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> Big Society, David Cameron's drive to empower communities
user23
post Jul 19 2010, 08:00 PM
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What are the forum's thoughts on David Cameron's plans for "Big Society"?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10680062
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Strafin
post Jul 19 2010, 08:28 PM
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Initially I didn't like it, but having read up a bit in the press I think it has great potential. I am a little nervy about using someones stolen inheritance to allow a group of Liverpudlians to buy a pub, but there are merits to be had.
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GMR
post Jul 19 2010, 08:31 PM
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Some people say it is a good idea, some say it is getting somebody for free. Let us give it a chance.... certain county's are going to try it out... let us wait and see before criticising. No doubt if you are labour then it is all wrong. But then Labour should ask themselves why they are no longer in power.
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spartacus
post Jul 19 2010, 10:05 PM
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Let's take the idea of running the local library:
Do you seriously think there are people out there who would commit to running the library for free? Giving up precious time for a charitable cause you have some connection to through family is one thing, but committing to turning up on a day to day basis like a workforce is entirely different. If a volunteer fails to turn up because they decide it's a lovely day and the kids are off school what could you do about it.... "Shall I turn up for a shift in the library or shall I take the kids off to the park?" Not a tough decision, but it's one that an employee couldn't readily make...

When I get to that stage in life where I'd even have a few hours spare, the last thing I would think of is doing something like this... Far rather sit in the back garden and read a book if I couldn't think of something more active to do
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blackdog
post Jul 19 2010, 11:33 PM
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QUOTE (spartacus @ Jul 19 2010, 11:05 PM) *
Let's take the idea of running the local library:

Why choose that issue - why not look at one that is mentioned in the article - volunteers enabling museums to open more. It's already happening in Newbury; Wantage Museum probably wouldn't open at all if it were not for volunteers. Believe it or not people do volunteer to do things like this.

Back to libraries - I am sure volunteer staffing it would work most of the time for small libraries that are only opened for a matter of hours a week. Even better it could perhaps enable such libraries to open more often, or for a few more small libraries to be sited in larger villages.

My real problem with the idea is the timing - whatever Cameron says it still seems to be a way of lessening the impact of the massive cuts that are coming our way.
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Simon Kirby
post Jul 20 2010, 02:46 PM
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I welcome the Big Society. I've been very critical of the Town Council's management of the allotments and the Big Society is the answer. Councils have a duty to provide allotments but allotment self-management is pretty common. The council might own the allotment site but the site association does all the admin, the members get together in working parties to do the maintenance, and the costs are completely covered by the rents.

The allotmenteers enjoy the challenge and it costs the tax-payer nothing.

In Newbury the allotmenteers have zero involvement, our rents are some of the most expensive in the country, and the Town Council has refused even to discuss self-management, but self-management could save the tax-payer nearly £100k.

The challenge is to get the town councillors to believe in the Big Society.


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Jayjay
post Jul 20 2010, 03:29 PM
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How many people, after getting up for work for over 50 years and retiring at 70 would want to volunteer to open premises and keep them running?

For a couple this amounts to 15 years extra paid work, keeping a younger person out of work for the same period of time, then volunteering, or lets be honest doing a persons job for nothing, say at a library, for x amount of years keeping a younger person out of work again.
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Simon Kirby
post Jul 21 2010, 08:17 AM
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QUOTE (Jayjay @ Jul 20 2010, 04:29 PM) *
How many people, after getting up for work for over 50 years and retiring at 70 would want to volunteer to open premises and keep them running?

For a couple this amounts to 15 years extra paid work, keeping a younger person out of work for the same period of time, then volunteering, or lets be honest doing a persons job for nothing, say at a library, for x amount of years keeping a younger person out of work again.


For sure there'll be more volunteering but it's not a zero sum game. The jobs won't be in the public sector but expanding the voluntary sector generates employment too through enterprise and initiative. If your 70 year old couple volunteer a couple of mornings a week to help keep open a museum that would otherwise be closed then you have a visitor attraction bringing people into town, spending money in the museum gift shop and tea room generating jobs in the crafts and catering, as well as paying a professional curator and museum manager. And the manager isn't now a sleepy public servant, she's her own boss and her success depends on her initiative so she takes the museum into schools and puts on all-night ghost hunts and stages medieval poetry slams and civil war reenactments in the town centre. You've also taken a 70 year old couple out of their house, given them a purpose and outlet for their talents and experience. And the corner of town where the drunks used to sit outside the shut-up museum is now getting a footfall so other shops move in and the drunks move on.

I see the Big Society as an answer to a social problem more than a way of saving the state money. I actually want to volunteer to run the allotments and I'm convinced loads of other allotmenteers would want to join in too. I resent the lack of accountability, the inefficiency, and the arrogance with which the Town Council run the service. Saving the tax-payer £100k is helpful, but I see the social benefit of people being involved in their community as the big win.


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Right an injustice - give Simon Kirby his allotment back!
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blackdog
post Jul 21 2010, 04:08 PM
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QUOTE (Jayjay @ Jul 20 2010, 04:29 PM) *
How many people, after getting up for work for over 50 years and retiring at 70 would want to volunteer to open premises and keep them running?


Enough.
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user23
post Jul 21 2010, 04:32 PM
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QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ Jul 21 2010, 09:17 AM) *
And the manager isn't now a sleepy public servant, she's her own boss and her success depends on her initiative so she takes the museum into schools and puts on all-night ghost hunts and stages medieval poetry slams and civil war reenactments in the town centre. You've also taken a 70 year old couple out of their house, given them a purpose and outlet for their talents and experience. And the corner of town where the drunks used to sit outside the shut-up museum is now getting a footfall so other shops move in and the drunks move on.
Privatising the museums is fine in the good times, but what happens in a downturn or during the winter when the income isn't greater than the outlay?

Answer: They go bust and close forever.
QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ Jul 21 2010, 09:17 AM) *
I resent the lack of accountability, the inefficiency, and the arrogance with which the Town Council run the service. Saving the tax-payer £100k is helpful, but I see the social benefit of people being involved in their community as the big win.
How would volunteers be more accountable?
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Simon Kirby
post Jul 21 2010, 06:45 PM
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QUOTE (user23 @ Jul 21 2010, 05:32 PM) *
How would volunteers be more accountable?

It's a good point. If the allotment service was managed by the allotment site associations then the association would be accountable to its members like any other membership association. Policy would be decided at general meetings and the committee would have to account for its performance at the AGM where they'd be up for election. Crucially, the management committee needs the engagement of the allotmenteers because there's no maintenance contract, just voluntary working parties, so it only succeeds if the committee nurture that engagement, and you only get that with accountability.

Even at the smallest parish council the standing orders inhibit anything but the most carefully managed engagement of the councillors with the allotmenteers, and there's no provision for direct democracy. As the council gets bigger the problem gets bigger. If the council doesn't want any engagement with its public - and Newbury Town Council could barely want any less - there's pretty much nothing you can do about it. Write to your councillor you'll be ignored, ask a question at a meeting and you'll be fobbed of, protest with a banner outside the town hall and you're a nutter. Parish Councils aren't even accountable to the Local Government Ombudsman so unless you can afford to lose a judicial review your options for holding the council to account are very limited if the council doesn't want to be held accountable.

The real issue though is that the bigger the authority, the less people believe it should be held to account. It's one of the reasons I think the Big Society is such a good idea, because it devolves responsibility down to the lowest level where people are most comfortable.


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user23
post Jul 21 2010, 07:20 PM
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QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ Jul 21 2010, 07:45 PM) *
It's a good point. If the allotment service was managed by the allotment site associations then the association would be accountable to its members like any other membership association. Policy would be decided at general meetings and the committee would have to account for its performance at the AGM where they'd be up for election. Crucially, the management committee needs the engagement of the allotmenteers because there's no maintenance contract, just voluntary working parties, so it only succeeds if the committee nurture that engagement, and you only get that with accountability.
This all sounds a bit "big" for a few allotments. What if no one wanted to stand for the management committee, what if no one could be bothered to turn up to the AGM bar a few who then decided policy for everyone. Doesn't the whole thing fall apart?

I can imagine only a few would give up time on their allotments to spend time on committees discussing the allotments. They'd set the charges and decide who on the waiting list gets those plots that become free and after the honeymoon period the others would be right back moaning about The Committee rather the The Council.

You've sidestepped the point about privatising the museum too.
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Simon Kirby
post Jul 21 2010, 10:15 PM
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Actually I side-stepped the library problem. I think libraries are important and they can be much more than somewhere to get a book out - the Information Centre in Winchester is a good example - but I don't entirely see how it might be run with volunteers, though I think there's a lot of mileage in enabling a staff buy-out if it could still be run with state finding.

Plenty of museums are run by voluntary groups though, and the one in Wantage is a good example. If a museum isn't interesting then it's not going to succeed, and I guess I'd sooner it folded than got propped up with my tax-money, but being in the third sector can attract all kinds of energetic and enthusiastic people and that might be what it takes to keep it interesting.

Allotments are much easier to argue though, because they're successfully managed by their allotmenteers at no cost to the tax-payer all over the country, some for over a hundred years. Yes, you're spot on with the problems: some sites struggle to get working parties together, some are taken over by tyrants and cliques, as a rule allotmenteers have no interest in sitting on the committee or even attending the AGM, and it's not unheard of to hear complaints against the committee. But in general what happens is that a couple of individuals quietly and efficiently do the small amount of admin necessary, people do turn out for working parties and enjoy getting together too, AGMs are quiet affairs because there's not much to discuss, and eventually the tyrants are tamed or marginalised.

That's not to say that there aren't some very well managed council sites that are run efficiently and engage their tenants, but all things being equal self-management is recognised as a good thing for allotments. That's what the Local Government Association decided when they wrote the allotment management best practice guide Growing in the Community.


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blackdog
post Jul 23 2010, 10:39 AM
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QUOTE (user23 @ Jul 21 2010, 08:20 PM) *
You've sidestepped the point about privatising the museum too.

Are any musuems privatised? The usual route taken by local authorities is the set up museums as charitable trusts - just like WBC did with the Corn Exchange. The local authority will provide some grant funding and hand over the assets or lease them at favourable terms - eg WBC could offer the buildings rent free or give them to the trust. After that a board of trustees runs the show.

Wantage museum (Vale & Downland Museum) has been mentioned a couple of times - which went this route. Last I heard the grant funding was drying up; South Oxfordshire DC had committed to support them for a limited period which was coming to an end. The person I was speaking to was worried that they might close - hopefully they won't.

The problem most museums have is the lack of a decent income stream - making them almost totally reliant on the fickle nature of support from local councils and businesses.
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user23
post Jul 23 2010, 04:58 PM
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QUOTE (blackdog @ Jul 23 2010, 11:39 AM) *
The problem most museums have is the lack of a decent income stream - making them almost totally reliant on the fickle nature of support from local councils and businesses.
So we get the worst of both worlds. A museum run by volunteers who aren't accountable to the council or local businesses (see "she's her own boss" in a previous poster's comments) who the council or local business have to bail out when things go wrong. Conversely local business or the council don''t get any financial benefit if the museum does well.
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dannyboy
post Jul 23 2010, 05:06 PM
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QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ Jul 20 2010, 03:46 PM) *
I welcome the Big Society. I've been very critical of the Town Council's management of the allotments and the Big Society is the answer. Councils have a duty to provide allotments but allotment self-management is pretty common. The council might own the allotment site but the site association does all the admin, the members get together in working parties to do the maintenance, and the costs are completely covered by the rents.

The allotmenteers enjoy the challenge and it costs the tax-payer nothing.

In Newbury the allotmenteers have zero involvement, our rents are some of the most expensive in the country, and the Town Council has refused even to discuss self-management, but self-management could save the tax-payer nearly £100k.

The challenge is to get the town councillors to believe in the Big Society.

Self manage & still pay rent then? I'd sell them off & fill some holes in the council budget.
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Simon Kirby
post Jul 23 2010, 07:07 PM
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QUOTE (dannyboy @ Jul 23 2010, 06:06 PM) *
Self manage & still pay rent then? I'd sell them off & fill some holes in the council budget.

The Council can't just sell of allotment sites because the secretary of state wouldn't allow it, but the sites and the running of the allotment service could be given to a self-funding third-sector organisation. That might reasonably get the precept down by £100k, and allotment rents would go down too. Allotmenteers would need to help themsleves a bit, but I surveyd Wash Common and 90% of tenants actually wanted to get involved.


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user23
post Jul 23 2010, 07:33 PM
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QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ Jul 23 2010, 08:07 PM) *
The Council can't just sell of allotment sites because the secretary of state wouldn't allow it, but the sites and the running of the allotment service could be given to a self-funding third-sector organisation. That might reasonably get the precept down by £100k, and allotment rents would go down too. Allotmenteers would need to help themsleves a bit, but I surveyd Wash Common and 90% of tenants actually wanted to get involved.
Probably correct at the moment, but with councils being given greater powers to do what they want at a local level on the cards anything is possible in the next five years.
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Iommi
post Jul 23 2010, 07:52 PM
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It seems the 'ConDems' wish to protect gardens from development, so I suspect that might also include allotment land as well.
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blackdog
post Jul 24 2010, 09:59 PM
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QUOTE (Iommi @ Jul 23 2010, 08:52 PM) *
It seems the 'ConDems' wish to protect gardens from development, so I suspect that might also include allotment land as well.

That's not quite what the ConDems (like the term) are doing - they are removing the pressure to develop gardens (caused by Prescott classifying them as brownfield sites) and leaving it to local planners to decide whether or not the allow development. They are pro local-choice, not anti-building.
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