A client of ours -- a small, not-for-profit, economic justice organization [EJO] -- used social network analysis [SNA] to assist their city attorney in convicting a group of "slumlords" of various housing violations that the real estate investors had been side-stepping for years. The housing violations, in multiple buildings, included:
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Saul Alinsky - Image via Wikipedia
One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right.' If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.
Saul Alinsky in an interview originally published in 1972 in Playboy.
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Strange question perhaps, but in the nature of bureaucrats everywhere, the Department for Communities and Local Government are apparently faced with the need to come up with a legal definition in order to make progress on the 'Localism Bill'.
Apart from the rather strange spectacle of nationally defined local communities, another issue it seems is the ‘general power of competence’, which is set to give councils the power to act in the best interests of their communities. It appears that this has been changed from a previous wording of ‘power of general competence’.
In that light, Gabriel Chanan, formerly of the Community Development Foundation, has written a letter to theTimes:
Sir, Civil servants preparing the Localism Bill for the government are said to be having difficulty defining what a community is so that it can be given legal powers. This is promising. A community cannot be given legal powers because it is not an entity. It is a description of a certain (or more often uncertain) state of relationships amongst the population of a locality or some other group with interests in common. The only population-based entity to which you can give legal powers in a locality is a community organisation of one sort or another. This ought to throw the spotlight onto the question of the relationship between such an organisaton and the rest of the local population. So when the government, in Big Society mode, says it will enable ‘communities’ to take over a public service, the question should immediately arise of what does that community organisation need to do to show that it is acting in the interests of the whole local population, and what responsibility necessarily remains with the relevant public authority to ensure this. Communities as a whole do not and cannot take over public services. Community organisations can collaborate with public authorities to deliver the services better.
Gabriel Chanan, www.pacesempowerment.co.uk
I don't know if they published it, but now you have read it anyway.
[via Neighbourhoods blog]
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Dear HM Government,
Thank you for your recent application requesting that we join you as partners in building the “Big Society”, as outlined in your open letter to us, dated 12 November [pdf document].
Unfortunately we are unable to progress your application for a number of reasons.
1. While you clearly understand your vision, you unfortunately did not articulate your vision with reference to the wider context of your planned work. By way of example, a number of our assessors raised questions such as “but how big is society now, and how big do they plan to make it?” and “their policy decisions are being presented as based on fact and evidence, when they clearly are not”. They also expressed concerns that the mechanism by which you intend to provide “opportunities” (contracting services) means every opportunity offered to the voluntary sector is simultaneously (and legally required to be) offered to the private sector, and loaded with other risks. Failure to acknowledge and reference potential competitors and include a realistic risk analysis lost you significant marks.
from the Directory of Social Change
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Damanhur in Italy and the Findhorn Community in Scotland have consciously set out to reduce their dependence on the global corporate economy and to re-weave the web of a more complex, locally based, social economy. In an era where local shops, post offices, schools and other facilities are closing down in unprecedented numbers across Europe, these two communities are experiencing substantial growth and diversification, opening new enterprises and generating new employment.
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The universal nostrum offered by libertarians, for almost any social or political ill, is property rights. This is never more so in the UK than in relation to the UK planning system, for which they have nothing good to say. This is of course an understandable libertarian perspective, since the planning system is probably the greatest single intervention by the state in property matters. The roots of planning in the UK are however not a desire to control how land is used, but a concern for public health. On that basic concern, the present enormous superstructure has been erected.
A key date was 1947, with the passage of the Town and Country Planning Act. The Act, in effect, nationalised the right to develop land. It required all proposals for development, with a few exclusions, to secure planning permission from the local authority, with provision to appeal against refusal. That system essentially prevails now, although with much change in terminology and despite much windy rhetoric from both major parties about its damaging effects.
As part of my occasional series on controlling the growth of the state, in this post I intended to look at the claimed objectives for the planning system, to consider if those objectives are indeed valid and if valid to look at what alternatives might be possible, based on the principles of localism and minimal state intervention.
Trying to find a succinct summary of objectives is however rather harder than I expected. The former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, when it was responsible for planning, had this rather 'Janet and John' explanation:
Planning is about how we plan for, and make decisions about, the future of our cities, towns and countryside. Planning has a long history, even thousands of years ago people will have discussed where to build homes and shelters!
Over the centuries, a more formal way of making these decisions was set up. So when we want to build a new house or someone wants to develop a new shopping centre, your local planning authority is responsible for deciding whether it should go ahead. 'Local planning authority' usually means the district or borough council, not the parish or town council.
Without a planning system, everyone could construct buildings anywhere, or use land in any way they wanted, no matter what effect this would have on other people who live or work in their area.
This is why we have a planning system.
So, Planning is about Planning...
Similarly, this document, titled "The Planning System:General Principles" jumps straight into describing the structure of planning, without a principle, general or otherwise, in sight.
1. In England there is a hierarchical structure of guidance and plans covering national,
regional and local planning which includes:
• National Planning and Minerals Policy Statements and Guidance Notes.
• Regional Spatial Strategies.
• Local Development Frameworks.
So, Planning is about Plan Making...
Finally we have "Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development" in which we find:
5. Planning should facilitate and promote sustainable and inclusive patterns of urban and rural development by:
– making suitable land available for development in line with economic, social and environmental objectives to improve people’s quality of life;
– contributing to sustainable economic development;
– protecting and enhancing the natural and historic environment, the quality and character of the countryside, and existing communities;
– ensuring high quality development through good and inclusive design, and the efficient use of resources; and,
– ensuring that development supports existing communities and contributes to the creation of safe, sustainable, liveable and mixed communities with good access to jobs and key services for all members of the community.
This, while more explicit about what planning does, still leaves a lot of questions begged.
What are 'economic, social and environmental objectives to improve people’s quality of life' ? How should planning 'protect and enhance...existing communities? How do you define 'community' anyway in this context? How do you know when development is 'high quality', what is 'good and inclusive design'? What is the difference between 'protecting and enhancing...existing communities' and 'ensuring that development supports existing communities'?
It is easy I know to pick holes in government pronouncements on policy. Most after all are designed to be vague, appealing to as many people as possible, without putting others off. In this case though PPS1 is meant to be a piece of solid working guidance to be applied by trained professional planners and elected politicians when considering applications for planning permission. (Actually there are many other more detailed Policy Statements on specific topics, but textual analysis usually shows the extra detail to be illusory.)
In summary therefore, whatever its practitioners think they are, the political objectives of the UK planning system seem vague, ill defined and largely unhelpful to any citizen seeking enlightenment about why the state takes such enormous powers over private property. I say this as a former practitioner!
I'll come back to this in a future post, with a more pragmatic take on why planning exists and a look at possible alternative ways of trying to achieve those same ends.
In case you are wondering about the title, it comes from thinking about the vast range of activities considered to be 'development', which therefore fall within the ambit of the planning system and require planning permission from the local council.
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I shouldn't be surprised, but my earlier post about the Tories attitude to the idea of 'co-production' has rapidly been rendered moot by the whizzo scheme from David Cameron to turn parts of local government into so-called cooperatives.
It's a pretty confused proposal as evidenced by these two quotes, the first from Cameron, the second from George Osbourne:
Cameron:
I know that there are millions of public sector workers, that work in our public services. and who frankly today feel demoralised, feel disrespected, feel a lack of recognition. We will not only get rid of those targets and that bureaucracy that drives you so mad, we will give you the power in a way that is as radical as the right to buy your council home.
Osbourne:
"The check on quality here is that they would be contracting services to the local authority or the National Health Service and they would be providing a contract, for community nursing or for primary education.
"And we would be making sure, as taxpayers, that we were getting value for money and it was appropriately run and the standards the kids were being taught to were at the right level and the like."
Standards such as the national curriculum would remain, he said.
From the Party statement comes this confused gem:
The new right to form employee owned co-operatives will apply throughout the vast majority of the public sector – including JobCentre Plus offices, community nursing teams and primary schools. Employee owned co-operatives will continue to be funded by the state so long as they meet national standards, but will be freed from centralised bureaucracy and political micromanagement. They will be not-for-profit organisations - any financial surpluses will be reinvested into the service and the staff who work there, rather than distributed to external shareholders.
Setting aside the suspicion from trades unions
Gail Cartmail, assistant general secretary for the public sector [in Unite], said the Tory leader was "using the language of socialism to mask a break-up of public services" and "mangling the English language to advance his anti-state ideology".
which to be honest doesn't suggest that Unite has any more understanding of cooperatives than the Tory party, Cameron and Osbourne appear to be talking about very different animals. These co-ops will only be able to be offer contracts for services. They will not control the assets.
While staff will fully own their new organisation, they will not be able to sell off any of the state’s assets they continue to use, like land and buildings. And because we expect them to make big efficiencies and improvements to services, their contracts will ensure any big surpluses they make will be shared with the taxpayer.
This will be Thatcherite privatisation with a smily face. The minute some party apparatchik decides a particular coop is getting a bit too radical, the contract will be handed over to Capita. Remember, when the Thatcher government forced councils to put services like refuse collection out to tender, all they did was change the monopoly provider.
After their contract period, the co-operative enterprises will need to bid to renew the contract, so would be open to competitive pressure, like any other social enterprise working for government. While this will mean that good performance will be rewarded, the Government would not bail out enterprises if they fail. Like any contract that an enterprise enters into, the management and staff have to be responsible for any poor performance, not the taxpayer.
It is interesting too to see the Tory response to similar proposals from Labour led Lambeth Council.
A south London council has unveiled plans to become a "co-operative" - where residents who help run services would get council tax rebates.
Lambeth Council hopes the scheme, based on the business model of the John Lewis Partnership, will save it about £30m.
Under the proposals, residents could vote to turn services, such as primary schools, into citizen-led groups. ___________________________________________________________________________
But the Lambeth Conservative group described the proposals as a "gimmick" and did not think they would happen. _________________________________________________________________
Lambeth Council, which is Labour run, will put the plans out for consultation next month with the aim of introducing the mutual approach in August.
The plans would also see tenants offered greater control of housing estates by being given the powers to reorganise them as co-operatives.
I haven't been able to find any hard details on the Lambeth web-site to see if their proposals are any more likely to be about real local control than the Tories, but it seems likely that someone at Lambeth has been looking at the experiences of Porto Alegre in Brazil.
Should be interesting times ahead, because I suspect that if they really mean it, the Lambeth proposals will be as likely to cause shudders amongst the diehards in both Labour and Tory parties.
Ed Balls for example, responding to the Cameron proposal:
"The issue is not whether or not you put workers in charge. We are doing that - with parents and patients too," he said.
"The issue is whether you will fund those public services. We will and the Conservatives are not not matching those guarantees."
Another perspective comes from Chris Dillow
Let’s say the school’s results are measured by the proportion of children achieving level 4 in KS2 tests.
Teachers can increase this proportion in several nefarious ways; intensive coaching just before the test; narrowing the curriculum to the bear minimum; and concentrating their effort upon pupils on the margin of levels 3 and 4, and ignoring both the brighter and less able pupils.
Now, if teachers don’t have incentives to “provide better services”, some might not bother with these games. They might figure: “It’s no skin off my nose if the school misses this silly target. I’ll do proper teaching instead.”
If, however, the school becomes a co-op, the teacher’s reasoning changes, at the margin. Her pay now becomes dependent upon gaming the system. Worse still, because her colleagues’ pay also depends on it, she faces peer pressure to play the game. The result could be that co-ops actually displace knightly motives and encourage knavish ones. Results might improve. But teaching won’t.
Interesting times...
EDIT: In the light of Colin Ward's death this passage by him seems particularly appropriate to the above post.
When we compare the Victorian antecedents of our public institutions with the organs of working-class mutual aid in the same period the very names speak volumes. On the one side the Workhouse, the Poor Law Infirmary, the National Society for the Education of the Poor in Accordance with the Principles of the Established Church; and, on the other, the Friendly Society, the Sick Club, the Cooperative Society, the Trade Union. One represents the tradition of fraternal and autonomous association springing up from below, the other that of authoritarian institutions directed from above.
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You don't have to be an anarchist, a libertarian or even just politically on the right, to want to see a reduction in the size and span of state control. However, convincing those on the non-anarchist, non-libertarian left of this is likely to be difficult, despite the fact that much left-wing political activity and tactics has revolved around exactly the same sort of community and work based institutions as would be needed to continue civil society in a minimalist state - however you define 'minimal'.
Doing this full justice would require a book, indeed several books. I have touched on it before here. What I intend to do now, in what I hope will be a series of linked posts, is to take a range of institutions in present (UK) society where the conventional wisdom is that these institutions are needed to 'protect the community' in some way and to examine whether a) they are genuinely needed in the first place and b) if indeed they represent some real need, how that might be met without the state, or at very least with a much reduced role for it.
In this context, by 'the State' I mean not just all the national apparatus of the Civil Service and Parliament, but also that huge and growing collection of agencies and quangos at national level together with the parallel bureaucracies of local government and their dependencies, such as housing associations, care agencies and the like.
If everyone capable of benefiting from the alternative economy participates in it, and it makes full and efficient use of the resources already available to them, eventually we'll have a society where most of what the average person consumes is produced in a network of self-employed or worker-owned production...
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/03/building-structure-of-new-society.html
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Co-production is a word being thrown around a lot lately, but without much sense that anyone really understands it or is willing to really deliver on what it promises. So, here is a simple test for you - just read these three short extracts from recent political pronouncements.
First from a speech by David Cameron January 26 2007:
This alternative is – if I may borrow from the socialist phrase-book – the New Jerusalem: the liberal-conservative ideal.
It involves a diversity of independent, locally accountable institutions, providing public services according to their own ideas of what works and their own experience of what their users want.
...
It involves, most of all, individuals and families who are empowered with choice.
Pluralism on the supply side is matched with freedom on the demand side.
The public become, not the passive recipients of state services, but the active agents of their own life.
They are trusted to make the right choices for themselves and their families.
They become doers, not the done-for.
And this, from Nick Clegg in September 2009
The centralisation of Labour’s management of the NHS has, in my view, undermined service delivery and jeopardised equality. They failed to understand that power needs to be dispersed in the NHS, rather than collected in the Secretary of State’s office so no-one can do anything without Whitehall sayso. And they failed to understand that individual patients need to be empowered to deal with the NHS proactively – we should not all be supplicants at the state machine, but enabled to take charge of our health, get the care we need, and manage our own interactions with medical staff.
And finally from Phil Hope, sometime Minister of State for Care Services, speaking at a conference on 18 March 2009:
Co-production changes all this. It makes the system more efficient, more effective and more responsive to community needs.
More importantly, it makes social care altogether more humane, more trustworthy, more valued – and altogether more transforming for those who use it.
More transforming for the man with the whippet and for the six million carers in our society.
More transforming for the 20 million-odd volunteers – a huge untapped source of social capital and community renewal.
And more transforming for the workforce of today, and the care users of tomorrow who we need to engage now to plan effective services for the future.
This quote provides a less partisan definition in its historic context.
What is 'co-production'?
The term 'co-production' began as a way of describing the critical role that service 'consumers' have in enabling professionals to make a success of their jobs. It was originally coined in the 1970s by Elinor Ostrom and others to explain why neighbourhood crime rates went up in Chicago when police stopped walking the beat and lost connection with local community members. It was used also in the UK in the 1980s by Anna Coote and others at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and the King's Fund to describe the reciprocal relationship between professionals and individuals necessary to effect change.
The concept has also been expanded by US civil rights lawyer, Edgar Cahn, who emphasises the involvement of the wider network of families and neighbours. Cahn defines co-production as depending on the following values:
- Assets: Every human being can be a builder and contributor.
- Redefining work: To include whatever it takes to raise healthy children, preserve families, make neighbourhoods safe and vibrant, care for frail and vulnerable people, redress injustice, and make democracy work.
- Reciprocity: The impulse to give back is universal. Wherever possible, we must replace one-way acts of largesse with two-way transactions both between individuals and between people and institutions.
- Social networks: Humans require a social infrastructure; this is as essential as roads or bridges. Social networks require ongoing investments of social capital generated by trust, reciprocity, and civic engagement.
Now, having read them, which politician appears to be seeing things in terms of improving the system and which ones seem to understand that this is about people. No prizes!
You know what makes me sick though? Seeing a jumped up prig and a nonentity BOTH making more sense than a Government minister from a party that has consistently claimed since it was elected to be about community empowerment.
What garbage!
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A nice example of direct action.
More videos here
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