Towards Co-Operative Councils: Empowering People to Change Their Lives
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Towards co-operative councils: empowering people to change their lives Edited by Steve Reed MP and Kitty Ussher Kindly sponsored by: Kindly sponsored by: Contents TOWARDSTOWARDS CO-OPERACO-OPERATTIIVEVE COUNCILS:COUNCILS: EMPOWERINGEMPOWERING PEOPLEPEOPLE TO CHANGECHANGE TTHHEIREIR LIVESLIVES 3 Preface 1 Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party Foreword by the leaders of Labour’s co-operative councils network 3 Introduction: Give people the power to live better lives 7 Steve Reed MP for Croydon North Section 1: Reshaping the relationship between citizens and the state 11 Ben Lucas, Head of RSA 2020 programme Cllr Keith Wakefield, Leader of Leeds City Council Stella Creasy MP, Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament for Walthamstow Dame Tessa Jowell MP, Labour Member of Parliament for Dulwich and West Norwood Section 2: Housing and community-led regeneration 23 James Kennell, Director of the Economic Development Resource Centre at the University of Greenwich Business School Gareth Swarbrick, Chief Executive of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing Martien Kuitenbrouwer, President of the Board of Amsterdam West District Council Section 3: Schools and education 32 Cllr Nick Forbes, Leader of Newcastle City Council Mervyn Wilson and Sean Rodgers, Chief Executive, and Lead Member on Trust Schools at the Co-operative College Gary Phillips, Headteacher of Lilian Baylis Technology School TOWARDS CO-OPERATIVE COUNCILS: EMPOWERING PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEIR LIVES Section 4: Children, families, youth services and social care 41 Cllr Richard Watts, Executive Member for Children and Families, Islington Council Kevin Ford, Chief Executive, FPM Christine Megson, Consultant on integrated public services Lord Victor Adebowale, Chief Executive, Turning Point Section 5: A changing role for councils, councillors and council staff 55 Cliff Mills, Principal Associate, Mutuo Cllr Sharon Taylor, Leader of Stevenage Borough Council Cllr Jim McMahon, Leader of Oldham Council Frances Rehal MBE, Independent consultant Allison Ogden-Newton, Chair of the Transition Institute Kevin Jaquiss, Partner at law firm Cobbetts LLP William Davies, Assistant Professor at University of Warwick, and an Associate of the Centre for Mutual & Employee-owned Business, University of Oxford. TOWARDS CO-OPERATIVE COUNCILS: EMPOWERING PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEIR LIVES Section 6: Co-operative neighbourhoods and community budgeting 77 Cllr Paul Brant, Deputy Mayor of Liverpool Toby Blume, former chief executive of Urban Forum Cllr Sue Murphy, Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council John P. Houghton, consultant and activist Section 7: Jobs, business and the local economy 90 Gareth Thomas MP, Chair of the Co-operative Party and MP for Harrow West Kitty Ussher, former MP and Treasury Minister; Research Fellow, Smith Institute. “If we want every single person in Britain to feel that they have a stake in how Britain is run, it is essential that this includes local government, our public services and our high streets.” Preface 1 TOWARDS CO-OPERATIVE COUNCILS: EMPOWERING PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEIR LIVES Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP to their neighbours to find out what the elderly residents actually want and need, whether it is a Foreword for ‘Towards Co-operative Family Support Group like in Brandon or an art Councils’ and social activity club for vulnerable people in One Nation Labour means ensuring that every Basildon. Sharon Taylor, Leader of Stevenage single person has a stake, that prosperity is fairly Borough Council writes about involving residents shared, and that we protect the institutions in deciding how to spend their Local Community which express our common life as a nation. Budgets, whether it is on nurseries, scouts, or Ultimately, it is a vision of a country bound bingo. together, sharing a common purpose, and where There is a hard-headed case for this kind of those three principles run through every part of bottom-up decision making. Often it is the best society and public life. way to make sure that change reflects what If we want every single person in Britain to feel residents want, or to make sure that services are that they have a stake in how Britain is run, it protected. is essential that this includes local government, But it serves our values too. At the heart of our public services and our high streets. One Nation politics is a belief in binding people Making our councils more co-operative may yet together as a community. Often the services that be a good way to do that. are chosen or protected are the very services that do that. This book contains a few inspiring examples of how that is starting to happen. In that way, co-operative councils can be a direct means to building One Nation. Instilling an As Tessa Jowell writes, when Lambeth Council ethos of the common good, emphasising what told the Loughborough Estate it could not afford we share, and beginning to rebuild the ties of solar panels, a group of residents got together community and solidarity that encourage people to organise a co-operative to do it themselves. to spend time together and look after one Lord Victor Adebowale, Chief Executive of social another. care provider Turning Point writes about a group which trains teams of residents to speak “Customers trust mutuals more than either government run organisations or private businesses” Foreword 3 TOWARDS CO-OPERATIVE COUNCILS: EMPOWERING PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEIR LIVES The Labour Party that many of us grew up in had local level, would be improved by revisiting what at its heart the concept that public ownership is is meant by Sidney Webb’s phrase “whatever the same as ownership by the state. The reforms forms of popular administration...that in of new Labour, whilst moving away from the particular cases commend themselves”. pursuit of ‘common ownership’ as a defining Specifically, we seek to demonstrate how objective, did so with the clear presumption that stronger cooperation between service users, this was because it no longer sought wholescale service providers and other interested parties nationalisation as an industrial strategy. can deliver better outcomes for citizens. This In fact, this post-war interpretation of the involves modernising the concept of the old clause IV in Labour’s constitution is a co-operative to provide a well-understood narrow one. Sidney Webb, the author of that mechanism through which people who care constitution, had a far wider definition of what about a particular public service issue are common ownership meant. He stated in an enabled to come together, wearing whatever article in the Observer on 21st October 1917: hats they self-identify with (including as employees), to create a structure or process This declaration of the Labour Party leaves it that best achieves what it is they individually open to choose from time to time whatever and collectively want. This can work on a forms of common ownership, from the co- large scale, or a small scale, across different operative store to the nationalised railway and traditional policy disciplines, and the public- whatever forms of popular administration and private boundary, break through silos, make control of industry that in particular cases communities more resilient and aspirational, and commend themselves. focus ruthlessly on results. Sidney Webb was writing with particular The purpose of this publication is to move the reference to industry at a time when the welfare debate forward about how this can best be done state and wide-scale public services didn’t exist. and review examples of how it is already being But his words have wider application to all forms done. It seeks to support Labour’s emerging of organisation. co-operative council movement to share best It is the central contention of this publication practice and develop its ideas to show how that public policy outcomes, particularly at a we can deal with the problems confronting TOWARDS CO-OPERATIVE COUNCILS: EMPOWERING PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEIR LIVES 4 communities today. We have trawled the country for these ideas further. We then hone in on particular innovative examples of local policy in action. In some policy areas, exploring how principles of co-operation cases these will be operating under a co-operative and empowerment, particularly in the face of budget brand. In others, people are knowingly or unknowingly cuts, can achieve results in housing and community- applying the same principles but using different led regeneration (section two), schools and education language. There are contributions here from council (section three) and children, families, youth services and leaders, grassroots practitioners, local government social care (section four). cabinet members, chief executives, national politicians, The fifth section - entitled ‘a changing role for private sector consultants, third sector bodies, and councils, councillors and council staff’ - explores the academics. organisational side of the same question: what does it What they share is an intuitive understanding that mean if a whole council becomes ‘co-operative’; how problems are best resolved when everyone who has does co-production work; how are basic requirements an interest in resolving them are all sitting round the such as access to services, safeguarding, and probity same table with their respective roles clearly defined guaranteed; what organisational and decision-making and mutually respected. If there is a single thread that structures are needed; where are the barriers and what runs through every contribution to this pamphlet it is the response of employees and their representatives is the need to end the old binary power relationships to such profound change? between council and citizen, with the former as the We then explore the implications for neighbourhoods entity doing things to the latter. Instead it offers an themselves, in particular through the opportunities optimistic view of the benefits that can be realised and challenges of community budgeting - both through aligning the incentives and harnessing the through devolving financial decisions to communities energy of all the players involved.