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‘The Impotence of All Governments…’

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A provocative phrase used by Jeremy Paxman last night to describe the inability of any government to effectively manage an effective path through the current economic crisis.

But we could extend it to many other areas of our lives.  The impotence of governments to:

  • build the affordable houses that we need
  • provide the stable macro-economic climate in which trade can thrive
  • keep significant numbers of our citizens, young and old, out of poverty
  • equip people with the skills and attitudes required to thrive in the 21st century
  • reduce carbon emissions to a level that mitigates the risk of significant environmental trauma
  • provide affordable, sustainable and efficient mass transit systems

Here in Leeds we have got to the point where all political parties see the construction of a new station at Kirkstall as some kind of triumph.  Building one station that will serve a few thousand people in a city of nearly 800 000.  A new station that will provide the key infrastructure link to enable further private sector development in that area of the city.  I just hope that any future planning application gets the balance of affordable housing right, otherwise I suspect we will see the poor once again displaced in the failing policy of economic cleansing that provides the blue print for so much of what passes for ‘urban renewal and regeneration’.  The ‘partnership’ between the local authority and the developers will no doubt be tested as one side pushes for more affordable housing and community amenities while the other pushes for a more profitable plan, while holding their twin political jokers of ‘job creation’ and ‘development’.

I suspect the only people that should really be rubbing their hands are the directors and shareholders of the construction companies and to a much lesser extent, perhaps mopping their brows with relief, will be those get to pick up their shovels on yet another construction hurrah.

So if government is pretty impotent then what are the alternatives?  What might work to help us tackle some of these long  standing and seemingly intractable problems?

Well, for me the future is ‘Bottom Up’.  It is about the engagement of large numbers of people in figuring out what really matters most to them and then forming associations around common cause.

The challenge will be to form associations rather than factions, but this is the process of ‘civic enterprise’ and done well strengthens democracy while building a much more powerful citizenry.  The role of elected officers and other public servants in working with these civic associations, enabling them and supporting their work wherever possible and helping them to add value to the democratic process may be crucial.  Representative democracy is creaking.  Perhaps a more participative democracy where different associations learn to creatively negotiate their collective futures provides a way forward.

It is about governments, national and local, no longer pledging to lead us to the promised land through judicious policy development, 15 year Visions and glossy manifestos tied to the electoral cycle and recognising that now their job is to help all of us to build the kind of communities that we want to live in.  The job of community development is our job and not theirs.

Bottom Up Is The New Black!

Think this is all hopelessly naive?

Then pop along to a Friday Picnic, A Cultural Conversation, Latch, Canopy, Progress School, Elsie, TEDxLeeds, LDF2011, Simon on the Streets, Ideas That Change Lives, PACES, Innovation Lab to name just a few where bottom up is becoming the new black.

The Great Regeneration Resurgence…?

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One impact of ‘austerity’ is that the government is investing less in ‘regeneration’, that mysterious process that brings uPVC windows and doors and new kitchens and bathrooms to some of our most deprived communities and/or takes neighbourhoods where only the poor and desperate choose to remain and turns them into ‘aspirational addresses’.

It seems to me that the former is usually led by a local authority in order to avoid the embarrassment and penalties that come with failing to provide ‘decent’ homes (better to provide no homes at all than homes that don’t meet the official standards).  The latter is usually led by the private sector and rests on the belief that we can smarten the neighbourhood up, displace the incumbent residents and replace them with brighter, shinier people.  With people who earn more money and pay more tax.  Who can afford larger mortgages and higher rents.   All sorts of ‘indicators’ move in the right direction (the neighbourhood is healthier, wealthier, greener, more beautiful) and we can claim progress as ‘jobs are created’ in the construction phase and the ‘community is regenerated’.  Profits are generated as houses are transferred from the poor to the rich with house prices and rents rising as we go.

Except of course the community has not been regenerated, but displaced.  The area may have been developed – but the community has been, in whole or in part, displaced and broken up.

Look around and you will see these processes happening near you.

As public investment in regeneration declines the pressure remains on local authorities to maintain momentum in the regeneration game – to ‘create jobs in construction’ to ‘stimulate economic development’ and to ‘provide new housing’.  And with less cash to put in the game they use other levers – more flexible approaches to planning (pdf – gaudy ‘enterprise friendly’ Planning Charter) and trying harder to attract inward investment so that we can keep ‘creating jobs’.  And there is talk of a ‘resurgence in regeneration’ as the private sector rides in to save the regeneration day, increasing profits and winning gongs and awards for ‘services to regeneration’.

This activity looks like regeneration and smells like regeneration but to my eye it looks like displacement and economic cleansing.  Most of the regeneration industry is driven by this economic development imperative which provides the dominant narrative at conferences, in development feasibility reports and in election manifestos.  You would think that there is no other game in town.

But there is.

There is a form of economic and community development that starts where people are at, works with what they have got, and helps make progress on what matters to them – much to the chagrin of policy makers this is rarely losing weight, giving up the fags and sharpening up the CV through a ‘work programme’.  This approach, which is often described as ‘bottom up’ or responsive provides no quick fixes but rather steady progress based on:

  • the development of aspiration, skills and knowledge
  • association, cooperation and organisation around common causes, reciprocity, generosity and mutuality
  • thinking  creatively and collectively to act in pursuit of progress

For me, ‘Bottom Up is the New Black’.

But this is a different approach to regeneration. One in which the current incumbents make little or no profit.  One that does not provide quick fixes based on electoral cycles and 15 year visions. One that makes new demands on local authority staff, elected officers and their partners.  It is a very different game with very different rules and very different tactics based on a different set of values.  One that puts the economy in the hands of people, rather than people in the hands of the economy.

But perhaps we should give it a go?

 

 

What Is Leeds Like?

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This is the title of a new photography competition being run by Leeds City Council.  The public are invited to submit their snaps that capture for them what Leeds is like in 2011.

And the prize for What Is Leeds Like?  The council and its partners may use your images in a report and in any other publication they wish, to portray the city.

On the one hand I admire the enterprise.  No doubt, strapped for cash, they can’t afford to commission a professional, or even to buy some of the existing great product of the Leeds photography community.  A quick search on flickr for Leeds 2011 produces over 28 000 images.

But  it feels a little one sided…

Is there a qualitative difference between professionally commissioned and briefed city portraiture and the chocolate box approach of a ‘send us your snaps’ competition?  Is there a danger of de-professionalising photography?  Or is it just another creative industry that needs to wake up to the fact that we are all creatives now?

So what could the council do that would meet its requirements for low/no cost but high quality photography and provide a meaningful and powerful platform for Leeds photographers?

So, Leeds photographers, what would you value as a prize in such a competition?

UPDATE

Delighted to see the Beyond Guardian Leeds have launched an alternative  photo competition through which I hope they can really attract attention to some great Leeds photographers.

Improving the NHS – the role of social media

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Nearly everyone I speak too recently has a horror story to share about their experiences with the NHS.  And nearly everyone has a fairy tale to tell as well.

For several decades now I have been contracted by various parts of the NHS at different times to provide management development and leadership training, to run assessment and development centres, to develop standards for the board of NHS trusts, to turn HR teams into organisational development teams and so on.  And for just about all of that time the training has been done against a permanent backdrop of policy and structural changes that makes real learning almost impossible.

So it was with some interest that I read about some work that the National Health Service Social Media Group had been doing to explore the potential of social media to transform healthcare. Recently this group have been talking about how the use of video cameras by patients could provide feedback to drive service development.

I love the idea of social media being used to report on both the good practice and the bad.  To shine a spotlight on all that we love and hate about how healthcare is delivered.

But, until we we build a culture where such data can be collected, analysed, reviewed and acted upon by experienced clinicians and managers with the time and resources to provide excellent management and leadership we run the risk of finding ourselves with ever more tearful and frustrated health professionals.

And I suspect that it would be the failures and lapses that would get the attention and the resources.  A culture of name and shame is unlikely to work in the long run.  And what would it do to the relationship between patient and staff?  Do we really want patients to be policing their own healthcare experience?  They can recognise and film obvious lapses of protocol and procedures, but the more subtle stuff?  And, do we really want service providers to change what they do just because someone is pointing a camera at them?

At its best great healthcare is delivered as a partnership between clinicians and patients.  I find it hard to see how this partnership can really thrive when when one party is busy filming the other.

It may have a role in driving out bad practice – but I am not convinced that it can ever drive excellence.

As Deming has shown us the road to excellence is reached by driving out fear, not by increasing it.