In these post-election months, I’ve had two main preoccupations – cuts and the leadership contest. There is a third preoccupation – Peter Mandelson’s book – but that’s less relevant to local government.
Some of the leadership candidates have been busy emailing councillors and familiar themes are emerging: Thank you for all you do and sorry we’ve often forgotten about you from our Westminster bubbles. We can now see that you’re at the forefront of campaigning in your communities (you won elections, whilst we lost horribly). Next time it will be different and we promise not to overlook you and your local views again (we need you to campaign for us). And ‘double devolution’ clearly failed (Tony and Gordon’s fault).
The idea of ‘the community organiser’ has also been gaining in currency – a slightly vague label borrowed from the Obama campaign (along with house parties to discuss David Miliband’s love of Twirls). I admit that I haven’t gone along to a training session to find out more about the idea (I’m a councillor – free evenings don’t exist, and weekends are for surgeries, casework and recovering from the previous week of meetings). But I’ve been unable to find much detail online. Who are these mysterious groups of community organisers? And as others have pointed out, shouldn’t we be training community activists to be Labour party organisers rather than the other way round?
Since my first forays into the obscure world of branch meetings and GCs, I’ve known that local Labour parties need to be more outward facing in their local communities, and as a councillor, I’d be doing something wrong if my work wasn’t guided by the issues raised by the local community. But I want to see more detail about how community organisers relate to local elected representatives and where the overlap is.
Most councillors are already fulfilling an element of the community organiser role – at our best, bringing together different groups, organisations, residents around local issues, providing the knowledge and skills and influence to get things done. But another picture is also familiar – in the past month at community meetings, I’ve witnessed despair and desperation over a decent homes scheme that leaseholders are determined to kick into the long grass; passions running high about a park currently blighted by street drinkers; and a very protracted discussion about parking. I’ve had to manage anger, resentment and serious grievances, whilst trying not to lose sight of how we continue to work for improvements.
These are delicate, fraught processes that take time, energy and commitment – and ultimately, I have a mandate as an elected representative to take forward these views and do my best for residents in my ward. If I had an army of trained-up community organisers initiating local campaigns, the facilitating, enabling and constructive engagement role would be hard to keep up.
There are two main issues here – firstly, not creating parallel structures at a local level but instead ensuring that community organisers, groups and councillors work productively together; and secondly, not setting up community organisers with unrealistic expectations about what can be achieved, particularly at a time of tightening budgets…
Of course, another theme in those emails from the leadership contenders is the recognition that councils are at the frontline in these new political times. The coalition government’s view of localism is to remove ringfencing, cut local budgets, and give local government LOTS of freedom to make difficult decisions about local services. Meanwhile, the Big Society will step in and save us all.
Labour is in control in Hackney, so we’re in a position to put down our markers against the ideological small state agenda. But all the angry motions in the world won’t help us when it comes to having to make tough choices that affect the communities we represent. All we can do is be guided by our principles as Labour politicians and reiterate that our priority at all times is to protect the poorest and most needy in our community and the services on which they depend.
In Hackney, we are bracing ourselves for the 25 per cent cuts rumoured for the autumn spending review. We have a reputation now for sound financial management and efficiency savings, but overall we’re a group of Labour councillors that isn’t used to having to have these discussions and it’s going to hurt.
Meanwhile, the August local government shutdown beckons (though councillors are still here!), and so does my copy of the Third Man…
Hello Louisa You’ll guess that I have been along to the training sessions organised by the DM leadership campaign and delivered by the staff of the London Citizens community organising enterprise. I too have no life but the opportunity to get some old fashioned invisible power was irresistible and so other meetings were cancelled or unfortunately missed; Hackney Cabinet of the 19 July where the Street Markets Strategy was being nodded through for example, but then I don’t have an excuse, I have no life because this is my one and only life and not some half-life. I think the confusion around community organising is explored in Saul Alinsky’s two small books Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals. The descriptions he supplies are of a Country with almost no interventions by local government or national government agencies, including emergency services. It is a wholly alien concept to the UK’s 20th/21st Century redistributive system, but then we still have massive levels of inequality so it’s not all that alien. His strategy was to achieve power through collective development of organisations based upon a common complaint or need in a similar way that churches, local authorities, and unions in the UK were originally Charities, Boards of Works, or Representatives. This confusion is felt by both the existing democratically elected representatives and political party activists as well by the organisers of community organising themselves. This isn’t so much the case for faith groups or the trade union movement both of which are both effectively engaged in organising of their own. The one thing that has kept independent community organising going though is that large chunks of the local agenda is settled nationally and the remoteness of this mechanism has provided a clear space for action. This action is usually in the form of non-executive scrutiny of the non-core business of the public and private sectors, so that living wages for cleaners of an international financial services provider is achieved by acquiring shares and asking the Chief Executive at the AGM when the agenda allows for questions from the floor why the cleaner of his own office, also in attendance, isn’t worth a three hundredth of his remuneration package. In this sense community organisers are progressing towards a role of non-executive governance, and eventually executive governance similar to union representation on the governing body, of our public and private sectors. But there is the other issue that they are tackling and this is where a conflict arises. When you write that ‘our priority at all times is to protect the poorest and most needy in our community and the services on which they depend’ two major issues have to be addressed. The first is that the poorest and most needy (neediest) aren’t protected. We still have huge levels of multi-generational child poverty and adult deprivation, commonplace discrimination, exploitation, and insecurity, and having child mental and physical health at the worst rates in the entire UK is for me the worst example of the failure to be effective (ineffective) on just this one priority; and from my experience ‘priority’ is really ‘priorities’, which I have always thought of as an impossibility except within the public sector. The second major issue is that the purpose of the state to facilitate the ambitious to protect our own poorest and neediest in our own community and to govern the services on which we depend. Councillors are carrying out two roles, one which is their own, the governance and non-executive governance of the business of the Council, and the other is the community’s. My clearest example is the Borough’s Street Markets, which with 500 empty pitches it is a black hole on the Council’s accounts but the corporate plan is to increase the charges of the existing traders by 50%. Now the measure of social and economic value-added is off the charts but not being able to populate street markets (just renting pitches) means increasing prices but God forbid anyone consider improving the ridiculously ineffective governance and leaderless management that can’t give away subsidised facilities. And there’s a proper big budget to spend but you can guess how that is to be spent, yep on municipal furniture, signage, branding, and more studies and consultations. Are you certain it is really tough choices not simply ineffective decision makers? So when the Tory Prime Minister says: ‘I want other forward-thinking, entrepreneurial, community-minded people and neighbourhoods in our country to come forward and ask for the same freedoms, the same support too. If you’ve got an idea to make life better, if you want to improve your local area, don’t just think about it – tell us what you want to do and we will try and give you the tools to make this happen.’ Do you think that he would order the Council to hand over governance of the Street Markets Section, currently insanely within the Parking Department, to me and the Traders Associations and social enterprises training and supporting tenants and residents of social housing to become market traders? This is actually what is meant by Community Organising; the community governing, with representation from the local authority and section management. I mean if the annual £1,300,000 is being blown anyway why not take a punt on us stakeholders as we really couldn’t fuck it any more than it already is? Have a look at the risk analysis of the Cabinet agreed Street Markets Strategy and see how the catastrophic disappearance of the existing 9 (failing) street markets is considered a real possibility.
Hello Louisa You’ll guess that I have been along to the training sessions organised by the DM leadership campaign and delivered by the staff of the London Citizens community organising enterprise. I too have no life but the opportunity to get some old fashioned invisible power was irresistible and so other meetings were cancelled or unfortunately missed; Hackney Cabinet of the 19 July where the Street Markets Strategy was being nodded through for example, but then I don’t have an excuse, I have no life because this is my one and only life and not some half-life. I think the confusion around community organising is explored in Saul Alinsky’s two small books Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals. The descriptions he supplies are of a Country with almost no interventions by local government or national government agencies, including emergency services. It is a wholly alien concept to the UK’s 20th/21st Century redistributive system, but then we still have massive levels of inequality so it’s not all that alien. His strategy was to achieve power through collective development of organisations based upon a common complaint or need in a similar way that churches, local authorities, and unions in the UK were originally Charities, Boards of Works, or Representatives. This confusion is felt by both the existing democratically elected representatives and political party activists as well by the organisers of community organising themselves. This isn’t so much the case for faith groups or the trade union movement both of which are both effectively engaged in organising of their own. The one thing that has kept independent community organising going though is that large chunks of the local agenda is settled nationally and the remoteness of this mechanism has provided a clear space for action. This action is usually in the form of non-executive scrutiny of the non-core business of the public and private sectors, so that living wages for cleaners of an international financial services provider is achieved by acquiring shares and asking the Chief Executive at the AGM when the agenda allows for questions from the floor why the cleaner of his own office, also in attendance, isn’t worth a three hundredth of his remuneration package. In this sense community organisers are progressing towards a role of non-executive governance, and eventually executive governance similar to union representation on the governing body, of our public and private sectors. But there is the other issue that they are tackling and this is where a conflict arises. When you write that ‘our priority at all times is to protect the poorest and most needy in our community and the services on which they depend’ two major issues have to be addressed. The first is that the poorest and most needy (neediest) aren’t protected. We still have huge levels of multi-generational child poverty and adult deprivation, commonplace discrimination, exploitation, and insecurity, and having child mental and physical health at the worst rates in the entire UK is for me the worst example of the failure to be effective (ineffective) on just this one priority; and from my experience ‘priority’ is really ‘priorities’, which I have always thought of as an impossibility except within the public sector. The second major issue is that the purpose of the state to facilitate the ambitious to protect our own poorest and neediest in our own community and to govern the services on which we depend. Councillors are carrying out two roles, one which is their own, the governance and non-executive governance of the business of the Council, and the other is the community’s. My clearest example is the Borough’s Street Markets, which with 500 empty pitches it is a black hole on the Council’s accounts but the corporate plan is to increase the charges of the existing traders by 50%. Now the measure of social and economic value-added is off the charts but not being able to populate street markets (just renting pitches) means increasing prices but God forbid anyone consider improving the ridiculously ineffective governance and leaderless management that can’t give away subsidised facilities. And there’s a proper big budget to spend but you can guess how that is to be spent, yep on municipal furniture, signage, branding, and more studies and consultations. Are you certain it is really tough choices not simply ineffective decision makers? So when the Tory Prime Minister says: ‘I want other forward-thinking, entrepreneurial, community-minded people and neighbourhoods in our country to come forward and ask for the same freedoms, the same support too. If you’ve got an idea to make life better, if you want to improve your local area, don’t just think about it – tell us what you want to do and we will try and give you the tools to make this happen.’ Do you think that he would order the Council to hand over governance of the Street Markets Section, currently insanely within the Parking Department, to me and the Traders Associations and social enterprises training and supporting tenants and residents of social housing to become market traders? This is actually what is meant by Community Organising; the community governing, with representation from the local authority and section management. I mean if the annual £1,300,000 is being blown anyway why not take a punt on us stakeholders as we really couldn’t muck it any more than it already is? Have a look at the risk analysis of the Cabinet agreed Street Markets Strategy and see how the catastrophic disappearance of the existing 9 (failing) street markets is considered a real possibility.