bit hesitant about where it ends and Four Oakes begins.
· There may have to be a process of negotiation before people agree. It may be that not everyone will agree and an overlapping area of mutual interest may have to be shaded grey for a month, a year or longer until one case or another wins out.
· In Birmingham's case, Carl Chinn, the community historian, will tell us there are 110 neighbourhoods. As we have 11 Districts, each District will have, on average, 11 neighbourhoods, though some may have 10 and others 12.
· Someone from each District should be given the task of sticking a pin in the middle of each of its 11 neighbourhoods and conducting the first stage of the above exercise.
· Before long however, they will probably discover that while 3 or 4 neighbourhoods are pretty clear, others are not. They will need time before agreement is reached. For, a failing neighbourhood generally lacks an identity and some people who even live near to the centre of it will deny that they live in it at all. Only when it is recovering and has gained pride and identity may it become possible to agree where its boundaries are.
· Thus, beating the bounds is an on-going process of negotiation, discovery and acquisition which can last for years, and develop as the process of renewal and recovery gets underway.
· So, you can be sure that the initial map drawn in the first weeks of the mapping process will change and need to be adjusted in the same way the linesman has to redraw the lines of a pitch.
· As the identity and map of a neighbourhood is an important part of recovery and pride, a number of techniques can be used to emphasise the point:
· What about a Greetings Card with the (rough) map of the area on it - or, a 'Welcome to the neighbourhood' card for newcomers with the map on it?
· When the neighbourhood agrees its first Neighbourhood Development Plan, why not include a map of the area in it with this question: “Which bits of boundary need to be changed?”
· Any self-respecting neighbourhood/village needs a village fete or carnival. So, as a feature of the carnival why not have a fun-run which beats its bounds?
· Don't we need “Welcome to the neighbourhood” signs at its 4 corners, key exit and entry points?
· Could the local school, college or business design and pay for a welcoming sculpture or two, one for the centre, one for the entry point(s) to the neighbourhood?
There are ways of emphasising the need to be clear about where the neighbourhood is, boosting its image, talking it up. So, why not ask residents, shopkeepers, school and others: “How can you help to define us, give us an image, set us apart, talk us up, make us proud?”
Appendix 3
A Neighbourhood Audit - or M.O.T
· The neighbourhood mapping exercise leads us into the need to prepare a “Neighbourhood Audit” or a “Neighbourhood M.O.T”, or a “State of the Neighbourhood” statement.
· Is the neighbourhood improving? Is it failing, declining or beginning to recover? What are its strengths and weaknesses?
· If it is to recover, which growth points need to be strengthened and built up, and which obstacles need to be overcome and which weaknesses need to be eliminated?
· Those who helped with the mapping exercise of where the boundaries of the neighbourhood are might go on to help with the internal audit exercise to identify the strengths and weaknesses.
· We need to ask and answer these questions by talking to professionals and residents in shops, pubs, schools, faith establishments, and other meeting places:
Weaknesses
· Where is the graffiti and litter?
· Where is the crime?
· Where are the problem families?
· Where are the criminals and where do the gangs of youths congregate?
· Where are the no-go areas for self-respecting residents?
· Which parts of the community feel most excluded and resentful?
· Which parts of the neighbourhood do people most want to avoid or hate to live in?
· Wherever these are, discuss them, agree them, and mark them on the map within the boundary of the neighbourhood.
· Which adjoining neighbourhoods add to these problems? Add them to the map. For, if they are the proverbial rotten apple, they too will have to be 'removed' before the neighbourhood can recover.
Strengths
· Where are the potential and actual Good Neighbours or Active Citizens?
· Where are the networks of people, say, baby sitting clubs, bingo clubs, credit unions etc?
· Where are the Voluntary Organisation? What do they do?
· Where are the Faith establishments and are they thriving or not? Is there an enterprising, energetic faith leader or two?
· Is there a particularly attractive corer shop or commercial road? Is there the potential for a Traders Association, which might help to market the image of the neighbourhood - or not?
· What are the schools like and their Heads, the Housing Associations and their Directors, the Police and their Superintendent and other statutory agencies? Is there a budding Civic Entrepreneur or two and what are their talents and ambitions. Could one become the Neighbourhood Manager?
· What and where are the main entry and exit 'gateways'?
· Mark the answers to these questions about people on the map. Then ask these questions about the physical weaknesses and assets of buildings and public open-spaces:
Physical Assets
· Where are the public buildings and how are they used?
· Where are the public spaces and how are they used?
· Is there an actual or potential Village Green and Village Hall?
· Where is the municipal housing and the RSL housing and what is the calibre of those who manage them?
· What is the present and potential value of these and could they be used differently?
· As with any audit and M.O.T, searching, in depth questions need to be asked and answered.
· So, the Audit is no overnight exercise and it will take time, perception and insight in order to conduct it properly.
· It will need the guiding hand of both a dedicated professional and the local knowledge and sights of several local Active Citizens and the involvement of many other local people. That's good. It's a starting point for the process of recovery.
· Once the Mapping Exercise and the Audit have been conducted it is possible to move to the next stage of the recovery of a neighbourhood - preparing a Neighbourhood Development Plan.
Appendix 4
The Neighbourhood Development Plan, a Neighbourhood Manager and a Neighbourhood Strategic Partnership
· No self-respecting business would dream of not having a Business Development Plan. It concentrates the mind, focuses attention and tells us what to do next, and the Bank Manager will expect to see it before he even considers a loan or investment proposition.
· Today, schools also have a School Development Plan. It tells the teachers and Governors what to concentrate on next, what targets to achieve in the year, which weaknesses to eliminate and which strengthens to build on.
· So, it is surprising to note that almost no neighbourhood in Birmingham (or anywhere else in the country) has a neighbourhood Development Plan. Thus, the absence of a plan does explain why so many neighbourhoods are directionless, lack focus and are drifting into decay.
· The fact that Castle Vale and Balsall Heath, two rapidly recovering neighbourhoods, do have a plan and a manager to pull together a neighbourhood team to implement the plan, should also tell us a great deal about why a plan is an essential feature of recovery.
· Anyone setting out to prepare a plan will wish to start out by considering Capacity Building, the identification of and support for Active Citizens.
· Make sure that your plan tells you what to do within the first 6 months, then the first 12 months. After this, you will probably want to review things and prepare a revised plan.
· Capacity Building is only a part of the plan, other features will include:
· Which weaknesses identified by the Audit are to be tackled first - social and physical.
· Which strengths are to be built on - again of a social and physical kind?
· Which services can be improved fairly quickly, which will take longer?
· And again, what will we try to do in the first 6 and 12 months periods before reviewing progress.
· As well as Capacity Building, auditing and preparing a plan. It is also essential to have a Neighbourhood Manager who will be responsible for 'the state of the neighbourhood' and who should feel ashamed if it is failing and pleased if it is succeeding.
· The manager will need to pull together a team of strategic partners, Active Residents, the Local Police Chief, PCT official and key Council Workers for they will need to work together to implement the plan.
Appendix 5
A School for Social Entrepreneurs
The Government and Birmingham's agenda for Civil Renewal makes these basic assumptions:
· There is a need for far more Active Citizens without whom the foundations for Civil Renewal can't be put in place.
· Some Active Citizens are needed to build Strong Neighbourhood networks and associations so that people can be pleased and proud of where they live and deliver local services.
· If they are to flourish, Active Citizens and Strong Neighbourhoods need a new kind of compact or partnership with statutory agencies.
· These partnerships can only be made if statutory agencies reform and move from 'doing' to 'enabling'.
None of these basic ingredients of Civil Renewal exist in Birmingham or their urban authorities except in rudimentary form. They all need special attention and hard work if they are to be put in place. In particular, the experience of most residents is one of disillusion, an inability to shape their environment or to control the quality of life in their neighbourhood. Some tried, met insuperable obstacles and failed. Their experience is of defeat.
This is one reason why only 2 neighbourhoods, Balsall Heath and Castle Vale, have travelled far along the road to renewal and 50 plus inner and outer city neighbourhoods lag behind. Further, many statutory players and councillors do not know how to help remedy this defect, how to move from 'doing' to 'enabling' how to build real, dynamic partnerships. Indeed, there are at least 5 kinds of obstacles, which stand in the way of success. They include:
· The experience of failure.
· Some residents stand in the way of progress, Civil Renewal and the involvement of the excluded. They are variously bitter, jealous, token leaders and usual suspects.
· Some nuisance neighbours also stand in the way.
· Some criminals think only of themselves, terrify their neighbours and make progress appear to be an illusion.
· Some officers and Councillors feel that they are in charge and are threatened by Active Citizens.
Active Citizens need help and resources to discover the courage of their convictions and to move all of the above obstacles aside so that they can build an agenda for local action and encourage the inclusion of the many, not the few.
This will not be easy. Many have tried. Most have failed. If success is to be gained this time and the habit of achieving it is to replace the one of failure, the help given must be real, tangible and appropriate.
· The first way is to change the culture, the way we think and accept the facts that:
· There is a hole in the social ozone layer, that the values and social bonds which tie people together are too weak to sustain decent standards and mutual support.
· The culture of rights needs to be balanced by one of responsibility and duty.
· The Welfare State (public sector) has intruded too far into the communal sector and must be disentangled from it.
· The debate started by The Chamberlain Lectures must continue and shift our mind-set so that we act differently.
· A second way forward is to devise and implement the phased Rolling Programme of Flourishing Neighbourhoods which is described elsewhere. For surely, it will include more and more residents in more and more recovering neighbourhoods and provide them with the experience of success.
· However, culture change and a Rolling Programme are, on their own insufficient. Very few people have travelled the journey to sustainable recovery, understand where the elephant traps are and where the bridges and stepping stones are to be found.
· If we are not smart, we will ignore this experience and knowledge and ask each new set of Active Citizens and their Civic Entrepreneur counterparts to re-invent the wheel and set out on the journey of recovery without a route map or the guiding hand of those who have been there already.
· If however, we are wise, we will lend the wheel to others and connect the in-experienced traveller to the experience one.
· So, thirdly, this means setting up a 'School for Social (and Civic) Entrepreneurs,' a 'School for Active Citizens' in which residents who have experienced success, guide those who have not.
It does not need substantial premises, just a base for a library of books, videos, pamphlets, Tool Kits, an office and a meeting room. For, much of the school will be based out in those neighbourhoods in Birmingham (and elsewhere) where experienced residents, the tutors, are to be found.
The School doesn't need many staff. For, most of the tutors are dispersed and at work as voluntary Active Citizens in their own neighbourhoods. They are part-time tutors who are able to teach as the master craftsman teaches the apprentice - on the job, by learning through doing techniques.
At least initially, just one person, and an assistant are sufficient to co-ordinate and sustain the work of the school. But, they will need to be in touch with as many experienced residents and Civic Entrepreneurs as they can find.
The Coordinator will have a variety of aids to hand. They will include:
· A list of experienced resident tutors who will be inducted and accredited either by the coordinator or by Senior Guides identified in leading Neighbourhoods.
· The tutors will each have a 'treasure trail' of people and places to visit which leads to confidence and recovery.
· While many of these tutors and trails will be in Birmingham, some will be in Guide Neighbourhoods in other parts of the country. The School is already connected with 10 of these.
· Tutors and Guides will know the various treasure trails well and how the Guided can best use them.
· They will have a Regeneration DIY Tool Kit, and will be able to induct the Guided into how to use it one their own, and a library of 'what works'.
· The Rowntree Foundation runs courses for Civic Entrepreneurs. Indeed the Regen School and other valuable established tutors such as Common Purpose exist which can also be used by Civic and Social Entrepreneurs. The Centre for Active Citizenship is also accessible.
So, at first, the School for Social Entrepreneurs really will be less of a physical entity and more of a federation or network of shared learning experiences in which the 'untutored' team up with 'experienced' guides to staff the Rolling Programme of Flourishing Neighbourhoods and kick start the process of renewal which will eventually include most of Birmingham's troubled neighbourhoods.
As time goes on, the School will both wish to continue its inter-active refection on the Rolling Programme of Flourishing Neighbourhoods and to become more sophisticated. It will wish to consider how it can boost and inform the following:
· The teaching of Citizenship in Schools.
· The way young people can volunteer to make a contribution to the community in a kind of gap year in the community.
· How Active Citizens can be honoured in their Neighbourhood, District and City and become role models.
· How senior Social and Civic Entrepreneurs can move on to gain a Masters in the subject at a College or University.
Like shop stewards, their work place counterparts, Active Citizens or Street Stewards are mainly volunteers and their tutors will largely give their time free of charge. So, the costs of the School, at least initially are low. They include:
Expenditure
Premises 3,000
Office Costs 3,000
Principal Co-ordinator 30,000
Assistant 15,000
Library 3,000
DIY Tool Kit 5,000
Travel Express 4,000
Resources for tutors 17,000
_______
80,000
Income
Balsall Heath and Castle Vale - if needs be, 20,000
Districts, 10 each for 3 Districts 30,000
BCC 30,000
______
80,000
The Chamber of commerce - Richard Nicol
The Districts Jagwant Johal, Ifor Jones and Vennetta Johnston
B:CEN Paul Slatter
BCC Tony Smith
Castle Vale and Balsall Heath x + y
Birmingham University Professor Alan Murie
South Birmingham College Professor Alan Burkes
It has already started. The Home Office has very decisively backed it. The first tutors are in place. But, it is still in its early, formative stages. As time progresses and the Rolling Programme of Flourishing Neighbourhoods gets underway, its work will accelerate and take in more and more Active Citizens.
Appendix 6
A Department of Civic and Civil Renewal
Even the best Leaders at Street and neighbourhood level will not succeed on their own, even with an enlightened Town Hall. Success demands that they need the enabling help and leadership of a very determined and focused Whitehall.
The great departments of state were set up and grew in an earlier era when there was no need for the renewal of civil society and the different components of life were conceived as separate specialisms - security, health, education etc.
Over the last 40+ years however, Civil Society has atrophied and inner and outer ring neighbourhoods have decayed. So, each existing Department has separately tagged onto their specialism their own attempt to renew social life. That is, Civil Renewal - perhaps by now the major issue of the day - does not have its own department, but is dealt with by different bits and pieces of different departments.
By this means, a whole series of non-joined up, costly initiatives have been launched in recent decades. The total cost of these initiatives has been many billions. Yet, the total outcome has been less than 20 recovering neighbourhoods and more, 3,000+ plus neighbourhoods, which are now failing. The only sensible way forward is to create a major new department of state with the task of reinventing Central and Local government, joining up the Renewal of Civil Society and enabling local leaders to succeed. It would have these functions and duties:
1. Taking the different bits and pieces of renewal from the specialist departments and welding them into an integrated whole. The bits might include:
· DfES's Community Champions, Limited Development Fund etc: which includes tenant participation work (ODPM), communities participation in neighbourhood renewal (ODPM) race quality work (Home Office), community cohesion (Home Office) Faith Groups (Home Office), social enterprise (DTI & others), Social Exclusion Unit (ODPM) and Local Government (ODPM).
2. Enabling existing departments to work to the common end of Civil Renewal and ensuring that their policies and action support that end. This will be helped by:
· Having teams within the Department to which all relevant departments contribute staff and whose individual line management is shared with the parent department whilst team management is the responsibility of the new (host) department.
· Identifying managers in the new department who have responsibility for line managing staff within other departments in respect of roles, which promote civil renewal.
· Developing performance management tools/mechanisms relating to civil renewal which can be used by the new department to inspect progress where responsibility for delivery rests with other departments.
· Developing shared cross-departmental approaches to definition, measures used, monitoring etc of all aspects of civil renewal and building these into existing performance management systems.
3. Ensure this department sets a lead for Government in recruiting up to 50% of its staff on a part secondment, part interchange basis from a range of community and voluntary settings, reflective of some of the most vulnerable communities. Secondments could be up to 3 years. This risk of removing the best workers from voluntary-community sectors would have to be managed by some mechanism for compensating seconding organisations.
4. Just as Whitehall needs to be reinvented with the help of this new department, so also the Town Hall needs to be reinvented so that it gets off the back of ordinary folk in neighbourhoods. This will be helped by:
· Becoming less 'doing' and more 'strategic and enabling', and devolving all possible powers and services down to neighbourhood level.
· Developing a series of regional Rolling Programme of Neighbourhood renewal in which the strong help the weak with the support of:
· A Neighbourhood Manager
· Teams of Neighbourhood Strategic Partners
· Neighbourhood Plans
· Empowering residents, resourcing and supporting Active Citizens and Social Entrepreneurs and ensuring that neighbourhoods flourish with the help of this action:
· Starting a School for Social Entrepreneurs in each region.
· Bending mainstream budgets and requiring partners to invest in Capacity Building.
· Enabling key services to be delivered by Voluntary and Faith organisations.
· Identifying an inspectorate of neighbourhoods, which requires LSP's to prepare Rolling Programmes of Recovering Neighbourhoods, checks that they are on target and puts failing neighbourhoods and LSP's into special measures and does not let them out until they have improved.
Managing Change - a key role for the new Department of State
A few tears ago John Harvey Jones, past director of ICI and the CBI played the management consultant role of 'trouble shooter' to a series of failing private sector businesses.
Each of these businesses had thrived in earlier years but had become stuck in routine. Head Office staff had aged, still applied dated practices, failed to move with the times and the workforce had become truculent and refused to pass on good practice suggestions to management. The product had not evolved with the times and the customer was shopping elsewhere. Unless things changed dramatically the business would soon have become bankrupt.
John Harvey Jones would spend time with each business and end up making radical proposals to management and workforce alike and suggest the need for a new product. Those business which swallowed hard, then made the changes survived. Those that did not closed.
Today, central and local government need a John Harvey Jones. The role he played is a key part of the function of the proposed major new department of state. It needs to encourage:
· The existing Departments of State to join up their thinking so they can act as one with regard to Civic and Civil Renewal.
· The existing Town Hall and one-size-fits-all statutory services to retain only those functions which can't be devolved to a lower, more tailor-made level or, following the principle of subsidiarity, to people in neighbourhoods.
· Strong, vibrant, diverse neighbourhoods to flourish with the help of a new cohort of social Entrepreneurs and Active Citizens who can help residents to become self-reliant and mutually supportive.
· The emergence of a new robust partnership of equals between Civil and Civic Society.
This is the challenge of this decade, maybe of the century. Get it right and Civil Renewal succeeds. Get it wrong and it may collapse with disastrous effects for the whole of society.
This will not be easy. It will take time. It can't be done everywhere all at once, but only in a phased way which gets phase 1 right and sets an example of good practice before moving on to subsequent phases with the help of the route map laid down by phase 1.
Appendix 7
Help is at hand
The role of the Guide
· Getting to map one neighbourhood let alone all neighbourhoods in a District is not easy, especially if you have not done it before. Conducting an Audit, setting out to prepare a Neighbourhood Development Plan, choosing a Manager, building a strategic Team and implementing the plan can seen even more daunting.
· So, it should be a relief to recall that some people have already invented the wheel and done all of these things. It will be much easier for you if you talk to them, follow their example, and benefit from their experience.
· The Pack of Cards in the DIY Tool Kit explains in some detail how you can tap into this experience. Neighbourhood 'Guides' have 'been there, done that and got the T Shirt'.
You can visit them on their home ground and discover how they have made progress, what pitfalls to avoid, and how to achieve success. Or, they will happily visit you in your neighbourhood and explain to you and your friends and neighbours how they progressed. Experience suggests that some people will want both to visit and be visited and develop an on-going relationship with their Guide. There is just one proviso, the Guide will help you to proceed, but they won't do it for you. For, there is no suggestion that you should replicate either Castle Vale or Balsall Heath in your neighbourhood, only the principles they used. Every neighbourhood needs it own distinct map, audit and development plan. Do refer to section I of the Pack of Cards for more details.