This morning saw the launch at NESTA of the Neighbourhood Challenge. \u00a0A chance to pitch to become one of 10 organisations to be given 18 months and \u00a3150k to galvanise communities to respond to local priorities.<\/p>\n
Much talk of hyperlocal websites, community organisers, big society,\u00a0radical\u00a0shifts in power and areas of low social capital. \u00a0All good stuff. \u00a0But not the kind of things I hear when I am talking with people in communities in Leeds about their priorities. \u00a0These things are not their concerns. \u00a0They are the concerns of\u00a0policy\u00a0makers and funders.<\/p>\n
It reminded me of \u00a0the launch of the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative. \u00a0A very sage colleague of mine said to me at the time,<\/p>\n
Mike, I have concerns about this programme. \u00a0These people don’t understand enterprise. \u00a0I\u00a0think\u00a0if the minister had stood up and\u00a0said\u00a0that ‘The future of our communities lies in duck farming, and so today I am launching a major new programme to promote duck farming in our most deprived communities’<\/em> we would have had much the same audience nodding and clapping. \u00a0These people know how to write bids. \u00a0They know how to manage projects. But do they really know about enterprise?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I hope that this mornings audience was more versed in community organising, social capital and community.<\/p>\n
And less versed in snaffling up money on behalf of the communities that they serve.<\/p>\n
I am sure many communities will put forward bids. \u00a0And I expect that people from outside of their communities will sit in judgement and decide.<\/p>\n
And there is the rub.<\/p>\n