3 Field Asset Based Development - an abstract and link to full document

3 FIELD ABSTRACT

The Three Field Asset Based Development discussion document explores the potential reconfiguring of the relationship between the health sector with the complex but hugely resourceful voluntary and community sector (VCS).

The ‘Three Fields’ referred to in the title identifies distinct roles within health care provision.    

The paper outlines how the Three Fields, by being specific about the roles of identified organisations within the statutory and VCS sectors, can help health provision to benefit from working more strategically with VCS organisations, complementing and enhancing statutory provision.

The paper also identifies implementation and relationship issues.

For the process to succeed there is not only a need to be specific about the provision within the fields, but also a need to change the culture and attitude of statutory health organisations towards VCS organisations – attitudes to sharing information, acknowledging skills, commissioning appropriate organisations to achieve appropriate outcomes and services. The paper outlines changes that need to be made if such developments are to succeed related to a code of connection, reciprocal knowledge and financial relationships.

The paper concludes by identifying first steps and next actions. Having identified the process and the issues there is acknowledgement that the process will not happen without buy in and a change in culture in delivering health care.  

While a version of this document appears within this blog the full version with illustrations  can be found on the RnR Organisation web site  http://www.rnrorganisation.co.uk/blogs/three-field-asset-based-community-development/

Letter to the Labour Party

I was canvassed last week about the Labour Party Deputy Leadership and read five statements as to the important attributes of the position holder. None of the statements resonated with me as essential skills or attributes for the current issues faced by the Labour Party. The question has, however, been with me over the week and I’m still not sure of who I will support as none of the leadership candidates for leader or deputy leader had mentioned or discussed the issues I believe are fundamental to the party’s revival in the coming years.

Leaders come in many guises – the leader of the party should set the tone but, at a local level, Council Leaders and councillors need to adjust their view of leadership and partnership.

Historically the Labour Party recruited from ‘working class’ people, working in partnership with Trade Unions to improve circumstances and conditions. The definition of Labour's core vote is now more difficult and, at the last election, the Conservatives won the vote from ‘working people’ by preceding that term with a number of ‘judgemental’ adjectives eg honest, hard etc. This, together with UKIP's fear mongering statements, led to large numbers of ‘traditional’ labour voters believing, and subsequently voting for, other parties. 

With the core vote abandoning the Labour Party how should leaders reinvigorate the party?

Do we continue to discuss inequalities and the ‘austerity’ environment created by the last Coalition Government and …to be continued by the current Government?The party was brandied as bad managers of the economy, soft on immigration and supporters of welfare and ‘malingerers’. The ‘hard working’ families, tax payers, etc. pulled up the ‘I’m alright jack’ ladder’ and voted Tory.  How do we begin to win back the voters lost at the last election?

Some of the current candidates for either leader or deputy are adopting the rhetoric of the victors –  the 'sensible economic management creates an environment where welfare can flourish' mantra.

It’s not a matter of whether the Labour party should be left, centre left or any other variety of left - for me it’s how Labour regains credibility in the communities it was born from and purports to represent. Labour's traditional ‘working class’ supporters have become the PR categorised ‘hard working families’. How does Labour define and represent its traditional community? What is Labour’s community?How does the party win back a core vote in an environment where its core values and beliefs have been vanquished in a soundbite and a PR election campaign that continues into the current administration and, more importantly, who is the core group or community it is trying to win back?How is Labour to regain the belief of those it was established to represent, those that have been ‘charmed’ away by sales of council houses, shares in nationalised industries and the decimation of the trade unions?

The economy and working environment that existed when Labour was created has gone. More people have become home owners with mortgages, more are self-employed or sub contracted – relying on agency or zero hour contracts. It is these people who have listened to and been taken in by the PR hype and rhetoric of Cameron and the Tories. 

Does Labour attempt to win back its political position through singular political argument, or does it explore another route, embedding itself in communities that are in need, not just campaigning for change, but undertaking activities that bring about change - community activity, and campaigning that supports people’s lives and affects their environments, a doing politics to add to and augment the verbal and cerebral politics of which we are so fond?

I’m not just talking about Ward or community meetings, listening events. I mean community focused activity – litter picks, community clean ups, safety campaigns and local events, as well as exploring service development in a new economic structure. I mean encouraging their activists not just to turn up but to offer their skills in developing and managing activities; in other words good old fashioned community development. Not shoving the Labour Party down people’s throats but being a part of a community, as a Labour Party supporter, listening to, working with, gaining the trust of, and ultimately representing, communities.

Groups in the community run their own campaigns to develop their own services, they develop representation to increase support. The ‘leadership’ within the Labour Party, at a variety of levels, has to accept that sometimes community activism may come into conflict with the ‘political and administrative’ duties of the Party when it is in power. 

We now have a Conservative government that will slash and burn the public sector, cut public expenditure in order to cut taxes, cuts that will have an impact on those who voted Conservative as well as those who didn’t. There is a need for a dual role approach, with Labour arguing and campaigning against those cuts, raising awareness of the impact as well as working constructively to save some services by exploring new funding packages, developing new economic partnerships between Councils and Voluntary and Community Sector groups. We may not save all services but we may re-coordinate some.  

So this brings me back to leadership, leadership across the party and not just at Leader and Deputy leader status. Leadership that recognises that the public sector does not have to do everything, acknowledging that some communities have become disempowered by public sector led projects, politicians engaging staff to deliver services, and in return the politician gets the recognition and applause. 

Many councillors see themselves as community leaders - they are not. Councillors are ‘governance’ managers and scrutinisers for local services and administration. Councillors can campaign for services in their Ward and make representation on behalf of groups and individuals in need. While they may come from, or belong to, groups in the community, as a Councillor, they do not lead the community or even the Ward.

Leadership is about recognising purpose and product, harnessing skills and experiences in a multi levelled process, working with a variety of individuals with skills to deliver processes that lead to identifiable outcomes, not just at a political governance level, but at a community and service delivery level as well.

Leadership is acknowledging that the political environment has changed forever. Labour had the idea of the Welfare State and over the years there have been additions e.g. equal pay, gender inequality etc. but we have lost this ground and we need to regain the communities most affected by its decline, communities that did not vote for Labour in 2015.

Leadership is recognising that things need to change, not just be tweaked. If all parliamentary and assembly politicians, Councillors, Councils, and the incoming Labour Leadership are sincere in focusing on change, it has to be real, wide ranging change that includes all facets of community engagement and development. Building support from the grass roots with purpose, engagement and a belief in shared skills, true empowerment and development.

Given the list of candidates however none of this answers who I should consider voting for in the forthcoming elections.

Centralised funding, diminishing local authority, Combined Authorities and the role of the VCS

LOCAL AUTHORITY: A HISTORICAL VIEW

Do we have a rose tinted view of Local Authority power that is influenced by the ‘great’ civic leaders of bygone days?  Days when social and public programmes benefited  business and councils, controlled by the ‘great and the good’. Business leaders with a conscience developed centres of administration, Council Houses (Civic Centres) and Town Halls, to celebrate and remind people of the growing power and influence of local administrators and ‘benefactors’.

These benefactors however, were becoming more dependent on central funding for their growing projects, a dependency that would ultimately curtailing their ability to act ‘locally’. 

Over the past 30 years the role of Local Authority as a ‘delivery’ vehicle for national programmes has increased, while its role as local benefactor and innovator has all but disappeared. Local Authorities are now highly dependent on National Government funding through grant settlements and specific project / programme funding.

The provision of gas and electric were the first major services to be removed, long time ago, followed, over the years, by water, busses and post 16 education (FE Colleges). Social care, for children and adults have been eroded, as has the Council's role in statutory education.

It could be argued that the Housing Finance Act 1972 was one of the first national acts that impacted on local delivery / services. Municipal housing was no longer just a local issue - it was now governed by national legislation. Local Authorities were ‘forced’ to raise rents to fund their new, nationally imposed, responsibilities. While rent strikes followed as well as Councillors being disbarred for not complying with legislation (Cley Cross), the principle had been set. Not only were Local Authorities dependent on Central Government for major infrastructure developments, they also had to ‘do as they were told’ in what were seen as local services and provision.

LOCAL INITIATIVES, CENTRAL CONTROL BYPASSING LOCAL GOVERNANCE

Moving forward to the coalition government, over the last 5 years the centralisation of government initiatives has increased, exacerbating, and in some cases undermining,  Local Authority initiatives. Localism become the  mantra of the coalition government - central government pilots, vanguard projects and initiatives all but eroded local authority initiated activities, if not completely to the point of irrelevance, then very close to it. 

There is, however, a dichotomy in the methodology of the coalition and in the current administration. How do you reduce the services delivered through the public realm, especially Local Authority, while increasing local engagement and involvement within the decision making and localisation of services, actively engaging residents in planning services for their community?

The variety of initiatives developed that promoted the ‘locally led’ ethos of the Government continued to undermine the role of democratically accountable local authorities in strategic planning and development. From small neighbourhood management pilots to the development of academies, these were promoted as methods of developing delivery that are ‘managed’ locally. Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), have been created and given the responsibility of economic growth and are led by local businesses. Health and Social care are growing increasingly closer together, potentially dominated by Health trusts, locally managed, with some delivery in the private sector. These are all funded through central programmes, removing a layer of accountability, and management. How will the creation of the West Midlands Combined Authority sit with these developments? Will it be any different to the current structure, will it have to work across LEP areas and remain totally dependent on national government funding for major infrastructure projects.  

While there has been no overt statement concerning the reduction /removal / demise in the role of current Local Authorities, the fiscal reduction of budgets managed by Councils, and the subsequent reduction in staff, together with the centralised focus on regeneration initiatives and competitive element introduced to infrastructure programmes, does not bode well.

WHERE IS THE ROLE OF THE TRADITIONAL VCS IN ALL THIS?

If we accept that, in the future, large, local infrastructure projects could be undertaken without recourse to raising the finance locality, business led, by-passing traditional local democratically accountable processes, then we have to ask what is the future for Voluntary and Community Organisations (VCS), community focused and infrastructure?

If national programmes are to be developed and delivered, with a local focus, by financially and ‘democratically’ accountable bodies, with established and accepted governance procedures, who is going to deliver them? Local VCS organisations, small community groups that have some accountability to local process and members  or larger Academies and Housing Associations that are neither responsible nor accountable to local democratic bodies but are more than capable of applying, developing and delivering centralised government projects – on a local basis? 

Literary prologue to Wednesday’s budget

In ‘His Final Bow’, Sherlock Holmes last story Conan-Doyle provides Holmes with a patriotic speech to Watson.  

"There's an east wind coming, Watson."

"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."

"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared."

While the story was based in 1914, prior to the war it was written in 1917. Conan-Doyle had the benefit of hindsight as he knew the consequences of the 1914 -18 war. Watson therefore becomes a foil for Holmes, who is obviously aware of what is to come.

Perhaps using a comparison between the First World War and the potential devastation to our civic organisations and services about to be ‘let loose’ by the Conservative Government may be a bit perverse and over the top.

As a Voluntary and Community Sector we are preparing for the ‘east wind’. Let us not be a “Good old Watson” a “fixed point in a changing age”. The devastation will not be the physical devastation of war but the cold and bitter change to the funding and structure we have become used to will continue and increase in impact.

Many groups may wither, many individuals will suffer, and we can but hope that a stronger and better service will emerge when the storm has cleared.

For that to happen the VCS should not be Dr Watson and miss the ‘signs’ of change that Holmes has outlined to him throughout the story.

We need to focus on all the changes taking place, Combined Authorities, Budget cuts, Public sector commissioning and the potential to co produce/ design services etc.

We need to recognise that we, as a sector, have little chance of preventing the changes. We do however need to read the signs, put our foot in the door, even when we aren't invited, and snatch the opportunity to shape and influence the changes.