Cameron has gone awfully quiet on his Big Idea, hasn’t he? Perhaps he’s not so keen on society getting big when its people are increasingly disinclined to vote Conservative. Of course, their manifesto makes no secret of the true motivation behind the Big Society – to privatise our schools, hospitals, and anything else that sits still long enough to be converted into pounds and pence. Not exactly a shock, but I’m not going to shrug off the community element of this so readily, because intentionally or otherwise, the Tories have highlighted a really important issue (while simultaneously showing no insight as to how to resolve it, plus ça change). I’m not going to go into why parents shouldn’t run schools, as that has been done comprehensively elsewhere, but rather, we’re going to talk community activism and empowerment.

Community groups achieve wonderful, valuable, tangible things every day – often in spite of overwhelming capacity issues and other obstacles, and I stand wholly alongside any politician who recognises this, and is willing to act accordingly. But I question that the Conservatives (at least those involved in the production of the manifesto) even recognise why community groups do what they do so well.

Take this lofty goal:

“…our ambition is for every adult in the country to be a member of an active neighbourhood group.”

Do not misunderstand me – this is not a bad dream – it is just incomplete. It has the what, but not the why – WHY do people give up their spare time to join neighbourhood groups? It certainly isn’t because they have been told that they ought to, as though civic pride is something that can be distributed like penny chews. Ultimately, people do these things because there are rewards for doing so. Rarely monetary rewards, I might add, but rewards nonetheless. Perhaps it’s the chance to meet and work with new people, or to achieve something that means something to you. When I went to my first Moseley Forum meeting, what took me there after a long day at work was the desire to give something back to my beautiful community – the feeling that I owed it something, that I needed to be holding up my end of the bargain. That isn’t to say that people who feel the same as me will necessarily do exactly the same thing in their communities, and nor should they. Perhaps they like to shop in local shops, maybe they do a job which already fulfils that desire, or maybe they’re a full-time carer. If people are minded to act, or do good, they will find a way of doing it.

You can’t force inclination – but what you can do is make things easier for community groups to exist, function and to learn from one another. Here’s another line:

“…we will use Cabinet Office budgets to fund the training of independent community organisers to help people establish and run neighbourhood groups.”

This is, again, somewhat flawed. Who are these independent community organisers? What makes them more of an expert on community groups than any other community activist? How on earth would you even measure that, given the wide variety of things community groups do? Community groups don’t need a middle(wo)man, but central and local government can still play a role by making it easier for these groups to know and learn from one another.

And there’s already a good base for this: for example, a few years ago, the Guide Neighbourhoods scheme was started using funding from the Department of Communities and Local Government, and involved a number of successful community groups sharing what they knew with others. There’s also things like Resident University (declaration of interest: I work with Chamberlain Forum, which runs it), which helps active citizens and community groups to help themselves achieve their goals. These arrangements need to be supported, built on and encouraged by all the parties.

Of course, you would think that the Conservatives, with their supposed faith in the individual, would know this, and would recognise this in their Big Plans for a Big Society. Instead, they offer us a top-down approach to community empowerment, limiting the scope of potentially brilliant initiatives like Total Place and the Low Carbon Communities Challenge, and patronising people who have already taken ownership of their world. What a waste of paper.

This blog was originally posted on House of Twits.

Categories: Community Power
Tags: big society, birmingham, chamberlain forum, community groups, david cameron, guide neighbourhoods, moseley, moseley forum, privatisation, resident university, total place

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I am an active member of a number of local volunteer groups, and as such, I am always a little bothered when I hear the phrase “we only ever see you at election time.” It suggests that, to that individual and their household, politics is a grasping, intrusive element that only makes itself felt when it wants something – not, as it is (or should be), the thriving relationship between citizen and public servant, the thread that runs through all our lives. Is it really the case that we are only concerned with the wellbeing of this individual when it is time for them to vote?

Of course, when it comes to voter ID (or, as we call it, #labourdoorstep), there is a certain detached practicality to the whole process, necessarily so, but it can (and must) have other value. And in my experience, in good campaigns with dedicated activists, it often does – the listening, the bit where we ask “are there any issues you would like to raise?” can often reveal seams of concern and discontent, issues that need to be resolved, by us. I’ve been on the doorstep with Kerry McCarthy’s team in Bristol East on two occasions, and both times, I was really glad to see how dedicated her team were to following up these issues – recorded, and initial actions (even if it’s just a letter or a second visit) laid out then and there. In Gisela Stuart’s campaign in Birmingham Edgbaston, they have been doing likewise – several people I know in the constituency have remarked on the fact that, if you raise issues with Gisela, you always get a response, a dialogue, solutions.

They recognise, as I like to think I do, that it’s all about that relationship – if it the person on the doorstep feels let down by their public servant and their neighbourhood, then the onus is on you to change that. It’s also about consistency – if someone raises an issue on the doorstep, note it, make sure it gets to the right people, and keep them in the loop. You don’t have to have all the answers – indeed, you may have to come back and give them an answer that they don’t much like. What is important is that you come back, and keep coming back. Hopefully there are numerous examples of this in your constituencies that you have been carried out and/or been inspired by.

However, the manner of your response is as important as the fact you are doing it, and for that, you need to get to know your constituency, its people, and their commonalities and tensions. In the my constituency, the new Birmingham Hall Green,  a number of wards, with very different personalities, cultures and levels of civic-mindedness have been thrown together. Look at the graph below, (produced by Chamberlain Forum, the think tank I am working with), which plots the position of all Birmingham’s Priority Neighbourhoods, the most deprived neighbourhoods in the city. Note NI4, which represents the percentage of people that feel they can influence local decisions. Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook are both part of my constituency, but as you can see, their residents feel very differently about how much influence they have over their neighbourhoods. Add to these the much wealthier areas of Hall Green, Moseley and Kings Heath, all of which score quite highly on both NI4 and NI5, and you get an impression of the diversity of wealth, perception of influence, and general satisfaction with where they live.

I’ve seen this potential for tension in microcosm in one road in the constituency, where a mosque has been established in a terraced, residential street. Its use has expanded greatly in recent years, the street flooded with cars at times of worship and learning, and this is where tension has arisen between the people who use the space for living, and those who use it for worship. Long since abandoned by the local councillors, the relationship has been left to fester, with all parties feeling as though their road is a worse place to be. When we spoke to residents about this on the doorstep, myself and the Labour council candidate decided to act, but in a particular way. This couldn’t be an “us” and “them”, both groups use and value the space, and the solution must be collaborative, not combative. So we’re going to organise a small meeting, with both sides able to express their perceptions, and us present as mediators, to facilitate the flow of practical, inexpensive and mutually agreeable solutions.

I really think we can succeed, and I hope that we do – but even if we fail, we’re not going to slink off, never to be seen again. We’re going back to explain why we failed, to try again, and to maintain the relationship between us (as activists and public servants) and the people we hope to represent.

This blog was originally posted on the Young Fabians website.

Categories: Community Power
Tags: balsall heath, birmingham, campaigning, chamberlain forum, community cohesion, community groups, gisela stuart, hall green, kerry mccarthy, moseley, priority neighbourhoods, sparkbrook

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