Glasgow's People: Transcending Poverties
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The Royal S ociety of Edinburgh Glasgow’s People: Transcending Poverties Report of a Conference organised by The Royal Society of Edinburgh 20 February 2007 CONTENTS Acknowledgements .................................................................................2 Programme ...............................................................................................4 Foreword ...................................................................................................6 Glasgow’s People: Transcending Poverties ...............................................7 Appendix One: Speakers’ Biographies ..................................................22 Appendix Two: Participant List ...............................................................25 Rapporteur: David Rankin Glasgow’s People: Transcending Poverties: 20 February 2007 © The Royal Society of Edinburgh: May 2007 ISBN: 978 0 902198 30 2 Requests to reproduce all or part of this document, larger print versions or more copies, should be submitted to: Stuart Brown The Royal Society of Edinburgh 22-26 George Street Edinburgh EH2 2PQ e-mail: [email protected] Tel: 0044 (0)131 240 5000 Minicom: 0044 (0)131 240 5009 www.royalsoced.org.uk Opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily represent the views of The Royal Society of Edinburgh, nor its Fellows. 20 February 2007 The Royal Society of Edinburgh wishes to acknowledge the support of Glasgow City Council The Herald Archdiocese of Glasgow Mr Willie Haughey, The City Charitable Trust Mr Brian Souter The Phoenix Car Company 2 Glasgow’s People: Transcending Poverties and thank the Organising Committee: Sir John Arbuthnott FRSE Chairman, Greater Glasgow Health Board Ian D Baillie CBE Director of the Board, The Mungo Foundation Lia Brennan (RSE Staff) Events Officer Róisín Calvert-Elliott (RSE Staff) Events Manager The Most Rev M J Conti FRSE Archbishop of Glasgow Professor Tom Devine OBE FBA FRSE Sir William Fraser Professor of Scottish History and Palaeography, University of Edinburgh Matthew Marr Advisor to the Leader of the Council, Glasgow City Council Cllr Steven Purcell Leader, Glasgow City Council Professor John Richardson FRSE Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Edinburgh Dr Carol Tannahill Director, Glasgow Centre for Population Health 3 20 February 2007 CONFERENCE PROGRAMME 10.00 Registration and Coffee 10.30 Welcome Professor Jan McDonald FRSE Vice-President, The Royal Society of Edinburgh 10.35 Introduction and Overview Sir Muir Russell FRSE Session 1: The Background 10.45 Will the poor always be with us? Professor Michael Pacione Chair of Geography, University of Strathclyde 11.05 Glasgow in Comparative Context: ‘Old’ Industrial Places in a Global Economy Professor Ray Hudson Director, Wolfson Research Institute, University of Durham 11.25 ‘Out of the Depths’ Case Study - Castlemilk Very Rev. John D Miller Castlemilk East Parish Church 11.45 Audience Question and Answer Session 12.15 Lunch Session 2: The Present Chair: Archbishop Conti FRSE 13.15 Overview Dr Carol Tannahill Director, Glasgow Centre for Population Health 13.30 Mental Health Professor Stephen Platt Director, Research Unit in Health, Behaviour and Change, University of Edinburgh 13.35 Parenting and Families Professor Sarah Cunningham-Burley Co-Director, Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, University of Edinburgh 13.40 Role of Education Professor Lindsay Paterson Professor of Educational Policy, University of Edinburgh 4 Glasgow’s People: Transcending Poverties 13.45 Work is better than worklessness and a good job is better than a bad job Professor Stephanie Young Senior Director, Skills & Learning, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow 13.50 Area-based Regeneration Councillor Steven Purcell Leader of Glasgow City Council 13.55 Panel Discussion 14.15 Audience Question and Answer Session 14.45 Tea and Coffee Session 3: The Way from Here 15.00 Overview Sir John Arbuthnott FRSE 15.05 Regeneration Strategy for Glasgow. What are the Gaps? David Webster Development and Regeneration Services, Glasgow City Council 15.20 Problems to be radically addressed Professor Phil Hanlon Professor in Public Health, University of Glasgow 15.35 Building healthy communities for the future - what we know, what we don’t know, what we think we know and what we ought to know Professor Mike Kelly Public Health Excellence Centre Director, National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) 15.50 Panel/Audience Discussion 16.10 Summation Alf Young The Herald 16.25 Moving Forward/Action Sir John Arbuthnott FRSE 16.30 Close 5 20 February 2007 Foreword Glasgow is not only special; it is unique in its history and the combination of factors which have made it what it is today. Over the past quarter of a century, it has transformed itself from being the industrial heartland of an empire which no longer exists, a monument to a past period of ‘carboniferous capitalism’, into a vibrant and economically successful city of the twenty-first century. Yet despite the vigour and affluence which can be seen on every hand, the conditions of life for the poorest Glaswegians, especially in the big housing schemes, remain obstinately bad, and in some ways have become worse. Much excellent and important work is being done, but there remains much evidence of deprivation, especially social, cultural and spiritual. It was this situation, and the conviction that, although economically based, its solution was not susceptible to purely economic remedies, that led the Royal Society of Edinburgh to mount the conference of which this is the report. On the initiative of Archbishop Mario Conti, a Fellow of the Society, an organising committee was set up, which identified three elements to be addressed in an attempt to identify the underlying problems: — the context, both historical and geographical — the work currently being undertaken — ways forward, with particular attention to social, cultural and spiritual needs The three sections of the conference followed the pattern of these three elements, with academics, practitioners and policy makers from within Glasgow and beyond contributing their expertise and insights at each stage. We were fortunate in having a wide and varied range of speakers, and it is hardly surprising, given the extent to which they represented people who had not only studied but in many cases lived with the deprivation that they were describing, that we heard throughout the day not only description and analysis of the situation but also an array of suggestions for improving it, many of which were taken up by the speakers in the third part of our conference. Such variety is inevitable when addressing such a multifaceted question, and was indeed anticipated in the title of the conference, with its reference to poverties in the plural. More surprising is the extent to which our speakers agreed that, although economic deprivation was a major cause, the poverties which still plague so many in Glasgow could only be transcended by paying attention to the family and society, to education and health, to the ways in which people valued themselves and the others and the communities in which they lived. In the more radical contributions of our last three speakers it was clear that the economic structures of the city were very important, especially in terms of reducing unemployment, but that what was needed above all were ways of changing the ideas of all of us about the values of our culture and society. The challenge is immense but cannot be ignored, and it is to be hoped that the questions which this meeting raised, not just for Glasgow, will be revisited in the months and years ahead. John Richardson, FRSE Convener of the Organising Committee 6 Glasgow’s People: Transcending Poverties Introduction and Overview practitioners, he suggested that close attention be given to supporting and Following the welcome given by Jan enhancing the capacities of existing McDonald, the first session was introduced by grassroots organisations when developing Sir Muir Russell, who commended the Royal new, or refining existing, approaches. Further- Society of Edinburgh for acting as a catalyst in more, it was suggested that some of the most bringing the delegates and presenters significant past failures of planning emerged together, stating that it was fitting that the following the implementation of top-down Society be involved in examining the ongoing solutions which involved little or no challenges of post-industrial cities such as consultation with those most directly Glasgow in the 21st century. It was high- affected. Summarising, Sir Muir stated that lighted that Glasgow is not unique in the Glasgow’s problems should not be levels of socio-economic deprivation that considered intractable, but instead present need to be addressed, but that there is a need challenges which span the diversity of fields to understand why such issues have arisen in which delegates work, requiring new and what these mean in today’s reality, in agendas for working together in new ways, order that applicable solutions can be with the expectation that success will only be generated for the people of the city. While judged in the longer term. past attempts to address deprivation might be questioned in terms of sufficiency and Session 1: The Background appropriateness, it was noted that Glasgow has benefited from the establishment of a Will the poor always be with us? large number of voluntary and community Michael Pacione provided the context for the groups and could be considered a world conference