Following the announcement of the contract to deliver the Community Organisers programme the BS takes another twist
Marilyn Taylor's book on public policy in the community is something I always turn to, for good sense about policy and there are lots of choice words in the book about power and the way ideology tends to lead policy
Two things briefly on Marilyn Taylor's book - one is the phrase she uses early on about whether an actual policy is a 'window of opportunity or window dressing' rang a bell for me - the perenial concern. Are we being conned again? Secondly her simple threefold categorisation of the options we have as practitioners - to be optimistic, pessimistic or pragmatic
I tend to go with pragmatism but ...
The thing is that these three things are a process; a bit like bereavement -denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance
Well something for sure is dying - but some of the steps in the royal road to principlled pragmatism are in danger of being short circuited judging by some of the discourse in our sector
Paulo Freire talked about three forms of thinking: magical thinking aka we are all in it together; naive thinking aka there are some opportunities to make it work and critical thinking nuff sed
Clearly the VCS does not like winner takes all
Three recent musings are interesting:
1) Julian Dobson's post on respublica
2) Toby Blume's blog
3) And a bit further back in time CEO of Esmee Fairbairn's opinion piece
In different ways we can discern a pattern in each of the three; it will be painful but fast forward the pragmatism and good things can still happen
I'm not so sure; it may well be that we're crossing a rubicon - something is being lost that can't be wished back again - not all change is good
Julian thinks we need to trust society to find solutions to its own problems but society, even if we leave it as vague as that, civil society ain't gonna move on this agenda without proportionate investment from the state, i.e. thru our money as taxpayers money recycled back again to ourselves, those of us who don't avoid our taxes offshore that is.
The wholesale swallowing of small state ideology is worrying.
I speak as no particular fan of the central or local state, but the idea that the increasing numbers of poorer people (poverty is going up) can simultaneously sort things like running their own services and running libraries is dangerous nonsense - and this is the sharp end of the logic that flows from such thinking - be careful what you wish for
The desire to 'rescue the big society' is laudable by generating 'ideas' and 'our society' is a wonderful resource; but it also seems to be partially ducking out of the battle for these same ideas.
What exactly are we talking about?
Is it ideas that can ameliorate the effects of disporortionate cuts or ideas to ensure an elected government doesn't run away with the idea that even though there's plenty of money for bailing out the banks, its old fashioned to expect the same consideration be extended to its most needy citizens. Do you really want to be supporting what is in effect a welfare state for the (super) rich?
Toby sees BS as a risky thing and notes the government's desire to 'disrupt' the 'vested interests' of the sector. But his analysis stops short of what might be considered unacceptable risk of the kind written about by Naomi Kline in her recent book - the shock doctrine whereas having been willing to give the benefit of the doubt for some period I'm more inclined to be less sanguine about the risk and disruption.
Is the community organisers programme really 'the best shot we've had for many years'? The scale of the cuts to the public and VCS would appear to make it impossible to say such things with any confidence - fig leaf and cuts, would be the more common analysis
With regard to 'community development' as a 'close relative to community organising' - Office for Civil Society have stated they are not prepared to have the debate about the two things - CD and CO - even though there are reckoned to be 20,000 CD workers (DCLG CD Challenge), x4 as many as CO's.
Why not bring CD together? Because it is ideologically problematic - CD has a commitment to social justice and collective action; community organising has done great things but it is often highly formulaic which may suit control freaks but not resonate with the messiness of communities as they really exist (jury is still out for me on that one)
Finally Dawn Austwick, as a funder, wants to stay in the game - she advises that we need to 'hold our nerve, play clever and long' (and swallow the cuts uncritically?)
It is very true that there are new solutions out there, fantastic that Dawn meets' passionate and clever people doing interesting things across the UK' but... but ... if the VCS and public sector is going to be as mashed up as we know it will be, that really won't count for much - as a funder the medicine that might need to be proscribed is for campaigning not back door privatisation which is where community ownership could easily end up.
So of course we'll all be pragmatic and working hard, goes without saying. Government knows working class communities will seek to look after their own, to the point of sinking further into poverty themselves
But let's be clearer about the times we are living in and what it means to our sector - big society rapidly becoming a shock doctrine. That might not have been what it set out to be, but the road to hell...
It is now increasingly looking like a deliberately intended and disproportionate trauma, a calculated risk only in that those who are most vulnerable are most at risk.
I had thought the community empowerment era had often failed but there are degrees of failure
Big Society is a form of corporate reenegineering - some of the charity brands are cheerleading this, 'bring it on' they in effect cry, 'we welcome the opportunity'. But there is no amount of wishful thinking and strategic repositioning that is going to deliver the bs.
To do BS you need: time, money, goodwill, a complete absence of govt ideology and a unified VCS sector - all 4 of those things are in severe deficit and you know what they say about deficit deniers...
Thursday 24 February 2011
Tuesday 22 February 2011
It's time to drag our failing financiers and technocrats into the 21st century
One thing about the big (cuts) society - it has generated much more press about the community sector than ever before - normally charities, community groups, local government, all of that, is a news free zone
Increasingly we have analysis flying around - from Newsnight, the Today Programme, even TV news. Most of it is naff and wrong headed because the media is incredibly lazy in its research and when it is not recycling news from others it sensationalises and trivilises. But for now, the voluntary and community sector is news worthy if only because Dave Cameron has made it so and by extension, because the banking crisis has made it so
Got no money for social programmes? Who you gonna call on? Those mugs who don't have proper jobs in the City or Town Hall - no brainer for aspiring govts in a bit of hole
But of course the distaste for the voluntary and community sector inevitably comes out as witness this article by Chris Blackhurst in last weeks Evening Standard
It is especially instructive in spelling out the following:
A contempt of people who volunteer. A disparagement of all things charitable. A privileging of money, the pursuit thereof, as a superior way of being. A desire to see government thrash the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) into shape and a belief that the VCS must change and become more like the private sector
The following comes to mind by way of rebuttal
There is a reason why the VCS isn't all about money - its because there is already a private sector to do that. Along with the state and the market most people feel we need something else that exists outside of these things - we can't all be bureaucrats or money men and we might come to vlaue community as a good in itself? Likewise following the casino capitalism of recent years and MPs expenses are we really wanting to invoke the brilliance of finance as the way for our charities to go? Inviting crack dealers to trade outside the school gate might have a fractionally better social outcome
So why the presumption that charities be dragged into the 21st century? Well some people are just used to giving orders and some charities are used to following them. Its actually quite rare for many charity heads to have independent thought processes, so embedded in the reflex to follow the money hence the rebranding now underway aka the big society preferred contractor beauty contest
Blackhurst talks about the word 'profit' but seems not to notice the world of social entreprise or the changes that have already taken place in the VCS.
The real point is that most of the VCS is a small group with no money and the kind of support they need is non judgemental encouragement bespoke to their own agenda not something fresh from MBA land. The thing about volunteers and community groups is that they vote with their feet so its time our failing financiers, politicans, technocrats and shoot-from-the-hip columnists got real and stopped talking down to the millions of people who dedicate their lives to helping one another without expoectation of reward, cash or otherwise
Increasingly we have analysis flying around - from Newsnight, the Today Programme, even TV news. Most of it is naff and wrong headed because the media is incredibly lazy in its research and when it is not recycling news from others it sensationalises and trivilises. But for now, the voluntary and community sector is news worthy if only because Dave Cameron has made it so and by extension, because the banking crisis has made it so
Got no money for social programmes? Who you gonna call on? Those mugs who don't have proper jobs in the City or Town Hall - no brainer for aspiring govts in a bit of hole
But of course the distaste for the voluntary and community sector inevitably comes out as witness this article by Chris Blackhurst in last weeks Evening Standard
It is especially instructive in spelling out the following:
A contempt of people who volunteer. A disparagement of all things charitable. A privileging of money, the pursuit thereof, as a superior way of being. A desire to see government thrash the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) into shape and a belief that the VCS must change and become more like the private sector
The following comes to mind by way of rebuttal
There is a reason why the VCS isn't all about money - its because there is already a private sector to do that. Along with the state and the market most people feel we need something else that exists outside of these things - we can't all be bureaucrats or money men and we might come to vlaue community as a good in itself? Likewise following the casino capitalism of recent years and MPs expenses are we really wanting to invoke the brilliance of finance as the way for our charities to go? Inviting crack dealers to trade outside the school gate might have a fractionally better social outcome
So why the presumption that charities be dragged into the 21st century? Well some people are just used to giving orders and some charities are used to following them. Its actually quite rare for many charity heads to have independent thought processes, so embedded in the reflex to follow the money hence the rebranding now underway aka the big society preferred contractor beauty contest
Blackhurst talks about the word 'profit' but seems not to notice the world of social entreprise or the changes that have already taken place in the VCS.
The real point is that most of the VCS is a small group with no money and the kind of support they need is non judgemental encouragement bespoke to their own agenda not something fresh from MBA land. The thing about volunteers and community groups is that they vote with their feet so its time our failing financiers, politicans, technocrats and shoot-from-the-hip columnists got real and stopped talking down to the millions of people who dedicate their lives to helping one another without expoectation of reward, cash or otherwise
Thursday 3 February 2011
Big Society, the RSA, and those pesky dysfunctional small community groups who just won't work together
At a recent Green Alliance event on the Big Society at which both minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, and RSA CEO Matthew Taylor spoke at, we had a rare moment of candour, albeit a deeply disturbing and partial tone was struck, as reported here
There are at least two immediate concerns, that make the work of those who want to see the community sector thrive, just that bit harder
Firstly - what exactly gives Matthew Taylor the right to lable small groups 'dysfunctional'? And what are the implications of shooting from the hip in this way
Secondly - whilst Nick Hurd is right that there are 'hundreds and thosands of civil society organisations that don't rely on statutory income at all'. It does not follow that they do not need funding or the support that funding gives - quite the reverse
This was in fact a central point of CSC's 'Unleashing the Potential' call to arms before the general election, which we put to Nick Hurd, the Big Society Network and many others, in order to underline the added value and the need to support that part of the sector - hence our 5 asks.
http://www.communitysectorcoalition.org.uk/policy
Taken together it is an impressive double whammy - on the one hand groups are run by tyrants who fall out with each other (people in glass houses etc) and on the other hand, a lot of these small groups do it for nothing, so bring on the cuts, they won't notice...
Where to begin with such destructive and willful misunderstandings of our sector?
On the first salvo, aimed at casting the sector in the role of hopeless self saboteurs, of course dyfunctionality does break out. The crooked timber of humanity never ran smooth. But hardly more so than the dynamics elsewhere in society; indeed I would argue much less. The egalitarian and non hierarchical principles of real community work and grassroots endeavour, where people don't hide behind status and are not allowed to give themselves airs and graces, is a welcome relief from some of the public and private sector cultures.
In passing, we might want to note what comes to mind when thinking about dysfunctional behaviours - might it extend to irresponsible banking practice, MPs expenses, tax avoidance on a massive scale and how this might offset a significant part of the public sector cuts as per recent Newsnight reports (I won't do the link because Paxman turned the air blue, what is it with the BBC these days...)
The issue of dynfunctionality must be seen in a 360 degree way. In particular the work of Erving Goffman is highly pertinent:
Erv puts his finger on an inconvenient truth - large organsations have a strong tendency to adopt overtly oppressive operational behaviours that damage people. Note this is large organisations, and not small community groups.
There is a vested interest in a large organisation bemoaning the shortcomings and unfortunate psyche of the great unwashed. The trouble is, if we start using cod psychology terms like 'dysfunctionality' we end up arriving at terms like 'displacement' or 'projection', and the whole thing gets a bit silly. We should not be making moral and or ill informed psychological judgements in the first place.
If it becomes necessary to challenge oppressive behaviour within communities, and this is something community and youth workers have long experience doing, disparaging homilies tends not to cut it. You'd have to demonstrate real commitment to listening and working the problem through
Finally, it is so easy to knock the more informal parts of the sector and many people have made a good living out of doing so. Those pesky small groups, they are not skilled, they need their capacity built (for a fee), their governance, polices and procedures are inadequate etc etc. Ignoring the fact that small groups work best when fleet of foot and rightly choose not to mimic the bureaucratic behaviours of larger VCS and other bodies (something Nick Hurd identifies but then does not go on to develop re the need for some kind of support and investment).
Segway to Nick Hurd, who does a good line in playing off competing wings of the sector, not without some validity, but with a not-so-hidden agenda of amelorirating the brutalism of cuts
The problem with Nick's comment at Green Alliance is that it seems to suggest that just because these smaller community groups are unfunded, they wil be unaffected by what is going on, notably by the slash and burn of existing VCS infrastructure. In fact the plight of these small unfunded groups will now be harder, because, whilst it might be true that sometimes funded VCS groups didn't reach into the community, it is also true that there are many examples of strong support that now won't be there, hence unfunded civil society action, as supported by funded VCS groups just got that bit harder, at a time when Big Society was hoping to see more people volunteering
If we look at what is actually likely to happen: there may well be less people volunteering and less small groups or civil society organisations. This is because the sector is an ecosystem (aka Nat Wei) which is on the receiving end of some pretty toxic treatment - note the council cuts to the VCS, all too often wildly disproportionate and short term. If these small batallions of community groups can't take advantage of the 'new markets' government is keen to open up - assets, libraries, personalisation of services etc - well people like SERCO and lean mean highly 'functional' brands in the charity world will make an intervention.
At the same time something called civil society will get smaller and poorer as a result. This doesn't have to happen but it is increasingly likely - not least when small groups are pathologised or seemingly not prioritised any level of funding support (to repeat for the benefit of those with selective politically nuanced hearing): the fact that many groups don't rely on statutory income does not mean they would not benefit from it
Rather than blame small community groups, and sharpen the next round of excuses for why the policy didn't work this time, for the good of all in society, we should put aside the mentality that says it didn't work because 'they' were 'dyfunctional' and instead accentuate the positives of what small groups do, get behind it, support it and resource it. What part of 'we're all in it together' and localism / decentralisation are we not yet grasping?
There are at least two immediate concerns, that make the work of those who want to see the community sector thrive, just that bit harder
Firstly - what exactly gives Matthew Taylor the right to lable small groups 'dysfunctional'? And what are the implications of shooting from the hip in this way
Secondly - whilst Nick Hurd is right that there are 'hundreds and thosands of civil society organisations that don't rely on statutory income at all'. It does not follow that they do not need funding or the support that funding gives - quite the reverse
This was in fact a central point of CSC's 'Unleashing the Potential' call to arms before the general election, which we put to Nick Hurd, the Big Society Network and many others, in order to underline the added value and the need to support that part of the sector - hence our 5 asks.
http://www.communitysectorcoalition.org.uk/policy
Taken together it is an impressive double whammy - on the one hand groups are run by tyrants who fall out with each other (people in glass houses etc) and on the other hand, a lot of these small groups do it for nothing, so bring on the cuts, they won't notice...
Where to begin with such destructive and willful misunderstandings of our sector?
On the first salvo, aimed at casting the sector in the role of hopeless self saboteurs, of course dyfunctionality does break out. The crooked timber of humanity never ran smooth. But hardly more so than the dynamics elsewhere in society; indeed I would argue much less. The egalitarian and non hierarchical principles of real community work and grassroots endeavour, where people don't hide behind status and are not allowed to give themselves airs and graces, is a welcome relief from some of the public and private sector cultures.
In passing, we might want to note what comes to mind when thinking about dysfunctional behaviours - might it extend to irresponsible banking practice, MPs expenses, tax avoidance on a massive scale and how this might offset a significant part of the public sector cuts as per recent Newsnight reports (I won't do the link because Paxman turned the air blue, what is it with the BBC these days...)
The issue of dynfunctionality must be seen in a 360 degree way. In particular the work of Erving Goffman is highly pertinent:
Erv puts his finger on an inconvenient truth - large organsations have a strong tendency to adopt overtly oppressive operational behaviours that damage people. Note this is large organisations, and not small community groups.
There is a vested interest in a large organisation bemoaning the shortcomings and unfortunate psyche of the great unwashed. The trouble is, if we start using cod psychology terms like 'dysfunctionality' we end up arriving at terms like 'displacement' or 'projection', and the whole thing gets a bit silly. We should not be making moral and or ill informed psychological judgements in the first place.
If it becomes necessary to challenge oppressive behaviour within communities, and this is something community and youth workers have long experience doing, disparaging homilies tends not to cut it. You'd have to demonstrate real commitment to listening and working the problem through
Finally, it is so easy to knock the more informal parts of the sector and many people have made a good living out of doing so. Those pesky small groups, they are not skilled, they need their capacity built (for a fee), their governance, polices and procedures are inadequate etc etc. Ignoring the fact that small groups work best when fleet of foot and rightly choose not to mimic the bureaucratic behaviours of larger VCS and other bodies (something Nick Hurd identifies but then does not go on to develop re the need for some kind of support and investment).
Segway to Nick Hurd, who does a good line in playing off competing wings of the sector, not without some validity, but with a not-so-hidden agenda of amelorirating the brutalism of cuts
The problem with Nick's comment at Green Alliance is that it seems to suggest that just because these smaller community groups are unfunded, they wil be unaffected by what is going on, notably by the slash and burn of existing VCS infrastructure. In fact the plight of these small unfunded groups will now be harder, because, whilst it might be true that sometimes funded VCS groups didn't reach into the community, it is also true that there are many examples of strong support that now won't be there, hence unfunded civil society action, as supported by funded VCS groups just got that bit harder, at a time when Big Society was hoping to see more people volunteering
If we look at what is actually likely to happen: there may well be less people volunteering and less small groups or civil society organisations. This is because the sector is an ecosystem (aka Nat Wei) which is on the receiving end of some pretty toxic treatment - note the council cuts to the VCS, all too often wildly disproportionate and short term. If these small batallions of community groups can't take advantage of the 'new markets' government is keen to open up - assets, libraries, personalisation of services etc - well people like SERCO and lean mean highly 'functional' brands in the charity world will make an intervention.
At the same time something called civil society will get smaller and poorer as a result. This doesn't have to happen but it is increasingly likely - not least when small groups are pathologised or seemingly not prioritised any level of funding support (to repeat for the benefit of those with selective politically nuanced hearing): the fact that many groups don't rely on statutory income does not mean they would not benefit from it
Rather than blame small community groups, and sharpen the next round of excuses for why the policy didn't work this time, for the good of all in society, we should put aside the mentality that says it didn't work because 'they' were 'dyfunctional' and instead accentuate the positives of what small groups do, get behind it, support it and resource it. What part of 'we're all in it together' and localism / decentralisation are we not yet grasping?
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