Transcript Document

Community and mutual ownership:
What is its relevance for society today?
Community and mutual
ownership:
Vibrant Voices Past
Stephen Thake,
JRF Programme Advisor
Toronto G20 meeting
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Breakdown of consensus
European retrenchment
Chinese obduracy
Washington paralysis
Double-dip recession
Relevance to today
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Crisis with a long lead time
Communities take the strain
Structural shifts in global economy
Birth of a new community sector
Community ownership of assets
IoE History Project
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2,000+ year history of appropriation
Early History
to 1050AD
Feudal
to 1450
Early Modern
to 1750
Industrial Capital to 1945
Post WWII
to 2010
Models and legacies
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Common and customary
Community
Co-operative and mutual
Charities
Municipal and state
Commons and customary
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Celtic culture
Roman erosion
Angles, Saxons and Normans
16th – 18th century enclosures
Conflation of state and common good
Living legacy
Community
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Early origins
Defended and promoted in Feudal times
Ever present since
Diggers and levelers
19th century model communities
20th and 21st century initiatives
Co-operative and mutual
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Alternative model of wealth creation
Response to growth of industrial capital
Penetrated every corner of society
Capable of scalability
Marginalised in 20th century
Major legacy
New shoots
Charities
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Charity as an early Christian tradition
Institutionalised under Elizabeth I
19th century expansion
Marginalised in 20th century
Professionalised over last 30 years
Continues to as a powerful force
State and municipal
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Dominant strand for organised labour
Role of state post-WWII
Struggled to relate to rapid change
Poor managers of assets
Rationalisation of public portfolios
Call for community ownership
Voices from history
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Continuing turmoil
Scope for community and mutual action
Systemic and continuous investment
Template of purpose, values and ethos
Big Agenda for Big Society
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Part of our DNA
Role of the community in times of stress
Hidden histories of discrimination
State has not promoted or protected
Control of assets and access to
resources
• Bill of Rights built into legislation
Community and mutual ownership:
What is its relevance for society today?
Community and Mutual
Ownership
‘Social innovation in organisational forms’
Tom Shakespeare
8th July, 2010
Overview
1. The current and future challenges for the public
sector
2. Current thinking on how to deliver better services
at lower cost
3. The value of community and mutual ownership
4. Implications for governance and political
arrangements
5. Social innovation, the state and the ‘Big Society’
6. The challenges to overcome
About Localis
•Think tank for local government and localism
•Facilitate a network of members including councils
from all parties
•Aim to stimulate and challenge the current orthodoxy
of the governance of the UK
•To argue for greater decentralisation of power from
central to local government
•Tom Shakespeare, Director of Policy and Research
The challenge for the public sector over the
next few years is enormous…
• The need for public sector spending cuts
• Low and falling levels of public sector productivity
• Plateauing of public service performance
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Low
public
perceptions
of
many
political
institutions
• All of these make the need for reform a political reality
• Collapse of trust in institutions generally
• Inequality still high
Therefore, somehow we need to deliver
genuinely better services at much lower cost…
But the current approach has had it’s day...
• All of these make the need for reform a political reality
• Measured improvements in local government at the
same time as decreased satisfaction
• Services are not designed around the needs of
customers, residents or citizens
There are a number of ways that local areas are
thinking about better services at lower cost…
• Total Capital
• Joined Services
• Strategic Commissioning
• Personalisation
• All of these make the need for reform a political reality
• City Regions (and historic counties)
• Financial innovation, charging, bonds etc
• Early intervention
• ‘Big Society’
But where does community ownership fit in?
Community ownership solves a number of
problems...
• Customer satisfaction and trust – Direct ownership
• Public sector productivity – ‘John Lewis Model’
• Performance Improvements – Driven by more
demand led, customer driven services
But what about other key areas?
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Public sector costs and efficiency
Delivery at the right spatial scale
Accountability
Early intervention, innovation and tackling inequality
Community Ownership and the State
1.Community ownership, public sector cost and
efficiency
•Privatisation vs public ownership - Outsourcing, in
house, co-operatives – is this as relevant?
•Economies of scale vs efficiency of localisation - Total
Place, Gershon, personalisation –what is the right spatial
scale for different services?
•Targets vs general competence - CAA, targets, power of
general competence, local oversight – where does
accountability lie?
These all pose questions about the role and
structure of the state...
Community Ownership and the State (cont.)
2.Community ownership and the right spatial scale
•Local community vs council and private sector – ‘human
services’, ‘non-human services’ – is everything right for
community ownership?
•Porous boundaries vs stricter boundaries – MAAs, sub
regional working, etc – what encourages more
collaboration at the right level?
•Parish Councils vs county/unitary – closer connection,
rural/urban issues, responsiveness – what are the right
democratic structures to represent the ‘community’?
Accountability is a key consideration for
models of community ownership...
Community Ownership and the State (cont.)
3.Community ownership and accountability
•Vertical accountability vs local autonomy – Confusion,
duplication – How can we clearly delineate roles without
creating confusion over responsibility and accountability?
•Commissioning Council vs Council provider – Potential
for more community ownership with commissioning?
•Passing powers up vs passing powers down – France,
Basque region, importance of finance – What is the right
relationship between the central/local state?
All of these structural questions are important
because they allow the potential to do things
radically differently...
Community Ownership and the State (cont.)
4.Community ownership, early intervention, social
innovation and tackling inequality
The Challenge:
•Need to move to a more preventative state
•Challenge is that many people have multi-dimensional,
complex needs – the state has no real response to this
•The result is that inequality is not reduced and social
problems are exacerbated
•This requires truly joined up services to capture the
benefits back into the public sector over time (structural
importance), but it also requires funds that the state
simply does not have...
Community Ownership and the State (cont.)
4.Community ownership, early intervention, social
innovation and tackling inequality
The Solution?:
1. Pass ownership of costly assets to the community –
who can run them more efficiently
2. Find financial products which can capture the
benefits of early intervention and prevention
3. Provide an environment for community enterprises
to grow and thrive – support, advice etc – then other
services could potentially be outsourced or
commissioned by government
The ‘Big Society’ - A summary
•We have a system which is too centralised and
dominated by state and private monopolies
•We need a more flexible, open and adaptable state that
can allow popular capitalism and community ownership
to thrive
•Building a better system from the bottom-up will
require the central state to relinquish power and for
there to be sufficient capacity for new forms of
community and local enterprises to take it’s place
Despite positive steps, there are still a
number of challenges going forward...
The Challenge for the future
•Creating the right environment for mutual and
community ownership
•A cultural shift towards demand-led services rather
than meeting central targets
•Moving towards porous boundaries between
different parts of public service delivery locally
•Capitalising on existing opportunities for reform
•Pooled budgets require a different model for local
government, which may face some resistance
•Real local power requires autonomous control over
finances
Conclusion
•There have been some positive noises from the
government, and some steps in the right direction
•But true social innovation will require a radical
transformation in the way the state is structured
•Community and mutual ownership offers solutions
to at least some of the challenges we face
•Local and central government must recognise the
role of such organisations and create an environment
for them to succeed
Thank You
For more information, please visit
www.localis.org.uk
Community and mutual ownership:
What is its relevance for society today?
Co-operative &
mutual housing
Meeting future
housing needs
JRF conference
8th July 2010
Bringing Democracy Home
• CCMH set up in 2008
• independent body
• evidence gathering – call for evidence,
hearings, research
• report launch Nov 2009 by then Housing
Minister John Healey
Bringing Democracy Home
“The overwhelming weight of the evidence
that has been presented to us has led us to
the clear conclusion that the UK needs to
bring co-operative and mutual housing
options into our national housing policies”
Key conclusions
• co-operative and mutual housing has the
potential to respond to the needs and
aspirations of ordinary people in an
uncertain housing environment
Key conclusions
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above average levels of satisfaction
as good as, if not better, performance
wider individual & community benefits
the benefits derive from community
ownership/membership
Key conclusions
• it’s a tiny sector in the UK - 0.6% of UK
housing supply
• 18% in Sweden; 15% in Norway;
8% in Austria; 6% in Germany
Key conclusions
The coming together of:
• sympathetic national & local Government
• support frameworks
• grass roots community development
Co-operative & mutual housing
• housing co-ops – small & community
• tenant management – community control
• community gateway – a model of best
practice in large housing associations
• community land trusts – rural housing
• cohousing & mutual retirement housing
• adapting to suit needs and circumstances
Challenges
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historical perceptions
governance & support frameworks
Britain’s best kept secret
making it happen
Making it happen
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volume development & multi-tenure
CCMH finance group
local authority pathfinders
housing association partners
developing grass roots community
Making it happen
“We call for an aim to
be set that by 2030,
each town, village and
community should be
able to offer
co-operative and
mutual housing options
to potential residents”
Co-operative &
mutual housing
Meeting future
housing needs
JRF conference
8th July 2010
Community and mutual ownership:
What is its relevance for society today?