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There is a consultation just beginning on the community empowerment renewal bill.
I know from discussions with the Civil Servant Alasdair McKinley,
who is the lead role on that, and I know he wouldn't mind me saying this,
that for once they haven't decided what needs to be in the bill.
This is not one of these situations where the civil servants already know
what it is they want to do.
And I think as Lynne has referred to, and I think Ian touched on this as well,
there's a kind of ambiguity within the Government about what it is that
they're trying to do here and what the tools might be required
and what might be achievable. And I'm wondering if we,
through this process this morning, and thinking and reflecting
on the presentations we've heard so far, might be able to help with that.
So I'd like you, at your tables... - I know in Scotland
we tend to focus a wee bit on the negative... let's try and focus on the positive -
what could we, realistically, suggest would be useful
to put into a piece of legislation which would make a meaningful change
to community empowerment renewal. Let's have a few specific suggestions on that.
If, however, there - and we've talked, particularly Lynne has talked
about links over to other policy areas, on tax, on benefit,
on employment, on health, on education - if there are other changes that need to be
created in other pieces of legislation, let's note them as a side-bar.
Okay, and keep the main focus on what should be in a community
empowerment renewal bill. And let's try and do that for half an hour
and then we'll get back together and find out what great ideas have come forward.
Thank you.
This table here, your one key point for legislation to
enhance community empowerment and renewal, or similar.
Eddie, is it you?
Well, we focused very obviously, specifically,
as Andy directed us to do, on the legislation.
And what legislation does is largely place duties on people
or usually local authorities and Scottish Ministers.
So, I think the key point that came out here was that there need
to be some sort of duty on public bodies... to recognise what is community led
and what are community assets.
And also we felt that on the other side of things that
duties on Scottish Ministers, in relation to community assets would
allow a cross-governmental look at what this means
because often government work in silos in terms of their funding,
it would at least give community assets a higher priority, and allow a bigger debate.
(chair person) Eddie, just while you've got that
(chair person) just clarify again,
(chair person) recognising what community assets are...
(chair person) What is the point?
What did we say? Somebody help me out here.
It was about public bodies having a duty.
It was a duty on public bodies to look at what communities assets actually are.
Is that right? Am I getting that right?
(chair person) Okay, so first of all, public bodies
(chair person) to make some sort of assessment
(chair person) for community assets actually are and then
(chair person) a responsibility on Ministers to think about that
(chair person) in a cross-government policy way.
(chair person) Good, okay. Thanks. That's excellent.
We've got somebody with the roving mic? We have.
Second table over here, if you can fight
your way through there, that would be great.
Hi there. We talked very simply
in terms of the legislation and what needs to be in there.
We said that it was coming through, time and time again, as the need for
some sort of community development support.
The need to support communities in terms of taking over an asset
and supporting the communities when they have control of an asset as well,
because I don't know if it's down to human nature, whatever,
but there's a tendency for groups to become very exclusive
and what's actually needed is that support to give them
the skills and confidence so they can actually engage with the wider community.
And evidence that engagement and keep that going on the long-term.
(chair person) Good, that's really helpful.
(chair person) Did you have any thinking at all about what that
(chair person) community development support
(chair person) what kind of form that would have?
Very physical. Actual workers on the ground.
Whether that's coming from things like healthy living centres or
whether that's coming from national agencies or whether that's coming from
the local authorities; actual bodies, people on the ground
who are skilled workers.
(chair person) Okay, that's very helpful, thank you.
(chair person) Next table.
Hi.
We came right at the end of it and it has to be written into the bill,
how it will contribute into closing the inequality gap, a bit like the
child poverty act or the child poverty target.
(chair person) Right, that's very good.
(chair person) Okay, specifically...
...how it will contribute to doing that...
(chair person) to closing...
There's a danger that that gets forgotten.
(chair person) Right. Okay.
(chair person) So the focus is on closing the inequality gap
(chair person) and you gave a reference there
(chair person) to the child poverty targets
(chair person) set up by Tony Blair.
(chair person) Good, okay. Next table.
(chair person) Just a wee side-line to that,
(chair person) I remember... when was it?
(chair person) It must've been 2007, I think.
(chair person) They said that we will require £4bn
(chair person) to get the child poverty targets back on track
(chair person) and I remember thinking,
(chair person) £4bn, that's quite a lot of money.
(chair person) It was only years after that we were giving
(chair person) £500bn to the banks.
(chair person) It didn't seem so much money then.
(chair person) Okay, back table.
Hi.
We spoke about many issues, as I'm sure you all did,
but we decided to focus on, in terms of the legislation,
what you would legislate for. Some of the successful pilots
that have been done around participatory budgeting
and perhaps there could be case made within the legislation to top-slice
some of the kind of local public service budgets in order to
devote to community led approaches. So that that could be stimulated
so that infrastructures can be built around communities.
And to make sure that there's a truly bottom-up approach to that,
you need to put the money where that should be.
So to top-slice the budgets would be a potential way of
focusing attention on community led approaches.
(chair person) How interesting. Very good.
(chair person) I remember being at a conference
(chair person) in the run-up to 2007 election
(chair person) and Wendy Alexander actually
(chair person) explicitly supported such a proposal,
(chair person) which I thought was interesting.
(chair person) Next table up here.
Okay.
Lots of similar issues I think
to what people have already mentioned. We talked about the need
to be clear on what assets are up for transferring.
What the things that we want to be publicly owned
and publicly controlled and what are the things that we think
that it's acceptable can be transferred. We also had an interesting
discussion about what happens if there is failure.
If assets are transferred, if communities are running whatever
would have been seen as services and as failure because we need to remember
we had a little bit of a discussion about our notion of entrepreneurship
And we need to remember that where these assets are being transferred,
or certainly the ones that we're interested in today. It's transferring in communities
that have very low levels of resources where there's not a lot of money about.
And that doesn't lend itself to or may not lend itself to successful
provision of services if it's relying on making money.
So we need to be careful about when services are transferred
or when assets are transferred that we're not in danger of perpetrating
existing patterns of inequality. And we need to be able to ensure that
all communities, whether they're disadvantaged or not, are able to rely
on certain standards of service in communities. And one useful suggestion,
just to finish on, was perhaps it would be useful
to look at where this agenda has been in place for a longer time and
to look at the longer term impact of transferring resources to communities and
seeing whether it has had an impact on levels of poverty in and inequality.
(phone rings) I think...
(phone rings) that's not for me...
...I think some of this agenda comes from the States and it would be
good to look at where there have been significant transfers of assets,
has it actually had an impact.
(chair person) Okay, thank you Peter.
(chair person) So that we're beginning to get some connections here
(chair person) and that specification of what's
(chair person) up for transfer with the first group's duty to
(chair person) recognise what community assets actually are
(chair person) and what they aren't and then there's a bit of echo
(chair person) there with the second group on
(chair person) guarding against the emergence of cliques
(chair person) in communities and guarding against that failure
(chair person) and a new call for, before we get into this legislation,
(chair person) looking at practice elsewhere.
(chair person) This table here, second at the back.
(chair person) Sarah.
Yes, a lot of
echoes from the other tables as well... This group thinks there's a
real need for concentration on money... there's a real concern that local authorities
are just going hand over assets to communities and just tell them
to get on with it and walk away and we think there's a real need
to ensure that if you are handing over assets that there's a support
and the money to go with it. There's also talk around
communities having more control over, not only the assets but the money
that goes with that as well, but in order for that to happen there needs
to be a passing over of trust from local authorities for communities to be able to do that.
In order for that to happen there needs to be accountability of the community group.
Big discussion around what is community. Are they representative or not.
Particularly around... in a lot of communities, a lot of the groups that exist don't
necessarily come from... people who are living in poverty don't
necessarily have the capacity all the time to be able to be involved in that.
So how do we make sure that they're represented by the community groups
that are taking over those assets and there isn't going to be any resentment of particular
groups taking hold, taking management of a building, and other groups not being able to access that as well.
So yes, a real concern around resentment and tension perhaps within communities.
Communities are not this warm, fuzzy thing that all agree, there is tension within them.
And lastly, there's a concern around where communities don't exist, where the groups are not
strong enough so, therefore, is there a need for preparatory work of creating
communities within particular different areas, geographical areas.
(chair person) Okay, preparation of support, certainly...
(chair person) Did you have a specific proposal on how to
(chair person) encapsulate that trust accountability in representation issue
(chair person) within a piece of legislation.
Erm...
(chair person) Answers on the back of a postcard!
...no.
I'm going to be honest and say no. There was actually, there's a lot of confusion,
I think, around this whole agenda so, no.
(chair person) Continuing debate on that, okay.
(chair person) That's fair enough. Right, this table here,
(chair person) second to last table. Andrew...
The bill itself does present a lot of issues because we have things that we wanted
to be considered in the bill but it was hard to think about how they could be
practical suggestions for the bill, to address these. Such as, related to the idea about some communities
needing extra support, some of the most disadvantaged communities are also the most transient and so who's
going to take on assets when the people are moving around? And then, the whole idea of a bill...
is it a top-down approach in itself, that was raised. And there was a lot of concern about
expertise and sign-posting to funding and support with legal things when it comes to owning assets.
It wasn't clear how that could be implemented into a bill. But it's something to be considered.
And then the idea of social assets as well, where does that fit in with the bill?
And we're wondering whether the bill was geared up towards material assets and how that can be addressed.
And lastly, there was the point made that you can have certain circumstances where
if a community centre, for instance, isn't going to be provided by local authorities then perhaps
the best solution is for the community to own it but then there is the question on top
of that about, you know, it's a public asset that perhaps shouldn't be
handed over to a group in a community.
(chair person) Okay, good. Thank you for that.
(chair person) I remember having a discussion at the SURF Board one time
(chair person) the community representative in the SURF Board
(chair person) was going slightly confused
:(chair person) 'I thought we owned these assets already,
(chair person) 'I thought that was the idea. I thought that was written
(chair person) 'We already owned these assets.'
(chair person) Okay, last table here.
Again, lots of echoes of previous tables, we also talked to some extent about the need for
a duty on local authorities to provide staffing community development staff
but then we widened that out and talked about the need for understanding of
community led development to be something which is taken up across all sectors.
Both within the local authority's NHS but also the third sector as well.
So something about that becoming a broader agenda for everybody, and sort of
rolling out some of the things that are in Christie.
The other key thing that we talked about quite a lot in terms of what we'd like to see in the bill.
was related to something, I think Sarah's table were discussing in some detail,
which was the need to link in something around local accountability in the bill
so that we don't have a situation where single-interest groups, for example,
take over the delivery of services. Then you have a situation where,
okay, you might not feel terribly well-represented at the moment
but at least you can complain to your local councillor and say, 'we're fed up
with the way you're running this service. I'm sorry, I'm just not going to vote for you next time'.
If that then just disappears to a third sector organisation which has a particular interest,
how do you make your views known as somebody who lives in the local community?
How do you vote them out? How do you get rid of them if you feel they've
been a complete failure? So there's a broader discussion about the
need to link in this whole discussion about assets to the need to begin to really think about regenerating,
not just our assets and our communities, but local democracy as well.
(chair person) Good, okay.
(chair person) So a community empowerment bill might address
(chair person) local democracy and the structure of that overall,
(chair person) as well as just assets. Great.
(chair person) Okay, well there's huge range of points in there, it seems to me.
I think there are two broad well, maybe more than two points.
One is about definition in the first place. What is we're talking about here in terms of assets.
And just to, again, to echo what I was saying at the start of the presentation,
my understanding is I think it is on one hand about physical assets - about land and property -
but also mixed in there, the Christie Commission stuff about co-production and services.
The other is about resources, about ensuring that resources are not just put in to
initiate things, but to ensure ongoing support as communities are transient and changing as they are.
And to ensure against the collapse into cliques, which kind of takes up that point towards the
end about who are these people that assets should be transferred to anyway.
But a broader ambiguity it seems there amongst this audience, you as participants,
about what it is we're talking about in terms of assets and what the implications
of that might mean and how that could possibly be encapsulated
successfully within a piece of legislation. Okay, so, I'm just going to...
I think that has been useful. I know that Lynne's got a number of points there to make
so I'm just going to see if we can cut to the chase and get some
comments back from you, first of all, Lynne.
Thank you very much.
I suppose the first question for me would be, what is the bill for.
And therefore like the inequalities table to ask for some specific measures of success related to fairness.
And part of that needs to be the point that you made about how does the bill relate to
local democratic traditions and the need to revive those. So that would be the first thing.
The second, I think, is more about generating more resources as well as the distribution of them.
And that means that the side-bar would include stuff around land tax, around minimum income,
because if we're going to have a balance between unpaid material assets and
social assets we need to look very clearly at issues around the living wage
and the idea of a minimum income employment. So that would be a kind of side-bar
about the kind of economic model that the renewal bill is going to contribute to.
And then the third is that, at the moment it's set up like this a discussion between public services,
local authorities and the community. But surely a key contribution of the bill
will be to get a better balance between the voice of communities and the voice of big business.
So let's not forget that big business are a very powerful voice and how will the bill contribute to
equalising the voice of communities and the voice of big business?
So those would be the three things I'd like to ask.
(chair person) Lovely. Well, concisely made too.
(chair person) Ian.
Can I pick up the point, first of all, about the degree to which our presentations
were compatible or contradictory because I think they are actually compatible.
And if I didn't make it clear, I really want to stress
that I'm not suggesting that community led regeneration is the answer to poverty.
I think that, at best, it can have a marginal impact on poverty and if I gave that impression or
gave the opposite impression I apologise for that. I do think that poverty
will only be resolved by sort of structural change that Lynne's talking about and therefore
the question's how we do that and particularly in the absence of any political party
that I can see advocating the kind of changes that are going to actually address poverty.
So for me, it's about what we can do within community led regeneration and
I think the bill sits fairly within that. Again, as much as I'd like it,
I don't think the bill will address inequalities or address poverty.
I could be wrong but I don't think it will. I think, as Andy said,
it's much more an element of community led regeneration.
I would also reiterate the point I made that I don't think
the community ownership of assets is for every organisation and it's for every asset.
Lots of assets are liabilities. We're dealing with that on a day-to-day basis.
A lot of the surplus assets that public sector have are liabilities.
What we're talking about is a particular type of community organisation at the focal point
of community led regeneration. And I think they do, the way they operate
does address some of these issues of accountability. There is built-in democratic accountability.
So I think the bill, if it's looking at who it transfers assets to, does need to think about,
as well as rights to communities what responsibilities it places on communities as well.
I think the final point I would make is if we're thinking about assets and public sector assets
and there's obviously ambivalence about communities taking on assets or whatever.
We need to think about how assets are dealt with at the moment.
The private sector consistently get assets from the local authorities and other public sector
bodies either peppercorn rents or knock-down prices. I was reading in the paper yesterday
about the Waverley exhibition centre in Edinburgh, probably one of the prime bits of land
in Edinburgh have been transferred to the Murray Group for £40!
I didn't see folk saying, well, what will happen if that fails and what will do this and what...
What I think what we're looking for here is some sort of level playing field
so that if public bodies are looking to dispose of assets, communities are getting treated
seriously and not regarded as some kind of Mickey Mouse operators but if they've got
a business plan and a proposition that they're treated seriously and, at the very least,
on an equal playing field with what's already going on, I think, in terms of assets.
I suppose the final thing, speaking to a lot of local authorities saying, well, why would
we want to sell the family silver, and people have this kind of view that
assets are collective loaned in the public sector. And I think it's about horses for courses.
I think that communities with that democratic accountability built in can control assets
in a much more creative and effective way that benefits the local community to a greater extent.
So I think it's worth thinking about. It's not the answer to everything but I think it's a
something we've got in our armoury to begin to look at actually some sort of
seriously community led regeneration taking place.
(chair person) Ian that's great, thank you.
And I think the point on the transfer of assets to the private sector from local authorities
is a really interesting one. And actually the day, I had the discussion
with Alasdair McKinley who's drawn up this bill, was the day after we gave
Northern Rock to Richard Branson. And we gave Northern Rock to Richard Branson
at £750m less than they knew it was worth. A fantastic... I can't... I think
we all individually paid about £350 towards that deal. And that's a transfer of community owned
assets to the private sector, so a point well-made there Ian.
Nicola, any points from you?
Just to say, I've enjoyed this morning and to conclude, on reflection, after speaking
around the tables and hearing other presentations, that I would agree with
what Lynne and Ian have both said. But also thinking about the Walkerburn situation,
that I'm so pleased I didn't get the land first. I'm delighted that we had that infrastructure
established and that we were able to work with that to develop the piece of land
and that's really how I'd like to...
(chair person) Good, okay. So I'd really...
(chair person) a good point there from Nicola
about not getting the onerous asset first of all but building the infrastructure from the start.
Good, okay. We're just about on time and I don't
want to go over time so are there any points anybody thinks we've really kind of missed
out here in the process and format. A point at the back there.
(chair person) Why is it always the furthest away point?
(chair person) I don't understand.
(chair person) There's some sort of law going on here.
I'll just stand up.
(chair person) No, no, no, apparently we need it for the recording.
Thanks. It was maybe picking up on something Ian mentioned in his presentation
about in the Western Isles that 55% of land now is in community ownership.
Part of the reason for that is because we've got a two-tier system of land reform really
in Scotland where communities and crofting communities have got the right to buy
that folk in other places don't have and you had that presentation in Neilston
up there and I know they had a real hassle to get a hold of that building.
So maybe that's something that the bill should be addressing, the same community right to buy
that folk have in the crofting communities should be extended to other places across Scotland.
(chair person) Very good point.
(chair person) Do you want to make comment on that?
(Ian Cooke) As well as the new bill,
(Ian Cooke) there's also a commitment to review the land
(Ian Cooke) reform legislation,
particularly how the community right to buy operates. I suspect that'll be more a sort of
tidying up and trying to make it a bit simpler to use. But certainly we're arguing
that that is an opportunity to actually look at extending the community right
to buy to all Scottish communities.
Very good. And I remember when this... I remember
David Milliband, when he was still in running for the leadership Labour Party or maybe
he still is of course, but I mean... At the time, when was that?...
about four years ago when this land use bill was going through and he was saying,
'well that would be really good'... and he was talking about applying that in urban areas
in England, which was a discussion which was not taking place in Scotland
and still hasn't been been followed through.
Stuart, last point and I'm going to move on to finish.
I was just thinking something I heard earlier on in the week actually,
but we've been talking today about transferring assets to communities
as almost as a sort of one-way process. And the thing I heard earlier on in the
week was about the other direction. The example was snow clearing
in The Borders, no it wasn't, it was Dumfries and Galloway.
And the example was that farmers in The Borders could clear
all the snow in The Borders, ...sorry, it's Dumfries and Galloway,
using their tractors and all that sort of stuff. But what actually happens
is the contract goes to a big multi-national company which was able to, through procurement process,
was able to provide the offer that the Council had to accept. And I think there's something about,
you know, can we empower communities the other way by building-in something that makes sure
that councils aren't let others procure their services, at least on an equal basis with those from
multi-national businesses or others.
This has been really good. That's another really good point.
And some people may know that there is actually a consultation process going on at the moment
on a procurement bill for the Scottish Government and that kind of discussion taking place.
So you would like to think that all of these things are somehow seamlessly connected up,
which I'm sure they are at some level well above my head.
Okay.
So I'd now like just to hand to Peter, makes that... we're just about there.
Peter, so it's been your show, I hope it's been useful.
It's certainly been a very stimulating discussion for me. I think the key speakers have been great,
Nicola, Ian and Lynne. So maybe I'd just like to ask you to do a wee
bit of summary for us there, Peter. Thank you.
Thanks Andy. I should say of course that I wasn't expecting
to summarise, so thanks for that Andy! It's always a pleasure.
Particularly difficult to summarise a discussion that's been so wide ranging
but I think what this has reinforced for me is the importance of this debate.
And just the links that were being made towards the end there around
the sustainable procurement bill, the issues that Lynne was raising around living wages.
The points of that were coming across about the revitalisation of local democracy.
These are all essential elements in tackling poverty and none of them
can be looked at in isolation, I think.
So I guess just in summing up, where do we go next with this?
There's clearly a lot of interest in this issue. We were quite overwhelmed by the response,
both ourselves and SCDC, to the speed with which this event filled up.
I think we could probably run it again with a whole group of other people,
somewhere else in the country that's maybe a wee bit more accessible.
So there is... there's obviously a desire to engage with this agenda.
And I think there's a desire to make sure that when we're talking about community assets,
when we're talking about community empowerment, that is actually having an impact
on issues of poverty and inequality. And simply because we keep being told that
resources are declining, that there's less and less money around,
doesn't mean that we need to ensure, we need to make that argument that
those resources that are available are targeted, are used most effectively
to address problems of poverty because they are going to increase
significantly over the next few years and we need to be clear about that.
So any discussions that we have around the community empowerment and renewal bill,
sustainable procurement, whatever the issue, we want to try and make sure
and as a network, as an organisation, we'll be making sure that poverty
and inequality does feature and is taken into account by policy makers
in the drafting of that legislation. And I think, again, those issues
that came up towards the end about recognising where
assets are already being transferred but being transferred to the
private sector, and that that's a process that's been going on
for a very long time, not just one that's coming out of austerity,
but one that's been part and parcel of the way that we've been treating assets
in this country for at least the last 30 years. So we need to ensure that again we are
realistic about what's going on and that we're able to talk about these issues
as they actually are rather than focusing only on the problems in disadvantaged communities.
So the next stages for us, we will respond to the consultation.
We'll be encouraging our members and all those who are supporters
to respond to the consultation. We'll be producing a report from this
event and we'll be discussing with the Scottish Community Development
Centre about what kind of action we can perhaps take together to
follow-up some of the discussions that have taken place today.
This event has been filmed and we'll put that up on our website.
We want as much discussion about this issue as possible
and I guess the final thing is just to say thank you to all of our speakers,
to Andy for chairing, and bringing us in on time, which is remarkable,
for all of our speakers, for all of you for attending.
I'd like to thank Fiona at SCDC and all the staff at SCDC
for their support in pulling this event together. And as usual, anyone who has
been to any event where they've seen me close it before, not only
is there an evaluation in your pack, there is also a membership form
for the Poverty Alliance. One of the ways that we keep this
issue of poverty higher up the agenda, is to encourage more of you
to be part of the anti-poverty network in Scotland.
So I would encourage you, if you can, to join us and hopefully
we'll see you again at a future event.
Thanks very much.