Connective Action for Regeneration: a Comparative Case Study of Social Networks and Community Infrastructure in New East Manchester

Connective action for regeneration: A comparative case study of social networks and community infrastructure in New East Manchester

A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of PhD in the Faculty of Humanities

2012

Elizabeth Carley

School of Social Sciences

Contents

List of Tables 6 List of Figures 8 Abstract 9 Declaration 10 Acknowledgements 11 Glossary of technical terms 13 Glossary of abbreviations 16

Chapter 1. Connective action for investigation: introducing the terrain 17 1.1 A brief introduction to New Deal for Communities 17 1.2 This study: an overview 20

Chapter 2. The theoretical foundation for the study of community infrastructure in regeneration 27 2.1 The theory and practice of community life 27 2.1.1 Definitions of community 28 2.1.2 The practice of community: working class life and the community studies 30 2.2 Community as a policy target- lost and refound 33 2.2.1 The institutional forebears of Labour’s community policymaking: area-based initiatives, New Public Management, and partnership governance 33 2.2.2 From consumer-citizens to community leadership: an overview of New Labour’s new dealings in community 35 2.2.3 Labour’s community empowerment through participation: a critique 39 2.2.3.1 Imagining and measuring community empowerment 39 2.2.3.2 New Labour’s community involvement through the lens of NDC 42 2.3 The opportunities for community-building in policy: conceptualising community infrastructure in regeneration 47 2.3.1 From social capital to social movements-based research: dispatching ideology and conceptual imprecision 48 2.3.2 Social movements theory: key planks and their application to the study of community infrastructure in deprived neighbourhoods 50 2.4 Summary and discussion 56

Chapter 3. Methodology 58 3.1 The case study areas 58 3.1.1 The Beacons area and NDC partnership 58 3.1.2 Gorton 63 3.1.3 The fortunes of the community partnership in Beacons and Gorton 65 3.2 The research design 65 3.2.1 Aims of the study and research questions 65 3.2.2 Defining concepts 68 3.2.3 Research philosophy 70 3.2.4 Research strategy 71 3.2.5 Comparative case study approach: a field method of research 72 3.3 Data collection instruments and methods 73 3.3.1 Preliminary fieldwork: semi-structured interviews and observation 73 3.3.2 Data type and method: social network analysis of residents’ groups’ relations 73 3.3.3 Data sources: defining network boundary and nodes 75 3.3.4 Core quantitative data collection method and response rates 76 3.3.5 Fieldwork periods and ethnographic work 78 3.3.6 Data collection instrument: design process 80 2

3.3.7 Data collection instruments 80 3.4. Data analysis 83 3.4.1 Data manipulation and operationalisation of concepts 83 3.4.2 Network data analysis: some key features for clarification 87 3.5 Research ethics 90 3.6 Summary 92

Chapter 4. Micro-networks of residents’ groups and the neighbourhood- level foundation of community infrastructure 94 4.1 Interaction and representation: the composition of residents’ group participants and the scale of group activity 94 4.1.1. The socio-demographic composition of residents’ groups 94 4.1.2 The micro-network contact profile of groups: association and representation 97 4.2 The function of residents’ groups as actors within and beyond the neighbourhood 101 4.2.1 Group types and types of micro-level organising 102 4.2.2 Meso-level definitions of group purpose and resourcing 103 4.2.3 Macro-level collaboration which impacts on the neighbourhood 105 4.3 Summary of findings and discussion 107

Chapter 5. Meso-networks and the inter-organisational level of community infrastructure 111 5.1 Structural solidarity and mobilisation capacity: the scale, strength and shape of networks 112 5.1.1 The scale and strength of network structure: density and average degree 112 5.1.2 The scale and strength of network structure: tie strength, average distance, and reciprocity of information-sharing ties 114 5.1.3 The scale and strength of network structure: multiplexity 116 5.1.4 The scale and strength of network structure: benefits of relationships between groups 120 5.1.5 The shape of network structure: centralisation and core/periphery analysis 122 5.2 The durability of meso-network structures: future work ties and reasons for non-contact 129 5.2.1 The durability of network structures: future ties 129 5.2.2 The durability of network structures: reasons for non-contact between groups 132 5.3 Summary of results and discussion 134

Chapter 6. Macro-networks, political opportunity structures and the porosity of the community/state interface 137 6.1 Political opportunity structures: participation and support for residents’ groups 137 6.1.1 Participation in local political opportunity structures of resident involvement 137 6.1.2 Start-up and ongoing resourcing of residents’ groups through the political opportunity structures of state 139 6.2 The profile of the macro-network interface between community, regeneration and the local state 141 6.2.1 The relational profile of the macro-network interface 142 6.2.2 The positional profile of the macro-network interface: identifying the most highly connected state actors 144 6.3 Perceptions of the macro-network interface 146 6.3.1 The profile of benefits and conflicts flowing through the macro-network interface 146 6.3.2 Perceptions of empowerment and regeneration’s impact on community 149 6.4 Summary of findings and discussion 151

Chapter 7. A multi-dimensional profile of community infrastructure: networks, attributes and political opportunity structure 154 7.1 The interplay between micro, meso, and macro-networks 155 7.1.1 Micro-network interaction and meso-network centrality 155 7.1.2 Micro- and meso-network network correlation with and macro-network centrality 157 7.2 Attribute correlates of connectivity: the relationship between attributes of groups and their micro, meso and macro-network level interactivity 159 7.2.1 Correlates of micro-network interaction 160 7.2.2 Meso-networks of information-sharing and residents’group attributes 163 7.2.3 Correlates of macro-network connectivity 171 7.3 Summary of results and discussion 174

Chapter 8. Discussion 178 8.1 Beacons 178 8.1.1 Beacons NDC community: for information and service-improvement 178 8.1.2 Building capacity as individual service users 179 8.1.3 Channelling funds, not representing community 180 8.1.4 Cash-fuelled community divisions 181 8.1.5 Discourse of apathy and further micro-network divisions 183 8.1.6 Ethnicity and otherness 184 8.1.7 NDC’s East Manchester identity: self-abnegation as citizenship 185 8.1.8 Divisions over territory and strategies of macro-network engagement 186 8.1.9 The closed shop of participation in governance 187 8.1.10 NDC as meso-network ‘glue’ and the primacy of macro-network relations 189 8.1.11 Succession structures without widespread buy-in 190 8.1.12 Depoliticisation and sustainability 191 8.1.13 Influencing decisions: money, dialogue, protest 192 8.1.14 Beacons’ leadership skills and lack of post-NDC purpose 193 8.2 Gorton 197 8.2.1 Gorton Monastery, Festival and Forum 197 8.2.2 Housing stock transfer to Eastland Homes 198 8.2.3 Community policing 199 8.2.4 Sharing of skills and activist succession 200 8.2.5 Unifying history of ‘village’ identity 200 8.2.6 Gorton 100: resident-initiated ideas and organisation in action 201 8.2.7 Macro-network relations with politicians 201 8.2.8 Comparing Gorton and Beacons structures for resident access to ward coordination 202 8.2.9 The role of individual front-line officers 203 8.2.10 Community leadership capacity and purpose-building 204 8.2.11 Uniting the functional and the fun, keeping infrastructure open at the base 206 8.3 Summary 208

Chapter 9. Conclusion 210 9.1 Community infrastructure in East Manchester- results in relation to research questions 210 9.1.1 Results for ten detailed empirical questions 210 9.1.2 Responding to overarching research questions 214 9.2 Implications of findings for policy and practice 217 9.2.1 Top down versus bottom up: community in regeneration 217 4

9.2.2 Collaboration or resistance: collective action by community for community 220 9.2.3 Building community: horizontal inclusion and exclusion 224 9.2.4 Looking forward: policy trajectories 227 9.3 Critical reflections on this study 228 9.3.1 Limitations 228 9.3.2 Original contribution of the study 231 9.3.3 Future research 232 9.4 Summary and concluding remarks 234

Bibliography 235

Appendix 1. 246 NDC survey measures of participation and empowerment: from Beacons NDC survey and NDC national evaluation survey 246

Appendix 2. 249 Reasons why residents’ groups wound up or struggled to keep going 249

Appendix 3. 250 Further measurement of cohesion: cliques 250

Appendix 4. 252 Turnout in local elections in Beacons and Gorton wards 252

Appendix 5. 254 Characteristics of core and periphery groups in meso-networks of information-sharing 257 Results of principal components analysis 259

Appendix 6. 262 Interview questions from semi-structured interviews with residents and officers 262 Networks interview schedule, including script sheets for administration of alter lists and alter lists 264 Self-completion questionnaire: group attributes 277 Self-completion questionnaire: attributes of individual participants 287

Word Count 90,561

List of Tables

Table 1. Responses and response rates 77 Table 2. Summary ethnographic research activity 79 Table 3. Relationships examined in networks element of study 81 Table 4. Socio-demographic characteristics of groups and respondents representing groups 95 Table 5. Frequencies of key measures of associational contact and interaction 98 Table 6. Frequencies on measures of representational contact 100 Table 7. Frequencies of group types and activity types 102 Table 8. Frequencies of types of information shared by residents’ groups - coded open ends 103 Table 9. Frequencies of types of things residents’ groups work together on - coded open ends 104 Table 10. Activities undertaken by groups in collaboration with local agencies 106 Table 11 . Meso-network relations in this study: post data manipulation 111 Table 12. Density and average degree in the meso-networks 112 Table 13. Distribution of ties of information-sharing on valued measure of frequency: percentage of total possible ties by area 115 Table 14. Distribution of values of ties- percentage of total ties by area 117 Table 15. Frequencies of different multiplex combinations of meso-network relations by area 119 Table 16. Main benefits of relationships with other residents’ groups- counts & percentages of total number of responding groups 121 Table 17. Degree centralisation of meso-networks (as percentage of most centralised possible structure) 123 Table 18. Results of core-periphery analysis of meso- networks 126 Table 19. Statistics for scale, strength, shape of additive multiplex networks 128 Table 20. Distribution of values of ties in core- as percentage of total ties in core 128 Table 21. Likely to make new group contacts in the future- frequencies 130 Table 22. Frequencies of combination of ‘Work’ and ‘Work future’ networks - counts and percentages 130 Table 23. Net gain/ loss of indegree and outdegree on work ties 131 Table 24. Reasons why groups don’t have contact with other groups 133 Table 25. Frequencies of participation in political opportunity structures 138 Table 26. Extent and sources of financial and non-financial support resources of residents’ groups at set-up and in two years prior to study 140 Table 27. Macro-network relations measured in this study 141 Table 28. Density and average degree in the macro-networks 142 Table 29. Frequencies of macro-network information ties by tie value 144 Table 30. Degree centrality of top ten most central agencies for receiving/ giving information and working together relations with residents’ groups 145 Table 31. Benefits of having direct personal relationships with officers in agencies- coded open ends 147 Table 32. Frequency with which residents’ group engaged in conflict or challenge with officers in preceding two years 148 Table 33. Proportion of situations of conflict or challenge with officers resulting in a positive outcome from the group’s perspective 149 Table 34. Frequencies of responses to empowerment and community impact questions- individual respondent questions 149 Table 35. Correlations between indices of association and representation and measures of centrality in meso-networks of information-sharing and work together 155 Table 36. Correlations between micro-network indices, meso-network centralities and macro-network centralities 158 Table 37. Correlation of micro-network measures, association and representation, with non-POS attributes of residents’ groups- Pearson’s r 160 6

Table 38. Correlation of micro-network measures, association and representation, with POS attributes- Pearson’s r 162 Table 39. Mean centralities on binary information-sharing on categories of attribute variables- Beacons 164 Table 40. Mean centralities on binary information-sharing on categories of attribute variables- Gorton 168 Table 41. Correlations between residents’ group attributes and their macro-network centralities- Beacons 171 Table 42. Correlations between residents’ group attributes and their macro-network centralities- Gorton 173 Table 43. Local and national survey data on resident involvement and empowerment in Manchester NDC area: 2002-2008 246 Table 44. Beacons Partnerships NDC and SRB budget spending 1999-2010 by theme 247 Table 45. Key ward-level statistics on indicators of demographic composition and community empowerment/ cohesion 248 Table 46. Reasons for groups no longer being active/ struggling to keep going 249 Table 47. Descriptive statistics on cliques and clique memberships in binary information-sharing networks- by area 250 Table 48. QAP correlations of matrices of five different 1-mode relations by area 251 Table 49. Local election turnout in Beacons and Gorton wards, 1999-2012: percentage turnout 252 Table 50. Individual perceptions of extent to which regeneration made Beacons area a better place to live 253 Table 51. Beacons homophily models 254 Significance values based on 25,000 permutations 254 Table 52. Gorton homophily models 255 Table 53. QAP correlations- geographical distances (kilometres) and information-sharing ties 256 Table 54. Description of core and periphery groups based on mean/ median/ mode on key attribute measures- Beacons 257 Table 55. Description of core and periphery groups based on mean/ median/ mode on key attribute measures- Gorton 258 Table 56. Pattern matrix showing loadings greater than 0.4 for principal components analysis- Beacons 259 Table 57. Correlation of components- Beacons 259 Table 58. Results from assumptions tests for PCA component extraction- Beacons 260 Table 59. Pattern matrix showing loadings greater than 0.4 for principal components analysis- Gorton 260 Table 60. Correlation of components- Gorton 261 Table 61. Results from assumptions tests for PCA component extraction- Gorton 261

List of Figures

Figure 1. Typology for the turn to neighbourhood under New Labour 37

Figure 2. Three dimensions of Fung’s (2006) Democracy Cube 42

Figure 3. NEM boundary, including Beacons and Gorton 61

Figure 4. Ideal-type network structures: left- hierarchical, right- polycentric 88

Figure 5. Distributions of scores on indices of association and representation 101

Figure 6: Beacons 1-mode ‘Contact’ network: core and periphery (coreness) 125

Figure 7: Gorton 1-mode ‘Contact’ network: core and periphery (coreness) 125

Abstract

This study explores the mechanisms underpinning policy efforts to build community in deprived urban neighbourhoods using a mixed-method comparative case study. Two neighbourhoods within the New East Manchester (NEM) urban regeneration area are examined, one of which hosted a New Deal for Communities (NDC) regeneration partnership from 1999-2010. In 2009 the NDC successor body established a community forum in each neighbourhood in an attempt to sustain and extend NDC’s participatory practices. The study compares the community infrastructure embodied by the residents’ groups eligible to participate in the forum in each neighbourhood. Social networks data, standard survey metrics and ethnographic material on 61 groups were collected. These elucidate the structure of groups’ relations, their collective action capacity and the extent to which NDC, and its successor, NEM, were implicated in the formation and development of these relations.

NDC was the most prominent expression of the New Labour’s social capital-orientated “turn to community” (Duffy and Hutchinson, 1997). However, the final national evaluation of the scheme raised doubts about its impact, finding little effect on community relations at the neighbourhood level (CLG, 2010c). This gap between policy ambition and outcome is probed in this study using new tools and employing concepts from the social movements’ literature, rather than the social capital framework underpinning most existing research on NDC. It focusses specifically social relations as a metric of community infrastructure, but resists the network analytic tendency to infer community from the mere presence of relations (Blokland, 2003). Instead it seeks evidence of the capacity for pairwise ties to be translated into communal mobilization through the interplay of relational, cognitive and contextual mechanisms, including specific facets of the political opportunity structures (POS) of NDC. The study contributes to debates on policy, theory and method relevant to: the practice of civic engagement and community development in regeneration; the sociology of community in deprived post-industrial neighbourhoods; and the measurement of community capacity and collective agency.

Analysis of social networks considers three levels: the connection of individual residents to each group; relations between groups within the neighbourhood; and relations between groups and local service-providers. Results show very similar levels of network connectivity in the two neighbourhoods, but greater evidence of the growth of sustainable grassroots organising and leadership capacity in the non-NDC area. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of POS concludes that NDC was instrumental in generating a constrained, controllable form of community engagement to meet the delivery requirements of the scheme. This process stifled the development of a wider, independent self-organising capacity on the ground, sustainable beyond the life of NDC. 9

Declaration

That no portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning;

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Acknowledgements

There are many people and institutions who have contributed to the execution of this study in important ways, large and small.

I must begin by thanking the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and New East Manchester (NEM) for funding this study, without the support of which it would not have been possible.

This study would also not have happened without the generosity, patience and time of the many East Manchester residents and officers working in the area, who participated in it, some several times, answering a litany of questions and queries. I have tried to do justice to them and their immense efforts in the community, though as an outsider I have inevitably fallen short in understanding. A special thank you goes to Pete Wallroth and Cath Moran, formerly of New East Manchester, for invaluable input and access.

I would like to thank colleagues in the Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis, most notably Professor Martin Everett, for providing an anchor and springboard to myself and other colleagues using social network analysis in our doctoral research. The expertise and encouragement of Martin has helped a number of us to keep pushing the boundaries of our work, and to have the confidence to present it outside of the university, including at international conferences. Social network analysis is an exciting and challenging technique which offers many possibilities for new insights in substantive research topics and methodological innovation. It has been a privilege to be part of such a great team of academics in this field.

Thanks go to my supervisors, Dr Mark Tranmer in the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR) and Dr Elisa Bellotti in Sociology/ the Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis at the University of Manchester- especially to Dr Bellotti for joining the team some way into the project, and for her invaluable support and critique of my work. A special thank you must also go to Liz Richardson, formerly of the Institute for Political and Economic Governance (IPEG), now in Politics at the University of Manchester, for her role as internal reviewer at my annual PhD progression meetings, and for her encouragement and enthusiasm at the final stages of this study.

I must thank many talented and generous friends and colleagues, who have contributed in immeasurable ways to the execution of this study. Firstly to five very special friends and colleagues for their love, support and critique at the final stages: Harriet Rowley, in the

School of Education, Julia Mase in Brooks World Poverty Institute, Dyi Huijg in Sociology, all at the University of Manchester, Dr Daniela D’Andreta at Warwick Business School, and Kathryn Oliver in the School of Community-based Medicine at the University of Manchester. And also to other thought-provoking and inspiring colleagues, fellow East Manchester researcher, Camilla Lewis in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, Dr Guido Conaldi at the Centre for Business Network Analysis, University of Greenwich, John Miles in Social Gerontology at the University of Keele, and Eileen Conn at the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC). I must also thank a very dear friend, Dr Jenni Viitanen in the Centre for Urban Policy Studies (CUPS) at the University of Manchester, with whom joint plans for postgraduate study were first hatched during our days as the two-woman governance team at Stockport Homes (Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council).

Finally, this study is dedicated to my wonderful husband, Nick Carley, for his support, love, and above all, patience, which saw me through many damp and cold days in the field, and long nights in front of the computer screen. An honorary doctorate ought to be bestowed for such efforts.

Glossary of Technical Terms

Tie This term is used as a synonym for ‘relationship’ or ‘relation’ in social network analysis

Node/actor These terms are used to refer the individual agents, people, or organisations in a network of relations. In this study the word ‘group’ is also used in place of these terms, and refers to residents’ groups as the individual actors in networks, rather than groups of actors connected in a network.

Directed/ undirected network A directed network is one in which ties are directed to and from actors, such that some actors may be connected in one direction without reciprocation. An undirected network is one in which ties are mutual, such that actors are either connected or unconnected, with no measurement of direction.

Binary/ valued network A binary network is one in which a tie can be merely present or absent. A valued network is one in which ties may take a range of values, reflecting the strength of the relation, the frequency of contact, the volume of transmission and so on.

Density This measures the overall level of connection in the network. It is calculated by dividing the sum of actual ties by the total possible number of relationships (if every pair were connected), which indicates the proportion of all possible ties present. For a valued network it is the sum of values divided by the total number of possible ties, which gives an average tie value.

Degree This is the number of direct relations an actor has with other actors in the network. In directed networks it is measured as indegree, based on the sum of incoming ties, and outdegree, the sum of outgoing ties.

Average degree This is the average number of ties each actor in the network has, which is calculated by dividing the sum of ties present in the network by the sum of actors. In a valued network the sum of values is divided by the total possible number of ties. Average degree is a better measure than density for comparing networks of different sizes given the rapid increase in the total possible number of ties with the addition of actors, and the limit to the number of ties any actor can sustain, which means larger networks usually have lower densities.

Centrality/ centralisation Centrality is an individual actor-level measure. Highly central actors are those with many ties. Centralisation is a network-level measure, indicating the extent of inequality in the distribution of ties across the actors in the network. The most centralised, unequally distributed configuration of a network is the star, where one actor has high centrality and the remainder have low centrality, each having only a single connection to the central actor.

Degree centrality This is simplest centrality measure, which Scott (2000) describes as ‘local centrality’. It is the sum of the number of direct connections an actor has to others in the network. In a directed network centrality is measured by outdegree and indegree, as two separate measures These might be thought of as capturing “expansiveness” and “popularity” respectively (Monge and Contractor (2003: 38).

Closeness centrality (integration and radiality) Closeness centrality is a ‘global centrality’ measure (Scott, 2000), which takes account of indirect ties. Actors with high closeness can easily reach many actors via short paths, giving them high independence and efficiency in communication capacity (Freeman, 1979). In this study Valente and Foreman’s (1998) measures of integration and radiality are used to measure in-closeness and out-closeness in directed networks, since they can be computed on networks which are not entirely connected, as is the case here.

Betweenness centrality This is a measure of ‘local dependency’ (Scott, 2000) created by actors who are central, by virtue of lying on the shortest paths connecting many actors who are not directly connected to each other. An actor with high-betweenness centrality may have greater control in the network (Freeman, 1979) as a broker or gatekeeper (Scott, 2000). Betweenness may be treated as an indicator of power or influence.

Core/ periphery structure A core/ periphery structure is a type of centralised network configuration with a core group of highly interconnected actors, surrounded by a periphery which are better connected to the core than they are to each other. Core/ periphery analysis can be undertaken on a categorical, binary basis, assigning actors to core or periphery, or using a continuous procedure which calculates individual actor-level ‘coreness’ scores, such that some actors may be considered semi-peripheral.

Clique A clique is a group of three or more actors in which every actor is directly connected to every other, and the clique is not contained within any other clique (Scott, 2000). Networks with many cliques have high cohesion. A component is a less stringent

version of clique in which all nodes are connected but they may not all be directly connected to one another.

Average distance The distance between two nodes is the shortest length of path by which they can reach each other through the relations which connect them, either directly (a path-length of one), or indirectly, through other actors. The average distance between nodes in a network is another measure of global network cohesion, indicating the reachability of actors from one to the other.

Horizon of observability Friedkin’s (1983) “horizon of observability” directs attention to the importance of actors to whom individuals are either directly connected (a path-length, or distance, of one) or to whom they are indirectly connected by one intermediary (distance of two). For example, friends, and friends of friends, are easily visible, whilst it is much more difficult to observe the actions and interactions of others beyond these two steps.

Homophily Homophily is the principle underpinning the adage that ‘birds of a feather flock together’. It drives social networks towards homogeneity in the individual attributes of connected actors and is therefore implicated in social segregation along demographic/ socio-economic lines (McPherson et. al., 2001). Various formal procedures have been developed which allow homophily in social networks to be measured.

Multiplexity This is a measure of the number of separate types of interaction which make up a relationship between two actors (Scott, 2000). Multiplex relations are usually assumed to be more binding than uniplex ties, with strength increasing as multiplexity increases (White and Harary, 2001).

Glossary of abbreviations

ABI Area-based initiative BME Black and minority ethnic/ ethnicity CLG (Department for) Communities and Local Government CP Community Partnership DETR Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions GAT Gorton All Together (Gorton’s community partnership) HMR Housing Market Renewal IMD Indices of Multiple Deprivation NDC New Deal for Communities NEM New East Manchester, urban regeneration company and area NPM New Public Management NRU Neighbourhood Renewal Unit PCA Principal Component Analysis POS Political opportunity structure(s) RSL Registered social landlord RTB Right to Buy SEU Social Exclusion Unit SRB Single Regeneration Budget TRA Tenants’ and residents’ association URC Urban regeneration company

Chapter 1. Connective action for investigation: introducing the terrain

My vision is of a nation where no-one is seriously disadvantaged by where they live, where power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few. This Action Plan is a crucial step in creating one nation, not separated by class, race, or where people live. (Tony Blair in Foreword to National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal Action Plan, SEU, 2001: 5)

As first Labour prime minister for eighteen years, Tony Blair and his New Labour government set out on their first term in government in 1997 with an impassioned mission to address entrenched urban poverty and inequality and “bring Britain together” (SEU, 1998). This study examines the nature and nurture of community infrastructure in the context of the flagship New Labour government policy designed to deliver on this mission, New Deal for Communities. In this introduction the initiative and its overarching aims and practices are presented in the light of the disappointing findings of the government’s own evaluation with regard to its impact on community. The nature of the study and research problems it addresses are then outlined as an entry point to the main body of the thesis.

1.1 A brief introduction to New Deal for Communities

Labour established its neighbourhood renewal strategy as a response to observation that in the years preceding the party’s ascent to government in 1997 the nation had become more divided between the rising living standards of some, and the increasing poverty of others (SEU, 1998: 4). The proposed solution took aim at the spatial manifestation of inequality, the goal being “to reduce th[e] gap between the poorest neighbourhoods and the rest of the country” (SEU, 1998: 4). In human terms this translated into an appeal to community, conceived of as a geographically-bound, unified, if broken-down, entity. Previous Conservative administrations had for the most part made the community a passive witness to the arrival of physical regeneration plans, “parachuted in” from central government, with little regard for the needs or views of local people (SEU, 1998: 3). By contrast Labour was to actively engage these previously cut-off, and in the new vernacular, ‘socially excluded’ communities, in the ‘renewal’ of their own neighbourhood.

Amongst the multiple initiatives implemented under the auspices of this strategy, New Deal for Communities (NDC) was the flagship, and as such the most prominent and ambitiously-defined manifestation of the New Labour vision of community and twenty-first century citizenship. The community partnership model of NDC aimed to reconfigure the roles and relationships between local government, governing agencies and local residents 17

(MacLeavy, 2009: 850): residents of deprived communities were to be engaged with government so that neighbourhoods could be improved in response to their “audible demands of the state machinery” (NRU, 2002a in Wright et al., 2007: 265). Community engagement was also held up as a means for fostering cooperation within those communities, so that they might mobilise the skills and resources which existed within them to improve their neighbourhoods (MacLeavy, 2009: 851). The development of social capital within the neighbourhood was thus made a prominent, if challenging, priority. In these ways the goals of the scheme were fully aligned with the wider policy agenda described in Chapter 2 below.

In recognition of the long-term commitment required to address entrenched poverty, the NDC programme was designed to run for ten years, and to target multiple indicators of deprivation identified as poor job prospects, high crime rates, educational- underachievement, poor health, and poor quality housing and physical environment. As was the case in other policy areas, the emphasis was on a joined-up, partnership approach which engaged the community, and which was based on evidence of ‘what works’. Compared to earlier area-based initiatives (ABIs) the NDC areas were small in size, attempting to conform to local perceptions of community boundaries (Mathers et al., 2008), as well as being much fewer in number than in previous initiatives, such as the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) (Lawless, 2006). NDC also sought to overcome other barriers to community involvement identified in earlier schemes, such as the requirement to compete for funding via submission of bids to tight deadlines, by eliminating the competitive element, and allowing longer lead-times and funding for bid development (Foley and Martin, 2000: 483), so that communities could play a part in defining the terms and substance of the regeneration of their area. Indeed NDC partnerships had to demonstrate that communities were involved in both the selection of target areas and the development of programmes (Foley and Martin, 2000: 483). The community was then expected to be involved in the ongoing delivery and governance of the programme, for which purpose all NDC partnership boards included community representatives.

Efforts were made to involve residents in NDC beyond the formal role of board membership, often supported by a dedicated team of outreach staff within the NDC, with a particular focus on engaging ‘hard to reach’ groups (Mathers et al., 2008: 594). Activities included: efforts to inform and communicate with residents about events and opportunities with newsletters, websites, videos and roadshows; consulting residents using conferences, workshops and more informal, fun methods such as video diaries; enlisting residents as advocates and promoters of NDC work and good practice to other agencies and groups; and developing projects which residents could go on to manage for

themselves, such as community gardens, as well as voluntary and community sector training and capacity building referred to above (Russell, 2008: 13-14). Additionally the NRU (Neighbourhood Renewal Unit) made available a panel of Neighbourhood Renewal Advisors (NRAs) with expertise in aspects of community development, including capacity building, to work with NDC partnerships on request, assisting in the development of community involvement (Mathers et al., 2008: 594).

Labour was keen to evidence the success of this approach, and the scheme was subjected to extensive and ongoing monitoring and evaluation, in line with the wider efforts to modernise local government and foster continuous improvement through an evidence-based approach to policy-making, summed up in the expression ‘what counts is what works’ (Secretary of State for Health 1997: 10). After all, the efficacy of previous ABIs had been called into question long before the days of NDC (Lawless, 2006; Leunig and Swaffield, 2007). The impulse to avoid repeating previous mistakes and to make the gains of NDC sustainable beyond the temporary life of the scheme was therefore strong. However, as early as 2002 the Audit Commission’s research into the progress and lessons being learned on the implementation of neighbourhood renewal policy showed concern about the difficulties of ‘mainstreaming’ good practice from ABIs, and the realities of ‘bending’ mainstream funding into areas identified as a priority for support via special initiatives (Audit Commission, 2002). Whilst community engagement and partnership working were held to be key factors in the successful operation of ABIs during their lifetimes (Lawless, 2006: 1991), previous experience suggested that it was unrealistic to expect to sustain community activity at any substantial level, post-initiative (Gardner, 2007). Indeed the literature on empowerment and urban regimes provides some clear and intuitive reasons for this; the difficulty in mobilizing people to the goal of social change, particularly in the absence of immediate material incentives (Stone, 1993), and the added challenge of fomenting action in deprived communities, resulting from the demoralising and demobilising psychological effects of long-term poverty (Stone, 1993; Barr, 1995), which the NDC scheme pitted itself against. These issues are discussed in greater detail in the next chapter.

It is therefore perhaps not surprising that conclusions regarding the community-level social capital outcomes of NDC in the final national evaluation report struck a pessimistic note, finding little evidence of any impact on social capital across NDC areas as a whole (e.g. CLG, 2010: 62). Nevertheless the report emphasised that many NDC partnerships showed a continuing commitment to the ambition of sustaining engagement between the community and service providers beyond the life of the scheme- and evaluators felt that

this fact created “the potential to differentiate the NDC Programme from its predecessors as a more sustainable approach to regeneration” (CLG, 2010: 49).

All NDC partnerships were required to develop a succession strategy for their area to be submitted to central government for approval. In the CLG’s review of the evidence from the NDC national evaluation of the impact of the scheme on community-level social capital at its close, the authors assert that: a key element in succession should be enhancing the capacity of community groups to act for, and on behalf of, their communities; this requires them to have the ability and capacity to recruit and organise residents, run constituted groups, bid for funding and, in time, deliver projects (CLG, 2010: 45)

In the case of East Manchester NDC, which is examined in this study, documentation produced by and for the partnership (eg NEM, 2009a; Russell, 2006) suggested that a good deal of time and effort was dedicated to this aim. A community partnership structure, a forum for community involvement in governance to follow on from NDC (described in detail in Chapter 3), was designed to allow residents to continue to focus their energies and interest in the ongoing improvement of the area. This study aims to provide some insights into the prospect for realising the succession capacity envisaged by CLG in the quote above as evidenced by the circumstances in East Manchester NDC area at the end of the scheme. This is undertaken by examining the scale and scope of community infrastructure of residents’ groups which were the key target of NDC’s community capacity-building activity, and comparing it with the infrastructure in a neighbouring non- NDC area.

1.2 This study: an overview

This study is a comparative case study of community infrastructure in two areas in the east of the City of Manchester. One hosted an NDC partnership between 1999 and 2010, named by residents ‘Beacons for a Brighter Future’ (shortened to ‘Beacons’), whilst the other, Gorton, was not subject the NDC intervention. However both the intervention area and the comparator area are located within the wider boundary of the New East Manchester (NEM) urban regeneration area and are geographically contiguous. At the termination of NDC funding in 2010, the New East Manchester urban regeneration company (URC) took over in the Beacons area as the successor body to NDC. Having been in operation throughout the life of NDC as a vehicle for physical and economic regeneration of the wider NEM area, it was to provide an ongoing energy and focus for regeneration of Beacons after 2010, from a more strategic perspective and with limited funding compared to its NDC predecessor. This PhD study was part-sponsored by NEM 20

for the purpose of researching the impact and sustainability of NDC’s community engagement.

The study employs a quantitative survey of community infrastructure operationalised as social network relations. It is underpinned by ethnographic work undertaken to facilitate survey data collection and allow meaningful interpretation of quantitative findings in relation to the environmental and political context, consistent with the small-scale, case study approach used. A survey tool was developed on the basis of preliminary fieldwork, which was designed to collect both social networks data and responses to standard survey items measuring the community infrastructure inhering in small-scale residents’ groups, which were the basic unit of analysis. These groups were the principal target of Beacons NDC’s resident involvement and community capacity-building activity. Surveys were successfully administered in face-to-face interviews with 31 groups in the Beacons area and 30 in the comparator area of Gorton, with response rates of 91.2 percent and 100 percent in each area respectively. Most interviews took place in the homes of residents. The remaining ethnographic work encompassed 10 further semi-structured qualitative interviews with residents, 12 semi-structured qualitative interviews with officers of NDC/ NEM and a small number of other agencies, one focus group with residents, observation at 46 meetings run by officers and/or residents, and many telephone conversations and informal meetings with residents and officers. Full details of the fieldwork are shown in Table 2 in Chapter 3.

The study took as its point of departure the theories of community engagement and empowerment underpinning the policy approach adopted by New Labour, which revolved around the ideas of re-invigorating community life and democracy of new communitarians such as Amitai Etzioni, and the Tocquevillian conception of social capital as espoused by political scientist Robert Putnam, which heavily emphasised the role of participation in voluntary associations. However Chapter 2 also considers critical literature examining this theoretical terrain and its realisation in Labour policy, which leads to the recommendation of an alternative approach to the study of community and regeneration, based on social movements theory. This is shown to offer the possibility of a more rigorous, less tautological approach to the study of community than social capital theory: one which accounts for the separate but mutually influencing forces of social relations, individual agency and leadership capacity, and political opportunity structures (POS). Indeed a social movements approach is argued to be better suited to thinking about community than social capital theory, since it gives primacy to the treatment of social action as a collective, communal phenomenon, rather than as an impulse or asset inhering in a multiplicity of individual agents. 21

Nevertheless the core data around which the study is built are relational and aim to measure the network aspect of community, operationalised as community infrastructure. This term therefore refers to community relationships and is treated as a multi-level entity, operating at three interacting levels: the micro-level of involvement in and around residents’ groups within the neighbourhood, the meso-level of relationships between residents’ groups operating in different neighbourhoods, and the macro-level of relationships between residents’ groups and agencies of the local state, including NDC and NEM. This analytical framework is the basis for the research questions which are shown below. They are divided into two overarching, framing questions, and ten detailed empirical questions addressed in the quantitative data analysis:

Overarching research questions: 1) What is the scale and scope of community infrastructure in each area?

2) To what extent do the political opportunity structures of NDC/NEM explain the scale and scope of community infrastructure in each area?

Empirical questions around which the data analysis is structured are:

1) What is the scale and composition of the micro-networks of residents’ groups within the neighbourhood, and what does this say about their capacity to represent the neighbourhood?

2) What functions do residents’ groups serve as community actors, and what does this say about the type of community infrastructure their activity gives expression to?

3) What is the structure of relations between residents’ groups and what does this say about the solidarity of the network and the capacity to mobilise collectively?

4) What do the data indicate about the future structure of relations between groups in terms of durability, growth or decline?

5) To what extent have residents’ groups engaged with the political opportunity structures of the regeneration initiative and other agencies of the local state through participation in governance structures?

6) To what extent have residents’ groups accessed the political opportunity structures of the regeneration initiative and other local state actors, in the form of funding or support for their activity?

7) What is the profile of network connectivity between residents’ groups and local state actors, and what does this say about the porosity of the interface between the community and institutions of the local state?

8) What are residents’ perceptions of the nature and porosity of the community/ state interface?

9) What is the relationship between the micro, meso and macro-level measures of residents’ groups networks?

10) What individual attributes of residents’ groups are associated with their micro, meso and macro-level interaction, including accessing and participation in political opportunity structures?

Given the cross-sectional, summative nature of this study it can only provide a snapshot of the activities of residents’ groups and the structure of the networks at the end of the scheme. However it allows important insights regarding the impact of political opportunity structures of the initiative on the community, albeit without demonstrating causality. After all, NDC is purported to have spent ten years building the collective-organising and state- influencing capacity of precisely these types groups of residents. If they are few in number, if they are not active in their neighbourhoods, if they are not well connected to other groups and agencies, if there is little evidence that their actions are empowering, it is reasonable to suggest that NDC fell short of its ambitions- especially ambitions of sustainability. Indeed this study is able to provide a sufficiently rich and multi-faceted account to make this level of assessment of impact. This is facilitated by comparison with the non-intervention area of Gorton, and the details of observational work and qualitative interviewing, which allows the study to draw conclusions going far beyond those arising from existing evaluations. Indeed, the existing employment of simple survey measures of participation rates and perceptions of empowerment have offered a very limited view of community outcomes, even where it has been supplemented with qualitative data from focus groups, as was the case in the Beacons NDC final evaluation (see Ekosgen, 2010).

This study has a number of strengths which allow it to go beyond the level of analysis and explanation provided by existing government research, and much of the academic literature on NDC. Firstly, and most importantly, it takes a relational approach, rather than attempting to measure community as the sum of the characteristics of individual community members and their personal accounts of community action. Though community is a much-contested term, its most fundamental and consistent referent is the collective, as opposed to the individual. By measuring networks, albeit only as perceived 23

by representatives of residents’ groups, this study provides detailed evidence of potential collective capacity, and makes it possible to identify weaknesses in community infrastructure, which at best remain subject to speculation without such data. The second strength of this study is that it responds to calls for greater clarity regarding the multiple dimensions and facets of involvement in community (e.g. Brannan et al., 2006; Chanan, 2003). Confining analysis to individual community leaders who choose to participate at the level of boards of regeneration partnerships reveals very little about the community such leaders are supposed to represent, nor indeed the extent to which these individuals are in fact embedded in the wider community at all. By examining the scale and demographic profile of participation in residents’ groups from which such leaders are drawn, as well as their interaction with other residents’ groups representatives across different neighbourhoods, it is possible to assess the extent to which leaders may be capable of representing, and empowering a wider community.

A third strength of this study lies in the fact that it scrutinises the activities and level of participation in residents’ groups. Such groups, referred to as ‘below the radar’ (BTR) groups in research on the Third Sector, are seldom studied precisely because, as the BTR epithet implies, they are difficult to render visible. What research exists appears to be limited and fragmentary (McCabe et al., 2010), a fact which is hardly surprising given the reality, shown in this study, that such groups are often very informal and rely heavily on at best a handful of dedicated individuals. However, they are an important target for research, given the extent to which policy approaches, including those of the current Conservative-led government, continue to evoke such small-scale groups as a large-scale source of organising and even a service-providing alternative to government provision (e.g. Conservative Party, 2010).1 Indeed such groups can often constitute very valuable neighbourhood-level resources, but seldom of the scale or scope dreamt of by policymakers.

A fourth strength of this study is its use of a comparator case. Whilst it is not uncommon in network studies to compare different networks, most NDC research, particularly in the academic realm, has been based on single NDC cases. These have provided very valuable findings, which have informed this study. However, the use of a non-NDC area to cross-reference NDC findings proves critical in drawing attention to weaknesses in the NDC case, by demonstrating the extent and nature of the growth of community

1 As part of its vision for a would-be Big Society, the Conservative Party’s 2010 general election manifesto envisaged “every adult citizen being a member of an active neighbourhood group” and declaring that the party would “direct funding to those groups that strengthen communities in deprived areas”.

connectivity in an area with a very similar demographic and socio-economic profile, under different, though related, policy conditions.

The final strength of this study is its combination of quantitative measures of networks and ethnographic and qualitative indicators of the operation of those networks in practice. It is easy when presented with the impressive visual and numerical articulation of connected actors to infer that the presence of connections equates with the presence of capacity for collective action. For one, work in the academic field of social network analysis in recent years has highlighted the fact in the modern highly mobile age, individuals may have many pairwise relations in many different places, which provide important resources and support, but which are seldom mobilised as a collective, as elucidated by Wellman’s (2001b) theory of “networked individualism”. Indeed even with physical proximity, people need a common purpose to mobilise collectively, something which requires insights into many contextual details beyond mere network metrics, including assessment of leadership capacity and enactment in the network. Indeed, without evidence that a connected network has actually translated into concrete collective action, it seems deeply problematic to assume that evidence of many relations equates with evidence of truly communal infrastructure.

This draws attention finally to the title of this thesis, which refers to ‘connective action for regeneration’. In the first instance this signals the simple fact that the study examines the building of relations in a regeneration context. However, as the findings will show, it is has a deeper meaning. The data presented here highlight the importance of distinguishing connective action undertaken to support the delivery of the regeneration initiative, from action undertaken to develop enduring connectivity within the community. It is possible for the former to occur without, or to the detriment of, the latter. Building on this point, ‘connective action’ is thus deliberately intended to echo the concept of ‘collective action’. This study will suggest that it is possible to develop connection under the guise of community without generating any substantial collective capacity; in other words strengthening the connection between heavily burdened individual activists and the state, without building communal capacity both for community self-organisation, and to empower residents by providing a source of collective bargaining power vis a vis the state. The latter issue is particularly important in deprived neighbourhoods where people are more reliant on the support of the state, and where the shortcomings of representative democracy have increasingly left residents feeling let down and left out by the two main political parties in England. In this regard participatory democracy continues to offer real potential as route to empowerment, if it is properly integrated within the existing system of representative democracy, as has been the case in other countries, most famously in

Brazil. However this study will suggest that community may be a poor vehicle for short- term policy initiatives, and that policy may be a poor vehicle for community, unless the slow and difficult challenge of community-building is the principal target of policy itself. Indeed in the long run the best way to improve relationships between people in deprived areas and strengthen their capacity to improve their own lives is undoubtedly by improving the conditions of the political and economic systems which govern their lives. These are the real problem; feelings of powerlessness, intra-community tensions and retreat from engagement with public and political institutions are the symptoms.

Chapter 2. The theoretical foundation for the study of community infrastructure in regeneration

This chapter examines theories, policies, and day-to-day practices of community and participation in community infrastructure in the policy context of regeneration, and in the socio-economic context of the multiply deprived neighbourhoods targeted by policy. It begins by considering how community has been conceptualised and described in sociology and sociological studies of community. Building on this, it then examines the nature of the policy solutions mobilised around these ideas, and the shifting institutional context within which these solutions were conjured up, in the movement from government to governance, and from public-private partnership to partnership governance involving community in area-based regeneration. It then outlines the overarching rationales and enactments of community- and civic-orientated public policy under successive New Labour governments, rooted in the Putnam School2 of social capital and the Third Way hybrid of communitarian and neo-liberal political philosophies. This is followed by a brief review of the empirical literature on community involvement in NDC governance. This highlights the many challenges and limitations of policy brought out in the collision between the rhetoric of co-governance and the day-to-day realities of unequal power in governing partnerships. The final section turns to the theoretical and conceptual basis for this study. It begins by cutting a path through the thicket of social capital theory, within which so much of the recent political and academic thinking about community has been embedded, drawing out a number of its shortcomings, including the under-theorising of the role of political and economic structures. The chapter concludes with the explication of an alternative, though related, theoretical terrain of social movements. Its key tenets are outlined and their relevance to the study of the community infrastructure embodied by small-scale residents’ groups involved in regeneration is illuminated, with reference to Stuart Lowe’s (1986) analysis of the tenants’ movement, and Derrick Purdue’s (2001, 2007) case studies of community involvement in the governance partnerships of NDC’s regeneration predecessor, the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB).

2.1 The theory and practice of community life

This section begins with a brief review of how community has been imagined and defined in social theory from the time of the social upheavals of nineteenth-century industrialisation and urbanism to the present day. It then examines the dynamics of working class community as portrayed in the community studies, and in contemporary empirical research.

2 This is a term used by Maloney, Smith and Stoker, 2000 to refer to usage of the concept which conforms most closely to that of Robert Putnam. 27

2.1.1 Definitions of community No study directed towards issues of community can avoid discussion of its complexity as a concept. Lowe (1986: 45) describes it as “one of the most difficult and controversial concepts in modern sociology, ranking only with the notion of class.” The fact that the term has persisted, despite its wayward nature, is testament, in the eyes of Crow and Allan (1994: 193), to its singular capacity to act as a signifier of the social space mediating between the personal and institutional; this they specify as operating above the level of individual and household, and encompassing a wider scope than family or kin grouping (Crow and Allan, 1994:193-194). Indeed they argue that other terms such as ‘locality’ or ‘social network’ merely serve to specify its meaning more clearly rather than replacing it (Crow and Allan, 1994:193-194).

Taylor (2011: 45-46) describes uses of the term community as falling broadly into three camps: the descriptive, the normative and the instrumental. Descriptive uses of community as collective experience are usually considered to be built around shared territory, identity, and interests, domains which often overlap. Taylor (2011: 47-48) cites Al Hunter’s (1974) distinction between the ecological, socio-structural, and symbolic/ cultural aspects of community, a formulation which seems to cover most possible attempts at description. Of these it is perhaps the contribution of the third aspect- the symbolic- and its contribution to the definition of insiders and outsiders (Crow and Allen, 1994: 7) which makes the concept of community so ripe for exploitation for normative and instrumental purposes.

Indeed, things become more complicated when it comes to normative uses of the term. The “Community Question”, as Wellman (1979) famously termed it, first emerged from the concerns of the founders of sociology that the good life inhering in traditional rural society was being destroyed by nineteenth century industrialisation, urbanisation and bureaucratisation (Schwab, 1992: 335). This trajectory was most powerfully characterised in Tönnies’ (1887) distinction between Gemeinschaft (community), and Gesellschaft (society). This dichotomy contrasted a territorially-confined, ascriptively-constructed, family-based, moral code-driven, old social order with a territorially fluid, fragmented, achievement-based, contract-driven new one (Schwab, 1992: 337-338; Taylor, 2011: 48). This closely resembled Durkheim’s distinction between societies based on repressive, social conformist mechanical solidarity, and contractualised, diversified, interdependent organic solidarity (Durkheim, 1972 in Schwab, 1992: 339-340). Writing in 1982, Claude Fischer suggested that the notion of the disruption of natural human relations by modern society was by then virtually taken for granted by academics and the general public alike

(Fischer, 1982: 1), an observation only confirmed by the new communitarian underpinnings of the Third Way emerging some fifteen years later.

In the meantime, researchers of community have been busy providing much richer, more empirically-grounded descriptions of the ways in which social life has been altered by changing patterns of work, consumption, communication and leisure. These have seen a gradual shift away from the ecological approach laid down by Robert Park and Chicago School sociologists of the 1930s, which treated the social space of community as congruent with the geographical space of urban neighbourhood (Schwab, 1992: 340-345; Wellman and Leighton, 1979), through ideas about the social and symbolic construction of community (Suttles, 1972; Cohen, 1985 in Crow and Allan, 1994: ), to a focus on social space inhering in social networks which are linked to, but analytically distinct from, geography (e.g. Wellman, 1979; Fischer, 1982). As modern communication and transportation technologies increasingly permitted these networks to stretch beyond the confines of physical proximity, sociologists came round to the idea that the new dispersed forms of sociality could be just as conducive to a good life as the Gemeinschaft relations of yore were imagined to be (see for example, Granovetter, 1973; Wellman, 1979; Wellman and Leighton, 1979; Fischer, 1982). Indeed, it was argued that the quality of life of urbanites may be different (Fischer, 1982: 260) but urbanism per se does not weaken community; rather it helps sustain a plurality of communities (Fischer, 1982: 264). The rise of the politics of identity-based communities, around ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disability, has complicated this picture in terms of bringing difference to the fore; however the idea of network diversity as a virtue, and of weaker, more ramified ties having their own unique value above and beyond the bonds of community (Wellman and Leighton, 1979), has become increasingly established since Granovetter’s seminal 1973 paper on the “strength of weak ties”.

However none of this has entirely eliminated the role of neighbourhood in defining community, particularly for the poorest and concomitantly least mobile in society. Indeed it is ironic that the allure of the ‘community lost’ thesis which underpinned the slum- clearance and council estate-building of the 1960s and 1970s helped sow the seeds of the very social isolation and exclusion which became the target of neighbourhood-based regeneration policies of the 1980s and 1990s (Fremeaux, 2005: 266). Such policies are characteristic of the instrumental use, cited by Taylor (2011), of normative ideas of community by policymakers to convert community into a target for intervention (Taylor, 2011: 50). The somewhat impressionistic, simplifying descriptions of working-class life provided by the plethora of community studies undertaken in the first half of the twentieth century did much to contribute to these nostalgic community-orientated policy responses

to urban decay, as Fremeaux (2005: 268) observes. However the persistence of many features of traditional working class life in the face of major social changes in the twentieth century, noted by Crow and Allan (1994: 44), and Lowe (1986: 64), render them useful to consider in setting the scene for a study of contemporary deprived urban neighbourhoods. Of particular interest are the opposing forces of social cohesion and division, which they record, revolving around informality, instrumentality, and status differentiation, the latter linked to insider/ outsider distinctions since these are also found in the attitudes and practices within the East Manchester communities in this study. Crow and Allan (1994) usefully illuminate these in a critical review of the histories of working-class life reported in the community studies, of which Young and Wilmott’s (1957) work on Bethnal Green is the most famous. In the next section this review is used as the basis for considering some of the elements of working-class life relevant to this study, bringing in more recent examples from contemporary community research reported in Watt (2006) and Allen (2008).

2.1.2 The practice of community: working class life and the community studies Crow and Allan describe the quite clear distinction in the sociability of men and women in working-class communities of the 1950s, based on traditional gender roles. Male sociability was dominated by formal roles in common occupations such as mining, fishing, and dock-working, and in organised trade union activities surrounding these (Crow and Allan, 1994: 26-32). Meanwhile the neighbourliness most associated with idealised images of urban community was based largely on women’s informal social support around home and family, with cooperation driven by instrumentality born of poverty (Crow and Allan, 1994: 42-43). Indeed the outsider’s romantic idealisation of the neighbourhood solidarity of yesteryear belied a reality for the poor in which neighbourliness was a response to a lack of alternative solutions, and where relations of mutual assistance often amounted quite literally to “survival networks” (Ross, 1983 in Crow and Allan, 1994: 41). Furthermore, Crow and Allan (1994: 42) urge caution in attempting to distinguish between neighbourliness and kinship support, given the extent of extended family co-residence within neighbourhoods and villages. Lowe (1986: 65) also picks up on this point, noting that people in working-class communities tended not to be drawn into wider cooperation beyond the family or work without compelling reasons, and would look first to established local networks.

The inwardness implicit in this betrays a tendency towards micro-level in-group/ out-group distinctions. This was given expression in a social hierarchy of the ‘rough’ versus the ‘respectable’ or the ‘top end’ and ‘bottom end’ of an estate or a street (Crow and Allen, 1994: 33-37; Lowe, 1986: 65). Crow and Allan (1994: 37) note the burden which this 30

placed on women, since cleanliness was the hallmark of respectability. It was also correlated to some degree with income, which barred participation in respectable spaces- for example, by not being able to afford smart, non-work clothing expected to be worn in church, or better quality housing associated with respectability (Crow and Allan, 1994: 34- 35).

Many echoes of the findings from these studies can be found in contemporary research into working-class community life. Watt (2006) examined working-class status differentiation in Camden with reference to Bourdieu’s (1984 inter alia) work on distinction. He observes that in contemporary working-class communities, social distinction is increasingly regarded as having a spatial component as other traditional signifiers, notably occupation, have lost some of their previous purchase, such that people seek to sort themselves into spatial, as well as social milieu, where they feel comfortable with others ‘like themselves’ (Watt, 2006: 779, citing Savage et al., 2005). This recalls Saltman’s (1975, in Grannis, 1998) suggestion that being a neighbour is more symbolic of equal status than being a work colleague or a fellow member of an organisation. If that is the case, the lack of status provided by today’s insecure, low-paid employment in the service industries, and the increasing constitution of the working class as an underclass in political and popular discourse (Allen, 2008: 197) may merely increase the tendency towards social differentiation within deprived neighbourhoods. A related point is made by Skeggs (1997, cited in Watt, 2006: 787), namely that working class discourses of respectability may be bound up with the awareness of the negative judgements of powerful others. In Camden, Watt (2006: 779) finds expression of this in the distinction between ‘problem tenants’ and everyone else, a new dividing line which housing policymakers and practitioners have overlaid on top of more traditional distinctions. He also finds that the rough/ respectable distinction has been combined with new prejudices based on ethnicity (Watt, 2006: 791-792): this manifested itself in varying degrees of tolerance of non-White British incomers based on conforming to expected standards of cleanliness and decency, such that respectable non-White neighbours were deemed preferable to ‘problem’ White ones.

A full discussion of the cohesive and divisive dynamics of working class community today is not possible here, however these would include consideration of the impact of de- industrialisation and subsequent unemployment, greater female labour market participation, the sale of council housing under the Conservatives’ Right to Buy (RTB) scheme, and the experiences of young people. In any case, in recent decades the importance of community based on neighbourhood has been increasingly played down; it has become more common to talk of “partial communities” and “personal community”

(Wellman, 2001a: 227) operating across multiple networks, of home, work, and social life situated in multiple geographical locations (Wellman, 2001a: 227; Wellman and Leighton, 1979; Fischer, 1982)3. However, even accepting that this shift has impacted on working class neighbourhoods to some degree, particularly with the decline in local sites of employment, it may continue to be less relevant to people with low incomes, living in deprived neighbourhoods (e.g. Fischer, 1982; Grannis, 2009; and a new study in North Manchester neighbourhoods adjacent to those considered in this study, D’Andreta, 2011). For this reason it is important to briefly counterbalance the focus on the viewpoints considered above, of those who seek to distance themselves from the conditions of their deprived environment through discourses of distinction, with the view of those who do not engage in such practices, as reported on in Allen’s 2008 monograph on social class and Housing Market Renewal (HMR).

Allen’s work is grounded in the argument of the persistence of inter-class and intra-class division emerging from economic restructuring in the latter part of the twentieth century, and the exacerbation, rather than levelling out, of social division resulting from the residualisation of social housing provision through RTB (Allen, 2008: 25-27). He provides a detailed account of the lives of what he terms a “less mobile fragment of the inner-urban working class” in inner city Liverpool (Allen, 2008: 198), contrasting their “struggle for survival” with the “struggle for position” of middle class homeowners and the more mobile fragment of the working class seeking respectability (Allen, 2008: 61 & 197). He describes an instrumental attitude to education, employment and housing, born of constant proximity to economic necessity, which treat school and work as “just” routes to earning a crust, and home as “just” a place to dwell, not a site for displaying one’s wealth or good taste, or a potential source of profit. Meanwhile the pursuit of non-threatening, ‘friendly’ social relations outweighs other considerations, such as poor quality teaching or low pay.

It is perhaps this tendency towards making a virtue of the necessary or inevitable (Bourdieu, 1977 in Allen, 2008: 94) which drives the pressure towards social conformity and disapproval of outward claims to be different or superior (Crow and Allen, 1994: 42), characteristic of working class communities and modern social housing estates (for example in the personal accounts of Hanley, 2007). It might also be one contributory factor amongst many others underlying the general disinclination for all but a minority to participate in the governance of regeneration initiatives. Indeed both Crow and Allen (1994: 43) and Hanley (2007) observe the extent to which these common bonds can act as a powerful barrier to change. It is precisely this, which policymakers have sought both

3 Wellman (2001a: 228) provides a reminder that such thinking long predates the internet age, reflecting the dramatic effect of the telephone on the spatial and social structure of community. 32

to challenge, and to some degree simultaneously mobilise, in the community-orientated policy-making targeted at deprived neighbourhoods discussed below. What the discussion so far makes clear is that whatever community is, it is complex, contradictory and often born of shared adversity, making it a slippery target for policymaking.

2.2 Community as a policy target- lost and refound

Next this chapter reviews the ways in which community and elements of citizenship have been targeted or neglected in policy, from early experiments at neighbourhood revitalisation in the 1960s to New Labour’s neighbourhood renewal efforts.

2.2.1 The institutional forebears of Labour’s community policymaking: area-based initiatives, New Public Management, and partnership governance Despite the manifold complexities and multi-dimensionality of community and communities, usage of the term as referring to clearly definable, homogeneous, geographically-rooted entities has persisted in policy discourse. Allied with the outward spatial manifestation of poverty, this ecological approach to community provided the basis for the first area-based initiatives (ABIs) for regeneration, in the 1960s. These used neighbourhood-based community development approaches aimed at empowering residents to press for improved services, as well as encouraging self-organising (Foley and Martin, 2000: 480), though residents were not involved in the management of schemes in the ways subsequently defined by the partnership governance agenda (Dargan, 2009: 307). However, by the late 1970s, the inevitable difficulties and limitations inherent in such efforts (see Imrie and Raco, 2003: 104), compounded by an ideological shift and change of government, saw community slip from focus in policy, though ABIs remained.

The phenomenon of multi-actor governance, under which community once again came to be seen as a policy target in the 1990s, had its roots in institutional reforms of the 1980s. Broadly speaking these changes saw the now well-documented and debated shift from the traditional, command and control Westminster model of unitary government (Durose et al., 2009: 4) to a dispersed, multi-actor, multi-level model of governance. Successive Conservative governments attempted to reduce the size and increase the efficiency of what it saw as the profession-dominated, closed-shop of the state, and to increase its responsiveness to citizens as active, choosing consumers, rather than passive recipients of services (Aberbach and Christensen, 2005). If there was any notion of ordinary citizen empowerment in the 1980s, this was it, though John (2009a: 19) notes that it reflected a

4 Which, by Imrie and Raco’s report, appear to be much the same as those encountered in NDC. 33

wider expansion of a citizen orientation in public services, in response to rising expectations of fair treatment and declining deference to the professions.

This manifested itself in extensive privatisation, agentification, marketisation, and decentralisation of services formerly delivered by government, against a backdrop of increased supra-national governance at the EU level and creeping globalisation, with the functions of local authorities slimmed down to a residual core (Needham, 2002). Indeed many local authority powers were transferred to special purpose agencies, whose boards were numerically dominated by business figures (Harding et al., 2000) and to public- private partnerships (Rhodes, 1996). The institutional reconfiguration of New Public Management (NPM) emphasised facilitating and enabling by government; of ‘steering’ policy, whilst letting its public, private, (and subsequently) voluntary sector partners do the ‘rowing’ of delivery, to use the oft-cited metaphor of Osborne and Gaebler (1992). This resulted in the phenomenon of governing networks, or partnerships- hybrid organisations comprising state, market and, later on, civil society actors (Davies, 2007: 780). Though this apparent fragmentation of government was characterised by Rhodes (1994) and subsequently others as having “hollowed out” state power, in practice, decentralisation coincided with the reassertion of government control, albeit less coherent than before, through forms of ‘metagovernance’ (Jessop, 2003), using managerialist monitoring and central financial control. Under the Conservatives, as under Labour subsequently, this metagovernance was partly conceived in marketised terms, whence the Tories 1991 Citizen’s Charter ushering in such innovations as school league tables and NHS waiting time targets. In this picture the citizen could, in theory at least, use Hirschman-style (1970) exit, voice or loyalty to obtain the services which best suited her individual needs. The consumer-citizen was thus invited into governance in a market liberal-individualist sense, to challenge and counter the power of state bureaucracy.

Whatever the intentions of improving the performance of government under the Conservatives in 1980s and 1990s, and of dispersing power and allowing wealth to ‘trickle down’, poverty and inequality in cities intensified dramatically during that period (Imrie and Raco, 2003: 3). In the 1980s ‘community’ had been employed to reduce government expenditure (Imrie and Raco, 2003: 10), and the focus on private sector stakeholders, embodied in the urban development corporations (UDCs) had excluded key actors at the local level, including community and voluntary groups (Dargan, 2009: 307; Marinetto, 2003: 113). By the late 1980s this position was shifting, reflecting an expansion in the partnership rhetoric of the government to governance transition (Dargan, 2009: 307), with voluntary organisations and service-users increasingly involved in joint-planning for community care (Craig and Taylor, 2002: 132) and in regeneration initiatives such as City 34

Challenge and the Single Regeneration Budget (Marinetto, 2003: 113). However, critics observe that that community groups allowed to participate in regeneration initiatives in the early 1990s were “given a mere presence rather than a voice” (Cameron and Davoudi, 1998 in Foley and Martin, 2000: 481).

2.2.2 From consumer-citizens to community leadership: an overview of New Labour’s new dealings in community Although the seeds for active citizenship and community involvement had already been sown during the Conservative years, the reinvigoration of community in policy by New Labour was a response to a wider philosophical movement which emerged in the mid 1990s around the new communitarianism and social capital theory. Writing in the preface to the British edition of his 1993 treatise on the “Communitarian Agenda”, Amitai Etzioni declared “The West is in a cold season of excessive individualism and yearns for the warmth of community to allow human relations to blossom” (Etzioni, 1993: x), a statement which characterises the idealistic and moralistic rhetoric which subsequently appeared in policy pronouncements. Though such ideas have a very obvious historical pedigree laid out in the earlier sections of this chapter, they reflected the zeitgeist in the Anglo-Saxon West emerging from the end of the Reagan era in the USA, and the “no such thing as society” (Margaret Thatcher cited in Keay, 1987) years of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives in the UK.

However the defining interpretation made by American political scientist Robert Putnam of the social ills facing the Democrats in the USA at that time focussed, not on the impact of political and economic policy and restructuring on society, but rather it reversed this logic. Instead it highlighted the impact on democratic governance of a purported loss of America’s historical culture of associational life so famously admired in the nineteenth century by Alexis de Tocqueville (Putnam, 1995a). Putnam’s survey analysis found declining social trust and increased political disengagement, which he explained in relationship to a corresponding decline in membership of voluntary associations and collective social activities5, and the increase in television consumption (Putnam, 1995a). The solution revolved around the notion that the poor performance of governments and economies alike would be improved if the horizontal ties of social capital in the community were stronger (Putnam, 1993). However the precise mechanisms by which the “networks, norms, and trust” (Putnam, 1995b) of social capital would exert these effects remained under-theorised and the impact of diversity and division within community inadequately accounted for (Bebbington and Perreault, 1999: 400).

5 This finding of decline in itself has been much contested, both in the USA and the UK, and continues to be the subject of debate. 35

There were many similarities between New Labour’s “ideal of community” (Levitas, 2000, in Lees, 2003: 78) and Putnam’s diagnosis of declining social capital in the USA (Lees, 2003: 78). The ethos of civil renewal and active citizenship, which began with the neighbourhood renewal agenda’s response to the urban poverty left behind by the Conservatives, treated community as place-based, and was orientated around the idea that people are “disadvantaged by where they live” (SEU: 2001: 8). This area-based approach to community involvement in regeneration subsequently blazed the trail for greater citizen participation, neighbourhood-working and some degree of devolution at the local authority level, reflecting the communitarian ideal of governing at the small-scale level of community (Pierre and Peters, 2000: 139). Indeed the vision laid out in the early pronouncements of the Urban White Paper (DETR, 2000) was of community as fundamentally harmonious, even if it was culturally or socio-economically mixed (Lees, 2003: 78). Similarly the flagship statement of intent for Labour’s Neighbourhood Renewal Agenda bore the title “Bringing Britain Together”, initiating an agenda for neighbourhood regeneration which focussed on reducing the differences between poor “socially excluded” neighbourhoods and everywhere else, and did not consciously account for the realities of conflict, aggression and alienation (Lees, 2003: 79) between individuals and multifarious ‘communities’ within neighbourhoods.

Labour’s overall approach to poverty was similarly inspired by the communitarian/ social capital approach insofar as it was addressed as a social, rather than just an individual problem, but it saw the solution as the exhortation to individuals to enact personal responsibility to the social environment of community. The development of the policy target of “social exclusion” by the eponymous Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) established by New Labour to address it, showed a willingness to note some of the structural causes of concentrated urban poverty (e.g SEU, 1998: 3). Yet the translation into policy prescriptions betrayed a classic pathologising, victim-blaming discourse (McLaughlin and Baker, 2007; Raco, 2003) of the undeserving poor, and implications of inherent incivility, to be addressed individualistically in a way which Ward (2003: 122) observes was “reminiscent of the old ‘social pathology’ approach of the 1970s”. Thus public spending was to be matched with the retention of the Conservatives’ workfare, ‘less eligibility’ philosophy of welfare, and an anti-civil libertarian stance on crime, despite Tony Blair’s early sound bite commitment to being tough on its causes (Blair, 1993 in Hughes and McLaughlin, 2002: 156). This amounted to a hybrid form of citizenship combining elements of neo-liberal individualism of the Right in its NPM form, and a civic republican citizenship of the old Left, re-branded and modernised towards the “renewal of social democracy” (Giddens, 1998), retaining the Conservatives mixed economy of welfare.

Clarke (2005: 447) characterised this hybrid form as operating along four competing dimensions: activation, empowerment, responsibilization, and abandonment.

The logic of Labour’s local governance reforms- the ‘new localism’- was similarly multi- dimensional and potentially inconsistent. Lowndes and Sullivan (2008) identify four “distinct but interlocking rationales” (Lowndes and Sullivan, 2008: 57) for reform, which Durose and Richardson (2009) subsequently distilled into the typology shown in Figure 1. The typology encompasses different motivations and enactments of localised governance within the scope of which the citizen was to be mobilised: as co-producer/ co-decider citizen, consumer-citizen, voter, or partner. Durose and Richardson (2009) report finding that the tensions between these four rationales made them difficult for the multiple actors involved in local governance to deliver on equally, with the result that the economic and political often dominated, at the expense of the civic6.

Figure 1. Typology for the turn to neighbourhood under New Labour Rationale Civic Economic Political Social Opportunities for Focus on Improvements in Holistic and direct citizen efficiency and the accessibility, citizen centred participation and effectiveness accountability approach to community gains in local and delivering involvement service delivery responsiveness services around :tax/spend of decision the citizen bargain making Form of Participatory Market Representative Stakeholder democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy Institutional Neighbourhood Neighbourhood Neighbourhood Neighbourhood design empowerment management governance partnerships Citizen role Citizen: voice, co- Consumer: choice Elector: vote Partner: loyalty, production problem solving Source: Durose and Richardson, 2009 adapted from Lowndes and Sullivan, 2008.

Disentangling the full implications of this complex policy landscape for citizenship and the practice of community involvement is no easy task. Indeed, despite an extensive review of practice across various policy domains, Brannan and colleagues (2006: 1004-1005) raised concern about the lack of clarity regarding ‘what counts’ as active citizenship, in particular whether the emphasis is on individual, self-interested involvement or more collective forms aimed at building a “sense of community and recognition of civic responsibilities”. Durose and Richardson’s (2009) typology and evidence suggest that they all count, but not equally or all of the time. This lack of clarity is a non-trivial matter. It has serious implications for the realisation of whatever means or ends the citizen and/ or

6 Henig (1994 in Sanderson, 1999: 328) argues that the consumerist discourse of citizenship has profoundly anti-democratic implications, making choice an end in itself, and undermining politics and political process; Likewise Aberbach and Christensen (2005: 236) observe that it neglects inequality of individual influence inherent in any political system.

community is meant to be party to; as Chanan (2003: 82) puts it “slippery meanings weaken impact”. After all, the business of genuinely inclusive organising and decision- making is hard work for all involved. Yet, as Brannan et al. (2006: 1005) point out, Labour employed civicness as a panacea for “previously intractable social, economic and political problems”. A brief review of structures and practices of community involvement provides examples of how these aims were translated into practice.

Various statutory duties enshrined in acts of parliament relating to local governance which were passed from 1998 to 2009 obliged local authorities to inform, consult and involve citizens in their service design, service delivery, and decision-making, with the satisfaction of individual residents as users of services monitored using a standard survey approach against central government performance targets. Citizen-governor and formal service- monitoring roles at the local level increased extensively- into crime and health, as well as being considerably expanded in social housing and regeneration, with NDC going as far as to brand itself as ‘community-led’ (Brannan et al., 2006). Meanwhile the idea of local authorities focussing on citizens as ‘community’ embedded in ‘place’ was established early on, with increasing expectations loaded upon it over time. Thus from 2000 local authorities were expected to step into a role of ‘community leadership’ in partnership with the community, business, public and voluntary organisations to “promote the economic, social and environmental well-being” of the local area, developing a ‘community strategy’ to achieve this (DETR, 2000).

The increasing rhetoric and opportunity structures for ‘community empowerment’ through new participatory channels, including the community representation of the new structures of multi-agency, local authority-led Local Strategic Partnerships (e.g. see Taylor, 2006), was also followed by a reorientation of the new backbench councillor role towards community representation of their ward. The emphasis in New Labour’s ‘new localism’ was on governance closer to the community, including devolution to lower level local authority boundaries, and service-delivery and consultation through participatory and delivery structures of neighbourhood management. In the social housing sector Labour continued Conservative efforts to divest itself of council housing through large-scale transfer of stock to registered social landlords and arm’s length management companies, as well as Right To Buy. However it introduced new Tenant Participation Compacts which stipulated requirements for involvement of tenants in housing governance, and in monitoring of service standards by social landlords, including an annual tenant satisfaction survey.

The spotlight placed on the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion on ethnic lines by the 2001 race-related riots in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley subsequently led to community ‘cohesion’ becoming a greater focus across public agencies; the result was that more attention was given to relations between citizens within the community, rather than merely between citizen and the state. Volunteering was also promoted more generally in the interests of civicness. Initially this aimed at promoting self-help as a basis for neighbourhood renewal, with funding and support to nurture community organisations in deprived neighbourhoods through the Active Community Unit (Imrie and Raco, 2003: 21) and Community Chest funding (Taylor, 2006). However wider volunteering initiatives were subsequently established, particularly for young people, for example, through the Millennium Volunteers programme. By 2008 the national performance management framework for local authorities, monitored using a central government survey administered in each local authority area, included within its indicators of ‘Stronger and Safer Communities’ new measures relating to perceptions of community cohesion and belonging, and volunteering rates, which added to existing measurement of civic participation rates and perceptions of the ability to influence local decisions (see CLG, 2008a).

2.2.3 Labour’s community empowerment through participation: a critique The next section provides a critique of this picture laid out above in terms of the translation of the ideals of community empowerment into the reality of participation as a ‘minority sport’. It reviews the practice of community involvement in NDC, as reported in existing empirical research conducted during the programme, and against a framework for the assessment of participatory practices in complex governance developed by Fung (2006).

2.2.3.1 Imagining and measuring community empowerment A large range of typologies and taxonomies of participation and empowerment have been developed since the emergence of community participation in the 1960s and its re- emergence in the 1990s. The most famous and enduring has been Arnstein’s (1969) avowedly normative formation, which others have emulated (e.g. White, 1996 and Hall, 2000 in Taylor, 2011: 152; Pretty, 1995), though there are examples of more plausibly descriptive frameworks (e.g. Barr, 1995; Fung, 2006). Arnstein developed her eight-step “ladder of citizen participation” in response to experiences of community involvement in neighbourhood revitalisation efforts in the USA in the 1960s. The ladder runs from the lowest rung of “manipulation”, through “consultation” to “citizen control” as the highest, with the steps grouped from bottom to top under the labels of “non-participation”, “tokenism” and “citizen power”. The continued inspiration taken from the ladder by

policymakers and academics exemplifies the value of such models as heuristic devices for critical examination of participatory policy, insofar as they focus attention on the issue of power, and the complexities of participatory practice beneath the rhetoric of policy. Indeed a variant developed by Hart (1992) to assess children’s participation was used in the final evaluation of Beacons NDC to measure community involvement outcomes (see Ekosgen, 2010: 88). Despite the obvious simplistic abstraction of the ladder, which Arnstein herself notes, the idea of power being a fixed-sum entity, which citizens can be given more or less of on a sliding scale, has remained; indeed it emerged even in some of New Labour’s later policy pronouncements, such as the 2008 Empowerment White Paper, which envisaged “passing more and more political power to more and more people, through every practical means” (CLG, 2008b: 2). Critics such as Burton (2003) and Fung (2006) have questioned the value of a fixed, normative scale with ‘citizen control’ as the “apogee of participation” and every other category as inferior (Burton, 2003: 15). Fung (2006: 67) points out that whilst there are doubtlessly situations in which public empowerment as ‘citizen control’ is highly desirable, there are others in which consultation would be more appropriate. Processes of informing and consulting can be, in and of themselves, empowering, a point which Arnstein (1969) partly concedes; whether this is the case depends on understanding details of process, and critically, outcomes, as well as how one defines empowerment.

Recent research into individual perceptions of empowerment and rates of participation cast doubt on the value or effectiveness of participation as a route to greater citizen power, as envisaged by Arnstein’s ladder. Results from Ipsos MORI (2008)’s NDC research using what became the key government indicator of empowerment, ‘feeling able to influence decisions affecting the local area’ as measured in the NDC national surveys for 2002, 2004 and 2006, found that many people felt they had influence without being directly involved in NDC activities, and that influence was what the majority wanted, rather than active involvement; influence itself was found to be more related to the positive outcomes from NDC rather than involvement (Ipsos MORI, 2008:5). Likewise both Ipsos MORI (2008) and Durose and Richardson (2009) report survey data evidence of dramatic disparities between the proportion of people who support the idea of citizen participation in governance, the proportion who say they would participate in it, and the proportion who actually do in practice. Estimated rates of participation vary with the measures used: for citizen governance John (2009a and 2009b) estimated around 9 percent of the population participate7; a wider definition of the civic, including charitable giving and volunteer hours

7 Based on analysis of 2005 Citizenship Survey. 40

produced a figure of 7.9 percent (Mohan et al., 2011)8. The well-recognised class and education bias in civic participation means the proportion tends to be lower in deprived areas (Skidmore et al., 2006: 53). These numbers are the essence of the oft-cited, and variously attributed9, ‘minority sport’ epithet applied to participation. Meanwhile the proportion of people who report feeling able to influence local decisions based on a nationally representative sample from the Citizenship Survey has remained fairly static: starting at 44 percent in the first year of the survey in 2001, and settling around 38 percent therafter.10

If greater involvement of members of ‘the’ community in public service, and an increase in channels of information and consultation has not led the wider population to feel able to influence concrete policy or service outcomes, this suggests Arnstein’s ‘tokenism’ label has some salience in relation to Labour’s community policies. An examination of practices and critical research in NDC and other regeneration initiatives reveals a number of problems with the way in which participatory practices played out in reality. This suggests that the civic rationale may have been neglected even in policy which outwardly advertised civic goals.

In Fung’s (2006) attempt to formulate his own, descriptive rather than normative, framework for analysing the nature of participation in governance he focuses on three dimensions: who is involved, based on participant selection methods; how all the parties communicate and reach decisions; and the authority and power which participation has, i.e. the relationship between the contribution of participants and actual outcomes. These are shown in Figure 2 below11 and are used as a broad framework for considering the NDC case in the next section.

8 Based on analysis of 2001 Citizenship Survey 9 E.g. to MacFarlane, 2003 in Purdue, 2001; to Taylor, 2003 in Gaventa, 2004; and to Thake,1995 in Craig and Taylor, 2002. 10 Citizenship Survey results 2001-2010. 11 Fung puts the three dimensions together in a cube format and locates various different types of participatory process within this in three dimensional space. This is powerful analytically but does not work very well visually, which is presumably why he also choose to break it down, as per Figure 2. 41

Figure 2. Three dimensions of Fung’s (2006) Democracy Cube

2.2.3.2 New Labour’s community involvement through the lens of NDC Firstly, involvement in NDC was focussed principally on membership of the partnership board responsible for overseeing delivery of the programme and decisions on spending. Indeed Wright et al., (2006: 353) point out that although the national performance management framework for NDC specified the need for arrangements for involving the wider community in its operations, including in the delivery of projects, no detail of the mechanisms for achieving this was offered, with attention only to community involvement in the board. Open elections were used to recruit board members in most NDCs (they were not in Beacons), however the open franchise on the one hand, and demands of participation at board level on the other, left NDCs vulnerable to domination by the ‘usual suspects’ among the community. These tended to be its best educated, and generally wealthier members, who are routinely found to be over-represented in participatory structures, as Fung notes (2006: 67).

In Dinham’s NDC research in East London he found that the election process for board members was felt to discriminate against newcomers without a pre-existing ‘constituency’ 42

(Dinham, 2005: 306). The method of random selection, identified by Fung (see Figure 2), is, as he observes (2006: 68), the best way to achieve truly “descriptive representativeness”. It was used by local authorities under New Labour to recruit to opinion-polling style citizens’ panels or juries, but in NDC circumstances there was reliance on an element of self-selection to provide election candidates. Indeed it often noted that in practice participatory governance risks merely replicating the shortcomings of existing representative democracy by creating a different, but equally unrepresentative, cadre of governing elites (Hirst, 2002 in Goodlad et al., 2005: 924; see also Raco, 2003: 241; Gaventa, 2004). Given that addressing the democratic deficit was one of the motivations for community involvement in governance in the UK, this seems to further exemplify the lower priority given to the civic rationale in practice, observed by Durose and Richardson (2009). However, the counter-argument to questions of representativeness in community involvement is that it can be increased through improved accountability, that is “open[ness] at its foundations” (Wainwright, 2003: 188; also see Craig and Taylor, 2002; Taylor, 2011; Skidmore et al., 2006); if representatives can have and maintain contact with a wide range of people and views, their own individual identity is less important. But ultimately NDC needed to recruit people who could cope with its formalised practices and professional language, which board members in Dinham’s research in London (Dinham, 2005: 307), and in Dargan’s (2009: 313-314) research in the Newcastle NDC, found intimidating and disempowering. Dinham (2005: 307) reports that all the board members he interviewed held back from speaking in meetings for fear of appearing foolish. This suggests that even at the level of Fung’s (2006) “personal benefits” (see Figure 2) the impact of participation may not have matched the stated aims, with the power and authority as participants reduced to Fung’s “listen as spectator”, and in a way which might be damaging to a person’s sense of power and dignity.

Unfortunately, this is another area in which problems with the processes of participation in NDC, and more generally, are identifiable. The need for capacity-building has not gone unrecognised in Labour’s participatory processes, but these have tended to be limited in the extent to which they reflect professional community development practices of inclusivity, equality, learning, and development on people’s own terms and at their own pace (Gilchrist, 2004: 25; Dinham, 2005). Wright et al. (2006: 355) observe that in NDC, empowerment and capacity-building exercises were designed to raise the individual’s skills and confidence, but only in such a way as to prepare them to engage in partnership- working. In an SRB setting Diamond (2008: 162) similarly observes that capacity-building focussed on the promotion of ‘fitting in’ with the partnership “rather than independence, self-confidence or critical reflection”. Again, this suggests that the benefits of participation may accrue much more to the state operator of the initiative, than to the individual, or the 43

wider community. Indeed in both the NDC case, and more generally, participants in governance have tended to be treated as ‘stakeholders’ (Dinham, 2005: 304), or individual ‘community champions’ (Gilchrist, 2004: 11). Gilchrist (2004: 11) sees this as reflective of New Labour’s conceptualisation of community as “an arena of rights and obligations expressed through acts of citizenship and volunteering, rather than a foundation for collective organising”. Thus individual activists are left to participate without the resources and skills required to engage and communicate with a wider constituency through their own informal contact.

Where such informal contact did occur in NDC, Dinham (2005: 306) found it to be crucial in generating and channelling grass-roots ideas, and yet there were no formal mechanisms supporting it. Indeed Wright et al. (2006: 356) observe that Labour’s ‘what counts is what works’, evidence-based approach of ongoing evaluation and production of guidelines by central government presented an obvious challenge to the legitimacy of residents own ‘non-evidenced’ solutions. This demonstrates the way in which the practices of Labour’s metagovernance, in the form of evidence-based performance management, clashed with other objectives of devolution and bottom-up governance. Overall it seems to exemplify Craig and Taylor’s (2002: 40) argument that the representation and accountability deficit in community participation is created by the system itself. And yet accusations of a lack of representativeness or authenticity are also used in partnerships as a basis for challenging the legitimacy of community representatives who are less than compliant with the authority of state partners, as Taylor (2011: 175) observes. Durose and Richardson (2009) report the same finding in their work on neighbourhood management, civic participation and empowerment.

Building on this analysis, further consideration of the modes of decision-making and authority granted to community participants in NDC governance seems to confirm a tendency toward tokenism, in precisely some of the ways criticised by Arnstein (1969); indeed in some cases it has also created or magnified existing divisions within the community. One problem with NDC was the pressure to spend to central government guidelines, which Wright et al. (2006) observe was heightened by fear of political embarrassment. Davies (2005) exemplifies the damaging impacts of top-down managerialism and political priorities with reference to Perrons and Skyer’s (2003) research in Shoreditch NDC, where bitterness at performance management requirements, including pressure to spend, rendered “the task of adequately representing the community difficult- ‘virtually impossible’” (Perrons and Skyer, 2003 in Davies, 2005: 319). Indeed both Coaffee (2010) and Dargan (2009) assert that the community infighting, the inability

to make decisions, and large-scale resentment about central and local government interference they each found in Newcastle NDC was common to many of the partnerships (Coaffee, 2010: 149; Dargan, 2009: 310).

Another flashpoint has been the fact that, whilst attempting to pursue community-centred policy, local authorities have operated in an environment with a high degree of focus on economic and property-led regeneration (Coaffee, 2010: 149). This may be considered a key test of whereabouts on Fung’s (2006) authority and power dimension (Figure 2) Labour’s citizen governance was located, and one which presents a further challenge to the notion of any real deliberation or co-governance. For example, in Bristol local residents were forced to establish a community body outside of the NDC structures to seek effective consultation about a major development proposal, following the NDC board’s pledge of ‘unconditional support’ for the plans (MacLeavy, 2009: 870). In Shoreditch NDC, rejection of redevelopment proposals, which local activists saw as an attempt to push existing council tenants out of the area, led to £20 million of funding being withheld (Weaver, 2001a in Imrie and Raco, 2003: 28). In an SRB scheme in Elephant and Castle, where the community succeeded in establishing its own forum and resources to oversee redevelopment in line with resident wishes, the council ultimately took over the forum and used the courts to seize documents from it, cancelling the development (North, 2003). Meanwhile in East Manchester, one battle was won by residents to oppose demolition, another lost, and yet another left in limbo to this day (Blakeley and Evans, 2010, plus evidence from this study). Indeed even in the case of what was a comparatively highly functional NDC in East Manchester, Morgan-Trimmer (2009a: 08) makes the point that whilst residents were able to build better relations with local staff, they were still excluded from more strategic level decision-making.

Elsewhere the realities of poverty and working-class community manifested themselves in conflict between community members which NDC struggled to deal with. For example, MacLeavy’s (2009) research in the Bristol NDC area found conflict along ethnic lines, whilst Wallace (2007) recounts of a range of battles in Salford’s NDC area over the use of funds built on nimbyism and the frequent enactment by supposedly ‘fellow’ community members of lines of division and prejudice against ‘other’ sections of the community deemed to be problematic or undeserving of NDC support. Bearing in mind Laswell’s (1936) famous definition of politics boiling down to the competition over who gets what, when and how, the emergence of such tensions in situations of poverty scarcely seems surprising.

Yet New Labour’s neighbourhood governance was consciously de-politicised, as Durose and Richardson (2009:45) observe. In Beacons NDC this manifested itself in the decision to entirely exclude the participation of councillors from the partnership. The justification for this, both in Durose and Richardson’s research (2009: 45) and Beacons NDC, was residents’ wariness and mistrust of the political. De-politicisation also operated implicitly in the consensus-based language and practices, which exemplify the overt and covert operation of power in the NDC initiative. NDC board members were expected to be loyal, to accept majority decisions, and to present a united front in public, as central government guidance cited by Wright et al. (2006: 350) shows. Thus Raco’s (2003: 237) suggestion that the role of communities in regeneration was functional and “promoted, not primarily to democratise policy processes, but to make programmes work more efficiently” seems justified. And as far as communities “develop[ing] their own solutions” (SEU, 2001: 7) goes, Wright and colleagues (2006: 349) encapsulate the situation thus: “if NDC is a ‘bottom-up community-led’ programme, it is community-led in the sense that government decides how the community will be involved, why they will be involved, what they will do, and how they will do it”.

Ultimately the image of participation in NDC portrayed by this overview of other studies makes the attempt to locate its processes along the dimensions in Fung’s (2006) framework seem somewhat futile. The level of dysfunctionality and the extent of power inequalities which these studies report, suggest that the possibility for any meaningful ‘co- governance’ in Fung’s (2006) terms (leaving aside the ‘direct authority’ which the community leadership rhetoric of NDC implied12) was very limited from the outset. The expectation underpinning this study, that NDC might be implicated in the emergence of new, or strengthened, community infrastructure, is therefore necessarily dampened. Indeed these academic studies appear to offer qualitative accounts which help explain CLG’s own national survey data-based findings of a lack of community-level impact on social capital arising from NDC (CLG, 2010). However, a full elucidation of this matter requires analysis which transcends both individual-level survey metrics and qualitative accounts of the dynamics of activity focussed in and around the NDC boardroom. The next section moves on to consider how the analysis of community infrastructure can be conceptualised to take account of the wider neighbourhood landscape, returning to ideas of social capital and establishing the theoretical basis for this study within the social movements literature.

12 Indeed, Dargan (2009: 312) found that some residents in Newcastle NDC did indeed take the term community leadership at face value, expecting to be in control of the partnership. 46

2.3 The opportunities for community-building in policy: conceptualising community infrastructure in regeneration

The overview of existing research on community involvement in NDC governance in the preceding section highlighted evidence of serious deficiencies in the scheme as a tool for empowering residents and communities through participation. Thinking in terms of Lowndes and Sullivan’s (2008)/ Durose and Richardson’s (2009) typology shown in Figure 1 in Section 2.2.2, this may partly result from a simple misspecification of the policy as driven by a bottom up civic rationale, whilst the reality was one of top down processes, prioritising economic and social rationales. Indeed, it seems to underline the validity of Chanan’s (2003: 82) warning, cited earlier, of the risk of weakening impact through “slippery meanings”. Conn (2011: 8) usefully characterises this situation, whereby under the guise of ‘outreach’ into the community the state actually pulls parts of the community in to its own dimensions in order deliver its own aims, a situation which detaches residents from the horizontal fabric of community “defeating the purpose of community engagement”. Indeed it is the very opposite of the way in which Fung (2006: 72) describes participatory processes with egalitarian, social justice goals, such as the participatory budgeting infrastructure in Pȏrto Alegre in Brazil, which has resulted in “shifting decision- making towards citizens” (emphasis added).

Such observations help redirect attention back towards where this chapter started, in the workings of daily life on the ground. Indeed the literature reviewed above illuminates the fault-line between the state and the community without revealing very much about the infrastructure of community life for the vast majority who did not participate in governance. This is no coincidence. In Chanan’s (2003) review he detailed the conflation of different facets of community in policy, amongst which he observed horizontal community involvement was the main casualty (Chanan, 2003: 83). And yet it is this area- the “optional, small-scale, convivial and life-enhancing” participation- which is the type of participation preferred by most people, as Anna Coote observes (NEF, 2010a: 3).

However, in practice the informal, unstructured character of activism in deprived neighbourhoods may make distinctions between one dimension and another difficult to quantify; as Lowe (1986: 84) observes “the distinction between those [tenants’ associations] orientated to social events and those that are more directly ‘political’ is difficult to make”. Indeed he reports that the phenomenon of protest associations turning into social organisations was common in the history of the tenants’ movement (Lowe, 1986: 87). This draws attention to the need to address the interplay and imbrication of the different dimensions of community making up the fabric of life ‘out’ there, as well as between those dimensions and the type of community involvement taking place on the 47

‘inside’ of the regeneration partnership boardroom, so as to illuminate how these dynamics can be teased out and conceptualised for research. This chapter turns to these issues next.

2.3.1 From social capital to social movements-based research: dispatching ideology and conceptual imprecision Bebbington and Perreault (1999) advocate a pragmatic application of insights from both social capital and social movements theory as a framework for the study of participation. Though they take a critical stance on social capital, they see its strength in its links to “the idea of society building” and forms of collective action cutting across institutional spheres, “through its analytical focus on the links between action, relationships and networks” (Bebbington and Perreault, 1999: 403). Meanwhile in their view the social movements literature isuseful in its focus on contestation and resistance, in light of the relative absence of political economic or discursive analysis in the social capital literature (Bebbington and Perreault, 1999: 402-403). Both literatures consider multiple facets of solidarity and social action: the cognitive, structural, behavioural, and its consequences or products, as well as the relationship between state and society.

However, there are a number of problems with social capital theory which limit its suitability for the study of social life in deprived communities and of policy with empowerment objectives, however nebulously conceived. Fundamentally it fails to recognise the complex issues of power and inequality inherent in social relationships (DeFilippis, 2001; Evers, 2003; Blokland and Savage, 2008), and the link between social and economic capital, so fundamental to a meaningful response to deprivation (DeFilippis, 2001). In this respect Bourdieu’s perspective on the concept (e.g. Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu, 1986; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) seems to have greater purchase than Putnam’s, insofar as he theorises social capital as one among other capitals, most notably the cultural and its relation to the economic, which together create social stratification rather than general societal-level social cohesion and trust (Li, Savage and Pickles, 2003b: 500, emphasis added). The more influential Putnam School under-theorises the impact of the privations and indignities of poverty on sociability, in terms of how it engenders “defensive privatism” (Evers, 2003: 16, evidenced in Blokland and Noordhoff, 2008), whereby the demands and anxieties created by the expectations of reciprocity inherent in seeking neighbourly support constitute a “weakness of weak ties” rather than a strength (Blokland and Noordhoff, 2008). By reducing the issue to one of norms of reciprocity and trust as a simple, social virtue, it is unable to offer satisfactory explanations for the reality of social inequality, which means some people have more “bonding social capital” allowing them to “get by” but not enough “bridging social capital” which might help

them to “get ahead” (Putnam, 2004: 669). Indeed, despite the “social” terminology, there is a tendency towards an individualised conception of the social actor in the community, betraying the roots of Putnam’s term in Coleman’s (1988; 1990) work on the concept, rooted in social exchange and rational choice theory (Fine, 2001: 72). This has led the term to be most commonly operationalised at the individual-level, particularly in political science (Foley and Edwards, 1999). Meanwhile matters of definition and matters of empirical investigation become confused by conflating, within a single concept, relationships, associational behaviour, social norms and attitudes, as well as the function or outcome of these things, as in Coleman’s formulation (Newton, 1997: 578).

Indeed, another characteristic of social capital which makes its value questionable in a study such as this, is its tendency to be theorised as a bottom-up, grass-roots phenomenon, which impacts upwards on the governmental and economic sphere, without explication of the top-down effects of those spheres on social capital itself (Newton, 1997: 580). Many have made the counter case to Putnam’s thesis, that more democratic governance produces more civil society, or that at the very least the relationship is far from being uni-directional (e.g. Evers, 2003; Tendler, 1997 in Harriss & De Renzio, 1997: 929; Barry, 1970 in Docherty et al., 2001; Fine, 2001: 91-94). Underlining the deficit of social capital theory in this regard, Maloney, Smith and Stoker (2000) explicitly chose to bring in a concept from social movements theory, political opportunity structure, into their study of social capital in urban governance, in order to account for the ‘top-down’ effects of government on community.

Research in the UK has shown that the decline in voluntary association and membership proposed by Putnam is most notable amongst the working class, whilst appearing slight or non-existent amongst other classes (Hall, 1999; Grenier & Wright, 2003; Li, Savage & Pickles, 2003a). These findings have been partly attributed to falling trade union membership and socialising in working men’s clubs (Li, Savage and Pickles, 2003a; Hall, 1999) and to a corresponding gentrification of unions through membership of the service class (Li, Savage and Pickles, 2003b). And yet policy analysis based on social capital thinking takes no account of the significance of the crushing of the working class community mobilised in the miners’ strikes of the early 1980s, and the subsequent closing down of democratic channels for the voicing of discontent by (Swyngedouw and Moulaert, 2010: 223), for example, the removal of statutory forms of consultation with the trades unions (John, 2009a: 18). Indeed in his study in Camden, cited earlier in this chapter, Watt (2006:782) repeatedly encountered a narrative of lost community amongst working-class residents, which he found was associated with economic restructuring and deteriorating

public welfare services, hitting male tenants who had lost well-paid manual jobs particularly hard.

Furthermore critics of the social capital debate have observed that very measurement of the type of community interaction which typified, and continues to typify, the daily life of women, especially in working class environments- informal support, caring and exchange- is systematically excluded by the focus on formalised associational membership and quantitative measurement methods (Grenier & Wright, 2003; Lowndes, 2000). Grenier and Wright (2003) also suggest that such an approach is also inadequate for fully reflecting the level of voluntary association amongst ethnic minority groups. Overall these issues suggest that social capital research is systematically inclined towards class, gender, and potentially, ethnic bias, however unintentional.

Indeed Muntaner (2004: 677) argues bluntly that “the political use of social capital [outside public health]13 leans towards tolerance for social inequality and against egalitarian social change”. Given the ideological baggage the term carries (Muntaner, 2004: 674), as well as the fact that sociology and political science already have an abundance of concepts to describe the phenomena captured by it, it is reasonable to ask why it should be used in place of existing terminology (e.g. Fine, 2001; Muntaner, 2004 inter alia). In light of these issues, a social movements approach may be more appropriate for probing the nature of any collective, community infrastructure left behind at the end of a scheme such as NDC.

2.3.2 Social movements theory: key planks and their application to the study of community infrastructure in deprived neighbourhoods In his 2001 paper specifically on community leadership through involvement in the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) partnership, Purdue (2001: 2214) argues that such community activism tends to resemble an ‘urban social movement’, as theorised and empirically investigated by Castells (1983), insofar as it relies on a network structure and lacks any clear institutional or political legitimacy. Indeed neighbourhoods and residents’ groups just such as those in this study have a history of movement activism through what came to be referred to as the ‘tenants’ movement’. Movement-type action first emerged amongst tenants of public housing in the early twentieth century and continued to be a recurring feature at various time points thereafter, where residents protested against rental hikes and the sale of council housing. Lowe (1986) examined this in detail in the context of the Sheffield tenants’ movement of the 1960s and 70s. With this in mind, this section elucidates the key concepts in social movement theory, and provides evidence for

13 Muntaner’s paper is written in the context of public health research, but his argument is wide-ranging. 50

their application to circumstances such as those in East Manchester, through findings presented in existing research, including Lowe (1986) and Purdue (2001).

Tarrow (1994: 4-5) characterises social movements as defined by four characteristics: collective challenge, common purpose, solidarity, and sustained interaction. These are echoed by Diani (2003a: 302) who identifies their key features as: the presence of conflict, informality of networks, the presence of an identity transcending specific events, and enduring purpose or ‘social movement dynamic’. Meanwhile the mechanisms underpinning the operation of movements along these lines are defined by Campbell (2005: 44-66) as encompassing the relational, based on network cultivation and strategic leadership; the cognitive, including processes of framing, diffusion, and bricolage; and the environmental, conceptualised as political opportunity structures. It is useful to consider each of these three in turn.

The first mechanism considered is networks. An understanding of networks in social movements can help to elucidate their capacity to influence politics and culture focussing on structural preconditions which may facilitate or constrain realisation of movement goals (Diani,1997: 133). Networks of relations are critical to the formation of a movement, to its mobilisation, and its survival and ongoing development. They are the basis of what network analysts Fararo and Doreian (1998) term “structural solidarity”. Indeed networks are not just preconditions of action, but outcomes in dynamic processes whereby social action itself creates new interdependencies and solidarities (Diani, 1997: 134). Long- running movements tend to go through cycles of high activity and heightened contention, which Tarrow (1994: 153) observes end either in reform, repression or sometimes revolution. Indeed, as most studies of movements focus on understanding these high points in the cycle, neglecting the periods of latency between them (Melucci, 1986 in Crossley, 2002: 98). However, a full understanding of a social movement in the round requires an insight into the way in which the movement is sustained during latent periods by the ongoing actions and interactions of movement members, which Crossley (2002: 98) emphasises the study of networks can help to illuminate.

Nevertheless, penetrating the surface of the network mechanisms driving movements is no simple task, as networks advocate, Crossley (2002: 98), concedes himself. There are many different networks and sub-networks, overlapping group memberships, links to individuals outside of the movement who variously support it, as well as the friendships and personal relationships within which individual movement actors are embedded (Crossley, 2002: 98), and networks beyond the immediate movement constitute the basis for mass support (Campbell, 2005: 61). Meanwhile vertical ties between movement actors 51

and allies within the polity, as well as the position of those allies within those macro-level structures, impact on the potential for movements to influence the institutional environment in line with their objectives (Diani, 1997: 133). Thus, even in its simplest formation, a full articulation of network mechanisms would require consideration of what Diani (1997: 139) refers to as the “micronetworks” of movement actors, constituted by their personal relations, the meso-networks of relations between movement actors, and the macro-networks of relations in which allies of the movement within political, economic, and cultural spheres are embedded, as well as understanding the inter-linkages between these three levels. It is with reference to this complex, imbricated, multi-dimensionality that Crossley warns of the magnitude of the empirical work required in order make meaningful statements about network structures and their effects (Crossley, 2002: 98).

At the micro-network level, informal ties of everyday life have been shown to be critical to mobilising and maintaining movement solidarities in studies such as Gould’s (1991) work on the Paris Commune and McAdam’s (1988 in Crossley, 2002: 94) study of the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign organised by white students to register black voters in Mississippi. However the different dynamics at work at different levels of the movement landscape, particularly between informal micro-networks and more formalised modus operandi at higher levels, may cause division and undermine the movement as a whole. In the case of the tenants’ movement, Lowe (1986: 113) reports that a key feature was its spontaneity, with initial action originating within female-dominated neighbourhood networks. Subsequent attempts made by men to formalise the movement through committee forms based on trade union practices did not fit naturally into this base (Lowe, 1986: 113); likewise efforts by parties of the Left, who Lowe (1986: 114) reports tried to ‘raise the political level’ of the movement and found it did not conform easily to their workplace and trade union practices (Lowe, 1986: 14). This hints at the problems of oligarchy and bureaucratisation characterised by Michels’ (1915) “iron law”, and of the risks of co-optation by political and institutional actors, which may cause movements to lose their critical edge and ideological commitment (Crossley, 2002: 92; McAdam and Scott, 2005: 6-7) and weaken their ties to the movement as whole (Diani, 1997: 140).

This raises the critical question of the extent to which, and at what cost, community actors cede their independence by co-operating with state actors to achieve their goals. In Engel’s (2010) research into participation in Tanzania, one of his respondents observed that in order for participation to be effective for the community, it needs to “be informed of where boundaries of truthful engagement are and where co-optation starts” (Engel, 2010: 7); whilst another recommended a “50/50 participation strategy so that when there is no chance of being listened to, the option remains to go outside of that space to create self- 52

initiated participatory spaces” (Engel, 2010: 7). The limitations of this option are plain in deprived communities which lack extensive resources for self-organisation. Indeed, the prospects for maintaining autonomy within the framework of participatory channels provided by regeneration is put into perspective by Houtzager’s (2003 in Engel, 2010: 7) observation that “[if] an actor’s goal is to influence policy, rather than self-provisioning, then the strong autonomy position is the least tenable”.

These issues echo the problems which Purdue (2001) encountered in his case studies of community leadership in SRB partnerships: they lacked contact with residents at the grassroots within the neighbourhood, and this was made worse by the general lack of trust in government initiatives amongst residents, which made it hard to build wider trust within the neighbourhood, given their involvement in the initiative. Furthermore, he found that, once established in the role, the first generation of community leaders involved in the partnership were unwilling to cede power to a second generation coming through, a situation which suited officers, for whom this continuity constituted a “comfortable pattern” of community involvement (Purdue, 2001: 2221; Purdue, 2007: 138). In other words, this was state endorsement of community oligarchy, a situation which saw some community representatives “become dependent on partnerships for their identity and status as community leaders” (Purdue, 2001: 2217).

This discussion directs attention towards Crossley’s (2002: 95) caution regarding the application of a networks approach to the study of community activism. He cites the findings of Oliver (1984) from her study of residents of Detroit, that those who are active contributors to neighbourhood organisations tended to be well-connected within the neighbourhood, but were at the same time more pessimistic than either token contributors to organisations or non-members of those organisations, about their neighbours’ willingness to make an active contribution; they exhibited an ‘if I don’t do it, nobody else will’ attitude which challenges the assumption “that tight networks have a radicalizing effect upon their members” (Crossley, 2002: 95).

Insights from urban regime theory chime with this view, particularly in the context of deprived communities. Clarence Stone’s analysis of the ways in which power and the capacity to govern result from the social production processes through which collective acts of governance are mobilised based on resources and incentives (Stone 1980 and 1993) underlines the difficulty of mobilising people living in poverty around an agenda of what he calls “lower class opportunity expansion” (Stone, 1993: 20). The key variables in question are the resources which with to mobilise, both financial and non-financial resources of knowledge and skills, the achievability of the goals of mobilisation, and, 53

critically, perceptions of achievability which impact on motivation (Stone, 1993: 11). The latter constitutes the major obstacle to lower class opportunity expansion because the coping skills which poor people develop to survive are based on being conditioned to disappointment and frustration, which deter mobilisation (Stone, 1993: 21). Indeed, given that it is much easier to mobilise people around clear, quick-fix, material incentives which do not require high levels of trust, he goes as far as to assert that “hegemony in a capitalist order may be more a matter of ease of cooperation around profit-oriented activities than the unchallenged ascendancy of core ideas” (Stone, 1993: 12).

This highlights the extent to which the mobilisation stakes are higher within deprived communities, and underlines the importance of the second social movements mechanism to be considered here: cognitive processes and the cultivation of collective purpose through leadership, which both regime theory and social movements theory emphasise. As Campbell (2005: 48-49) explains, social movement scholars argue that the issues towards which a movement is directed must be framed in ways which resonate with the identities, cultures and beliefs of supporters and potential supporters, in order to generate common purpose. Fararo and Doreian (1998) refer to this as “ideational solidarity”, and its operation exemplifies the link between cognitive and relational processes: networks provide the conduits for the diffusion, translation and consolidation of these symbolic goods, an observation integral to symbolic interactionist understandings of culture as “coterminous with communication channels” (Shibutani, 1955 in Fine and Kleinman, 1983: 105). Thus having a limited constituency within the neighbourhood, as was found to be the case for the community leaders in Purdue’s (2001) case studies, is not merely limiting with respect to the question of access. By denying them the opportunity to gain insight into micro-network level identities and cultures of potential constituents, the lack of access in itself further reduces the capacity for leaders to bring potential supporters into the fold through tailoring of their repertoires of interaction to suit the audience, as well as cutting them off from sources of new ideas for the movement as a whole (Campbell, 2005: 65). Taken alongside Knoke’s (1990: 1044) observations regarding the high tendency towards homophily in voluntary organisations, which screens out people with alternative viewpoints, thus reinforcing the beliefs of existing members, it is clear that leading a movement in a way which is inclusive and encourages creative strategies of action requires skill. This homophilous characteristic of residents’ groups is one reason why community infrastructure enacted through them may be limited in its tendency to challenge attitudes of distinction between ‘rough’ and ‘respectable’ and between the white majority and ethnic minorities which were discussed in Section 2.1.2.

Campbell (2005: 63-63) emphasises the critical importance of skilled leadership in the successful operation of a social movement, which can help it to realise goals even where other resources are lacking, or the political opportunity structures it confronts are unfavourable. Purdue (2001: 2215) goes further into this issue in relation to his regeneration case studies, detailing two types of leadership theorised in the literature which he found to be relevant in that context: transformational leadership (citing Burns, 1978) and transactional leadership (citing Simmel, 1986 and Hollander, 1983). The transformational leaders or ‘social entrepreneurs’, in Purdue’s study, which he argues are rare in the regeneration world (Purdue, 2001: 2216), possessed a sense of mission or vocation, and operated on the basis of personal charisma, a willingness to take advantage of the political opportunity structures facing them, and co-operated with others through appreciation of the personal agendas of co-collaborators, and on the basis of developing reputation for competence and delivery (Purdue, 2001: 2216-2217); they tended to be the kind of people who would ‘eat and sleep’ community (Purdue, 2001: 2217). Transactional leadership emphasises the communication flow between leader and constituency (Purdue, 2001: 2215), whereby the leader operates in a brokerage role which entails an ongoing bargaining process between leader and followers, negotiating costs and benefits (Melucci, 1996 in Purdue, 2001). Such leaders gain and maintain trust and support by demonstrating themselves to be accountable representatives (Purdue, 2001: 2215). Of course, in practice “leader-follower action is very complicated”, as Stone (1993:11) observes, and the follower-to-follower relationships may be equally vital “even blurring the distinction between leader and follower” (Stone, 1993:11, citing Burns, 1978). Such observations once again highlight the value of the networks approach, in allowing insights into a movement which go beyond the most prominent actors, to understand the wider movement dynamics.

The final area of social movement theory to consider is that of environmental mechanisms and the role of political opportunity structure (POS). POS has been criticized for being something of a ‘catch-all’ concept (Maloney, Smith and Stoker, 2000: 809) and indeed there appear to be many indicators of it in the literature (Stevenson and Greenberg, 2000: 656). However, Stevenson and Greenberg (2000: 656) describe the basic principle as the idea that “political context produces opportunities for actions and openness to change”. Campbell (2005: 44) describes the key dimensions as: the degree of openness to challenge amongst political institutions; the degree of stability amongst coalitions of the political elite; the extent to which the movement has allies within the political elite; and the willingness of political authorities to use repression against challengers. In a UK setting Maloney, Smith and Stoker (2000) use it to facilitate understanding of the relationship between community social capital and governance. 55

One major focus in operationalising POS is institutional design. For instance Lowndes, Pratchett and Stoker (2006) use the level of democratic innovation as the salient measure of institutional design in their study of the relationship between local authority practices and participation. However their primary interest is in the differential impact of different types of ‘rules-in-use’ or ‘how things are done around here’ in the face of similar ‘rules in form’ (Lowndes, Pratchett and Stoker, 2006: 545). It is in this vein that Lowndes and Wilson (2001: 645) assert that “prospects for the creation and mobilization of social capital may depend as much upon the process as upon the content of institutional redesign in local governance”. The critical point here is that in order to understand the extent to which community infrastructure in regeneration areas constitutes genuine support structures and channels for flows of resources, power and influence at the macro-network interface it is necessary to scrutinise the “interpenetration of the state and civil society” (Maloney, Smith and Stoker, 2000: 803), and to recognise that the relationship between the two is reciprocal (Maloney, Smith and Stoker, 2000: 817). Indeed POS constrains the range of options available to movements and community activists (Campbell, 2005: 44), as well as potentially facilitating and opening up the game. In Lowe’s examination of the tenants’ movement he describes the interface between the movement and the local authority as “the crucial strategic terrain” (1986: 115). And despite the extensive contracting out and agentification of services which has occurred since the time of Lowe’s writing, this fundamentally continues to be the case, particularly insofar as local authorities play a metagovernance role at the local level (Evans, 2007). Lowe’s description of the typical local political infrastructure, and the way in which groups engaged with it at the time, with action “directed towards establishing some form of negotiation position with the relevant service departments” (Lowe, 1986: 60), corresponds remarkably well to the situation in the present-day City of Manchester.

2.4 Summary and discussion

This chapter has reviewed the sociological and political ideas and ideals of community and community infrastructure in the light of empirical evidence regarding the reality as played out in daily life and in relation to regeneration schemes within deprived neighbourhoods. It has attempted to capture something of the cohesive and divisive dynamics of life within working class neighbourhoods, and exemplify the extent to which, as Raco (2003: 241) puts it, communities are “exclusionary in their inclusiveness”, insofar as their definition “always requires some form of social or spatial boundary”. Section 2.1.2 illuminated the realities of community cohesion and division in working class environments, to which new boundaries of exclusion and distinction have been added through the increase in ethnic diversity in recent decades. It highlighted the extent to which community infrastructure may be a manifestation of social support sought in the 56

shear act of survival, making it a dubious target for policy, as inspired by the communitarian and social capital agendas.

Section 2 sketched out the overarching rationales of community- and civic-orientated public policy and its practical enactment under recent governments, followed with a critical review of community involvement in NDC. This appears to support Lorna Dargan’s view that the scheme was based on a “naïve sociology of community” and “simplistic conception of participation” (Dargan, 2009: 315). Section 3 delved further into the shortcomings of this sociological position with a critique of the Putnam School of social capital and its neglect of key aspects of the historical context impacting on community infrastructure in working class neighbourhoods, through the under-theorising (or non- theorising) of the role of political and economic structures. In Section 2.3 an alternative, though related, theoretical basis for the study of community infrastructure in East Manchester’s deprived neighbourhoods was laid out in social movements theory, touching on urban regime theory. This approach allows consideration of the ecological, socio- structural, and symbolic/ cultural aspects of community highlighted in Section 2.1, as well as the political context in which communities are embedded. It provides a framework for understanding community relations as operating within and across multiple social levels, from the micro-networks of the individual community actor, to the macro-networks of relations across the interface with the state. It also takes account of the role of individual leadership capacity and the way in which cognitive, cultural frames are developed and employed through the network to mobilise, build and sustain community infrastructure. As evidence from Lowe’s (1986) writings on the tenants’ movement and Purdue’s (2001) work on community leadership have shown, the dynamics of networks, leadership, purpose and political context are critical to analysing community infrastructure in the context of deprived neighbourhoods and regeneration initiatives which involve community. The next chapter applies this theoretical base to present the methods and methodological considerations for this study.

Chapter 3. Methodology

This chapter provides an overview of the case study areas, the nature of the research problem, the development and design of the study, methods of data collection and data analysis, and core aspects of the methodological terrain which require consideration in order to understand the nature of the study and the research context.

3.1 The case study areas

3.1.1 The Beacons area and NDC partnership The NDC partnership in east Manchester, named Beacons for a Brighter Future, was set up in 1999 covering two neighbourhoods in the east of the city, Beswick and Openshaw which were ranked 17th and 22nd most deprived in the country on the 2000 Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) (CLG, 2008c). A grim picture of the condition of these neighbourhoods at the outset of NDC is portrayed by both residents and officers, including the chief officer of Beacons himself, Sean McGonigle. Once Manchester’s industrial heartland, McGonigle observed that by the late 1980s the area was blighted by serious dilapidation of housing and void properties, high crime, a lack of jobs, and poor educational attainment (McGonigle, in Grant, 2010: 9). Consistent with such a situation, there was very little trust in the council and a great deal of anger when officers tasked with putting together the bid for funding arrived in the area (see McGonigle in Grant, 2010: 9- 13).

The NDC area was adjacent to the area covered by monies from Round Five of the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB), and the two streams were combined under the umbrella of the Beacons Partnership, extending into the neighbouring area of Clayton covered by SRB (Russell, 2006: 4) and those parts of Beswick and Openshaw excluded from the NDC programme. The NDC/ SRB area was located within the wider boundary of the New East Manchester urban regeneration area which was to receive strategic regeneration oversight and input from the new urban regeneration company (URC) of the same name set up in the month prior to the announcement of the success of east Manchester’s NDC bid14. NEM’s goals were the restructuring of the economic base and housing market in the area. NDC was also co-located with two other central government-led area based initiatives, Education Action Zone (EAZ) and Sports Action Zone (SAZ), the former to tackle educational problems and raise standards, the latter to improve sporting provision.

14 New East Manchester (NEM) was one of the first three Urban Regeneration Companies designated by government in 2000 in response to Lord Rogers’ Urban Task Force Report (Parkinson et al., 2005:1) intended to revitalise British cities, which was soon criticized as a re-branding of well worn goals of gentrification (e.g. Lees, 2003). 58

The operations for these multiple ABIs were co-located with NDC, NEM and subsequently Housing Market Renewal (HMR), at a single headquarters in Beswick, in order to facilitate delivery across the different themes encompassed by the partnership. These were: -Crime and community safety -Education and young people -Health and wellbeing -Worklessness / economic development -Physical environment -Sport and local services -Community capacity-building and cohesion (Ekosgen, 2010: 6)

In 2002 Manchester hosted the Commonwealth Games in a purpose-built stadium in East Manchester which now houses Manchester City Football Club. The success of this event provided a considerable boost to the area, including to resident morale; indeed residents continue to talk about it with great pride.

Taking account of the combined NDC/ SRB boundary the Beacons Partnership encompassed an area much larger than most other NDCs, with approximately 9,000 properties and 20,000 residents compared to the NDC average of 4,000 properties and 10,000 residents (McGonigle, S. in Grant, 2010: 16; Lawless, 2006: 1992). Residents in the Beacons area were involved in an extensive consultation process15 prior to securing NDC funding which was used as a case study example of good practice in the Department for Communities and Local Government’s (CLG) report on community engagement lessons from NDC (CLG, 2008c).

In her 2006 case study on community engagement in Beacons NDC, Hilary Russell reports that the voluntary and community sector in the area was not strong at the time of the initial NDC bid (Russell, 2006: 4). However the efforts of the sort described in Chapter 1 to support and develop capacity for participation in the community saw the number of residents’ groups in the area grow from 13 groups to 60 at its peak (Russell, 2006: 6), with the help of a dedicated Resident Liaison Team. The team provided wide-ranging training for active residents keen to participate on an ongoing or formal basis, either delivered by the team itself or through other organisations, in order to develop skills in organising, running and planning events, applying for and managing grant funding, as well as giving

15 According to the CLG report on community engagement lessons from NDC, this included the use of a double decker bus to distribute 1500 information packs around the area, four community planning events in May 1999 attended by 350 people and three youth consultation events in February 1999 attended by over 500 residents (CLG, 2008c: 19) 59

residents the opportunity to plan, organise and deliver events themselves with officer support and collaboration. The team also organised and provided many different routes to engage with the wider population in more informal ways, including all manner of innovative events to make participation fun and accessible to the wider community. However, much of the focus was around developing and supporting the activity of residents’ groups, based on the traditional model of tenants’ associations around which protest and welfare activities had mobilised within working class neighbourhoods during the twentieth century.

An East Manchester Residents’ Forum was established in 1998 to bring together existing local residents’ associations prior to the start of the NDC programme, and which continued to provide an opportunity for residents to meet with other groups from across the area to monitor progress of the programme, and call officers to account. The Forum also provided the basis for community membership to the NDC partnership board, with elections based on nominations from groups who attended meetings of the Forum (with sufficient regularity to be eligible to stand). 50 percent of board membership was held by residents throughout the life of the partnership (Ekosgen, 2010: 86), and they were able to participate in a number of other task groups focussed on the different themes of the programme. Table 43 in Appendix 1 provide statistics from the local and national NDC surveys, on key measures of involvement and empowerment perceptions in the Beacons area for 2002 to 2008. These indicate fairly low levels of involvement and empowerment perceptions as a proportion of the population. It is difficult to discern any pattern but there appears to be an initial upward movement and then stability. Unfortunately no data on these measures was collected in the Beacons baseline survey in 1999. The Beacons NDC targets established for delivery on the community capacity and cohesion theme were: - Empower the community to demand high quality services and facilities; - The community to play an active role in determining and managing its future; - The level of community involvement measured at Year 3 to be sustained for seven years. (Reported in Ekosgen, 2010: 82).

The statistics in Table 43 suggest the level of community involvement target was met and exceeded. Beacons also established a Public Agencies Forum bringing together the multiple partners whose work was implicated in delivery of the partnership’s themes, and a Voluntary Sector Consortium, as a mechanism to allow the sector to feed into the work NDC and public sector partners, though this was disbanded in 2005 (CLG, 2008c: 39), and the effectiveness of the Public Agencies Forum waned over time, with the loss of senior representatives (Ekosgen, 2010: 13). A Youth Forum was also established to bring 60

together young people and allow their voices to be heard in the work of NDC, as well as an Over 50s Forum. The Youth Forum is now run with support from the largest social landlord in the area, Eastlands Homes, whilst the Over 50s Forum continues to meet as a smaller operation than in the early days, around craft days and coffee mornings and is now entirely resident-led. Both forums are included as groups in this study. Beacons NDC also gave support in the form of training, skill sharing and revenue support to some key local voluntary organisations (CLG, 2008: 39), most notably 4CT, which was formed from three existing residents’ groups. It now operates two community facilities in the Beacons area, from which it runs sport, education and recreation activities, and various support services for the local community.

Despite an lack of initial connection between the different neighbourhoods encompassed by the Beacons Partnership one senior NDC officer observed that an East Manchester identity had gradually grown up in the area over time16. In 2004 the urban regeneration company boundary of NEM was expanded to incorporate Miles Platting and Newton Heath to the north and Gorton to the south, as shown on the map at Figure 3.

Figure 3. NEM boundary, including Beacons and Gorton

Manchester Gorton city centre 1.5 miles

Image kindly provided by Manchester City Council (2009) Crown Copyright.

16 Interview with senior NDC officer on 30.4.09. 61

Table 44 in Appendix 1 shows spending by the Beacons Partnership across the different themes of the programme. It shows that £5,205,226 was spent on community capacity and cohesion.

The NDC programme came to an end in April 2010, and the level of funding and corresponding resources to support ongoing resident involvement in governance and community activities was much diminished thereafter, being provided only through the funding streams provided by the government agencies who funded NEM17. According to a senior officer at Beacons, the issue of sustainability of the achievements of Beacons, including in the domain of community engagement, was a focus right from the outset18, and the partnership has done extensive work to challenge mainstream providers to place greater significance and value on community engagement (NEM, 2009a: 5). Beacons was required by the central government department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) to submit and receive approval for a succession strategy for the partnership which included proposals for sustaining and building community engagement in the longer term. Residents were consulted on the proposals in spring 2009, which were adopted in autumn 2009. The model was based on the Residents’ Forum.

The NDC succession structures of the community partnerships (CPs) involved splitting this forum into three, one to represent each of the three administrative boundaries in the wider NEM area, one of which was the Beacons area. Again this would involve residents’ groups, though it was intended that membership should be extended to include interest groups such as friends of parks, voluntary sector organisations and faith groups. The basic purpose of the CPs was defined by NEM as follows (NEM, 2009b), to:

. Give residents an ongoing opportunity to contribute to evolving plans for their neighbourhood; . Involve people, bring them together and build relationships; . Let people know what is going on in their neigbourhoods; . Help shape local services and make sure they meet the needs of their neighbourhood.

Other formal literature relating to the CPs echoed the intentions of the NDC initiative in asserting that they should “put residents at the heart of regeneration and play an important role in influencing both regeneration and the work being undertaken to improve

17 These were the North West Development Agency, the Housing and Communities Agency and Manchester City Council. 18 Interview with senior NDC officer on 30.4.09. 62

delivery of local services and the quality of life of local residents” (NEM, 2009c), whilst a senior officer at NEM described them as being “a platform for information and influence”.19

The intention was that, like the Residents’ Forum before them, the community partnerships should feed into the board of NEM, through nomination and election of a resident board member from amongst those residents’ groups represented at the CPs, with each CP electing one resident from their area. In theory this would provide representation of community issues at the level of the NEM board; in practice the relevance of this role to the local community was much more circumscribed than was the case with the NDC board, since NEM is a development corporation focussed on economic development and physical regeneration, and lacked a budget for addressing day-to-day local service requirements or social regeneration. Indeed by the middle of 2011 NEM had ceased to exist as an organisation, and continues merely as a brand label20 for the council’s strategic development work in the area, in partnership with Manchester City Football Club.

3.1.2 Gorton The comparator area for this study, Gorton, spans two whole council wards, of Gorton North and Gorton South, as well West Gorton, which covers part of Ardwick ward, bordering Manchester city centre21. The Gorton neighbourhoods have similar history to those of the Beacons area in terms of economic and social decline, with slum clearance, council estate building and de-industrialisation from the 1960s onwards, and latterly similar levels of deprivation, a fact that made its exclusion from the benefits of NDC a sore point for the area’s residents. On the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) for 2007 the most deprived lower super output area (LSOA)22 within the Gorton boundary was ranked the 25th most deprived out the 259 in the City of Manchester LSOAs, and 691 out of a 32,482 in England, compared to the most deprived in the Beacons area which was 23rd most deprived in the city and ranked 651st nationally.23 Table 45 in Appendix 1 shows ward-level statistics of interest on key population, deprivation and place-based national indicator measures of perceptions of community empowerment, cohesion and satisfaction

19 From interview with senior NEM officer on 25.8.09. 20 NEM was the victim of the winding up of one of the key funders, the North West Development Agency as part of the coalition government’s ‘bonfire of the QUANGOS’ (as it was widely referred to in the press), and the retraction of funding from the Homes and Communities Agencies, as well as council budget cuts. This saw formal ownership of URC transferred to the council. It now has a single officer and exists only as a brand for the council’s strategic development work. 21 The NEM boundary of Gorton does not correspond to any other boundary used by the city, likewise the Beacons boundary, since the end of NDC. 22 LSOAs (Lower Layer Super Output Areas) are small areas with a population of around 1500. 23 Source: Manchester City Council monitoring data 63

with area, which provide further sources of comparison24. One senior officer at NEM commented on the potential difficulties of selling participation in the new community partnership structure to residents in Gorton, since, in the absence of any of the funding which Beacons had had, the benefits of such involvement were not obvious. With regard to community activism and engagement the same officer in question expressed the view that Gorton was effectively “ten years’ behind”25 Beacons.

Gorton’s community partnership was established in 2008, ahead of Beacons, in the recognition that, whatever the outcome of subsequent community consultation, Gorton was in need of its own structures, and residents seemed willing to support it at an early stage, despite the aforementioned officer’s predictions. Residents of the Gorton North and South wards were disadvantaged compared to Beacons in terms of the city council’s community engagement, since Gorton councillors refused access for residents to ward coordination meetings, which brought together multi-agency partners and elected members to discuss and monitor service provision across the ward, and which residents in the Beacons wards were encouraged to attend. Residents in Ardwick ward, part of which was encompassed by NEM’s Gorton boundary, were allowed to attend its ward coordination meetings.

Although Gorton had had no support or investment in community comparable in magnitude to that in the Beacons area, it cannot be treated as a counterfactual, from the point of view of the institutional context, but merely a point of comparison to help elucidate the forces impacting upon community infrastructure. As a neighbouring area, within the same local authority as Beacons, it had also benefitted from the change to ward level working by the council in 2002, insofar as it provided a ward co-ordinator in the area who could help residents’ groups to access council funds. Other institutional changes also impacted on the capacity and willingness for residents to be active in the area, such as the introduction of community policing in the early 2000s, and the transfer of much of the area’s housing stock to registered social landlords, most notably in 2008 to the largest provider in the area, Eastlands Homes, whose ‘customer involvement’ (tenant involvement as was) structures provided channels for participation and a source of support for residents’ groups. Indeed a number of local agencies improved their work with residents under the influence of NDC and more generally in response to the central government driving local governance reform in that direction. In that respect it is difficult to identify all

24 Exact population figures for the population size of Gorton are not known, as the NEM boundary does not map onto ward boundaries. An estimate made by residents in a book published to celebrate 100 year’s since Gorton became part of Manchester City placed it at 30,000, though the ward level figures in Table 49 in Appendix 4 suggest that, as it includes part of Ardwick, it must be somewhat higher than this. 25 Interview with NEM regeneration officer for Gorton, 26.8.09. 64

the differences and communalities between the political opportunity structures in Gorton and those in Beacons.

3.1.3 The fortunes of the community partnership in Beacons and Gorton In practice, the transition from the Residents’ Forum to the community partnership model proved difficult in the Beacons area, with doubts and confusions in evidence from the outset about what it was for and how it should work. Officers seemed initially surprised by this, but without an obvious regeneration programme to direct its energies towards, or a budget to make decisions about, it was in fact a very different beast from either the Residents’ Forum or the NDC board. It continued to meet throughout the main fieldwork period of this study, but came to an end in September 2011, when its last meeting was held, ostensibly due to lack of enthusiasm for it amongst residents. Against expectation, the process of establishing the CP in the Gorton area took place much more smoothly. Given the name Gorton All Together (GAT) by residents, it continues to go from strength to strength insofar as it consistently attracts groups from across the area, as well as ward coordination officers, police and social landlord representatives, and latterly (with a change in arrangements), local elected members. Having started with administrative support from NEM, it is now independent, since NEM’s effective termination in 2011, and is run and chaired solely by residents.

3.2 The research design

3.2.1 Aims of the study and research questions In 2007 a proposal for funding for a PhD study of the impact of community involvement in NDC governance was accepted by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as a CASE (Collaborative Awards in Science and Engineering) studentship with New East Manchester as the CASE partner and minority contributor to funding. The key questions which Beacons NDC officers emphasised were evidence of the impact and sustainability of NDC’s community engagement (e.g. NEM, 2009c). This was also highlighted under the question of impact in CLG’s own final evaluation report on involving local people in NDC (CLG, 2010: 8). In light of the limitations of existing data such as the aggregate statistics shown in Table 43 in the Appendix 1, and simple counts of residents groups, the Beacons Partnership were keen for new ways to be found to capture the impact of their efforts to mobilise community through the scheme. A social networks method was proposed but it was necessary to clarify what aspects of community it made sense to measure and to what end. The CLG’s (2008) report on lessons from the NDC programme for community engagement suggested that a preliminary step in developing a strategy for community engagement is to:

develop a baseline of community capacity in terms of estimating the number and strengths of organisations and the extent of networking and identifying key community leaders and the range of roles undertaken by activists. (CLG, 2008c: 15)

Insofar as such a profile was considered valuable as a baseline, it would also appear to be useful as a summative evaluation framework and therefore informed the design of this research. Further details of the study were developed through preliminary qualitative fieldwork. Neighbourhood-based residents’ groups were selected as the subjects of the study, since these were the main target of the intervention in terms of involvement in governance structures and community capacity building. The research questions for the study as shown below. These encompass two overarching questions to be answered using results from empirical analysis, framed around ten more detailed empirical questions. The overarching questions are:

1) What is the scale and scope of community infrastructure in each area?

2) To what extent do the political opportunity structures of NDC/NEM explain the scale and scope of community infrastructure in each area?

The empirical questions around which the data analysis is structured are:

1) What is the scale and composition of the micro-networks of residents’ groups within the neighbourhood, and what does this say about their capacity to represent the neighbourhood?

2) What functions do residents’ groups serve as community actors, and what does this say about the type of community infrastructure their activity gives expression to?

3) What is the structure of relations between residents’ groups and what does this say about the solidarity of the network and the capacity to mobilise collectively?

4) What do the data indicate about the future structure of relations between groups in terms of durability, growth or decline?

5) To what extent have residents’ groups engaged in the political opportunity structures of the regeneration initiative and other agencies of the local state through participation in governance structures? 66

8) What are residents’ perceptions of the nature and porosity of the community/ state interface?

9) What is the relationship between the micro, meso and macro-level measures of residents’ groups networks?

10) What individual attributes of residents’ groups are associated with their micro, meso and macro-level interaction, including accessing and participation in political opportunity structures?

As explained in further detail below, the study is not conceived of an experiment to test the effect of NDC with reference to the control of Gorton; the idea is the comparison should help bring out a deeper understanding of the way in which policies such as NDC impact on community. However using an area which did not have a NDC partnership as the comparator reflects the expectation that community infrastructures of the two areas will be different; and that the extent to which this difference is related to the presence or absence of NDC may be discerned in such a way as to provide greater insight into its impact than has been achieved by evaluation work thus far which has concentrated on the NDC area alone. The study does therefore depart with some overarching expectations, namely that the scale and scope of Gorton’s community infrastructure will be smaller and more limited, and that if it is related to NEM in any way, the relationship will be weaker than is the case in the Beacons area.

3.2.2 Defining concepts Community infrastructure

This study uses Barry Wellman’s (2001a: 228) conception of community as the basis for defining community infrastructure: “networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information and a social identity”. Community infrastructure is a term used both by CLG (e.g. CLG, 2008c; CLG, 2010) and in the Beacons final evaluation report (Ekosgen, 2010). For example an observer cited in CLG, 2010 asserts that “a feature of a lot of NDC areas is that the community activism and the community infrastructure is very weak and inexperienced” (CLG, 2010: 22). Another report also refers to the goal of “strengthening community infrastructure in a sustainable way” (CLG, 2008c: 38). Nevertheless it never explicitly defines the term. The decision to focus on community infrastructure here in part reflects an attempt to distinguish relationships from their outcomes and more ideational facets of social solidarity, such as collective identity which may or may not arise from or underpin relationships. In other words, community infrastructure in this study refers specifically to community relationships. However, in choosing to examine community infrastructure in relation to the regeneration initiative, and based on interpersonal ties between residents’ groups rather than individual neighbours, it also implicitly measures a particular type of infrastructure: namely that which is in some way directed towards neighbourhood improvement, even if only at the level of community spirit, through celebrations and cultural activities. This makes sense insofar as it reflects the CASE partner’s (NDC/ NEM) motivations for commissioning the study, and addresses those aspects of community life which the initiative could be expected to have measurably impacted on.

In practice, then, the purpose or function of relations is not entirely eliminated from the measurement of community infrastructure, in the way critics of functionalist conceptions of social capital might hope; indeed the survey explicitly asks about different types of relationships (information-sharing, collaboration), as detailed in Section 3.3.7 below. Furthermore, a full assessment of the aspects of social relations which constitute supporting structures in the neighbourhood underpinning neighbourhood improvement capacity would also account for the micro-dynamics of day-to-day social support, however these lie beyond the scope of this study. Nevertheless, the ethnographic dimension of the study allows crucial insights into other separately operationalisable elements of community, in particular individual agency and leadership capacity, and their role in facilitating the mobilisation of community infrastructure. In this respect the findings from this study reaffirm the critique of social capital theory which underpins the approach taken: it shows that the practical functioning of community infrastructure as an organ of collective

agency can only be understand by also accounting for the role of individual agency and political opportunity structures, and the powers and constraints these confer on social relations.

Political opportunity structures and governance

In their study of social capital and urban governance, Maloney, Smith and Stoker (2000: 810, citing Kriesi, 1995 and Rucht, 1996) present POS as predicated on three properties of the political system: i) formal institutional structure; ii) informal procedures and prevailing strategies; and ii) the political context in which relations between governmental actors and voluntary associations take place. These are broad areas, as they acknowledge, and, like most studies of social movements, they present a detailed narrative account of the local POS in their Birmingham case study to illuminate their quantitative indicators of social capital and its relationship with governance. In this study POS is conceptualised in the same was as it is in their study, not as determinant of community interaction but as force with the capacity to have a substantial influence on it (Maloney, Smith and Stoker, 2000: 809). The aspects of POS which are focussed upon as the most likely to influence community infrastructure are funding and support provided to residents’ groups by the state, and the running of governance structures by local agencies of the state in which groups are permitted to participate.

Governance is term used throughout this study. As Stoker (1998b: 17) observes, it is employed in a variety of ways and has a variety of meanings, which he distils into five propositions, the essence of which are: multiple actors, blurred boundaries and responsibilities, power dependence in collective action, and network processes which imply the building of regimes and coalitions through which to govern (Stoker, 1998b: 19- 26). The most concrete use of the word governance in this study is to refer to participatory structures run by agencies of the state at a local level. CLG (2008: 5) offers a definition of governance as “any body within a local authority area that has a remit to affect public service planning and/or delivery”. Peter John (2009b: 495) refers to “service-focussed forums” as citizen governance. For the purposes of this study it is important to distinguish the operations of the NDC Partnership board which made decisions over spending of the NDC budget, and others forums attended by residents and officers to report, discuss and get feed-back on service-delivery issues, including making suggestions about how to improve services, but without having formal decision-making powers. The NEM community partnerships fall into the latter category, as do other forums referred to in this study.

Social capital: missing in action?

This study explicitly avoids the framing of research in the terminology of social capital, despite the fact that it informs the overall policy landscape of NDC, and is used throughout NDC policy documents and pronouncements. This reflects the critical stance adopted by the author in relation to the ideological basis of the term, laid out in the preceding chapter, and its concomitant limited value for the execution of searching, critically reflective academic a study such as this. In this respect it takes heed of the similarly strong stance on this issue of academics such as Ben Fine (2001), Carles Muntaner (2004) and Paul Dekker (2009). Dekker (2009: 236) explicitly exhorts social scientists to recognise the extent which they may be implicitly supporting the denial of the politics of voluntary involvement by using the terminology and philosophy of Putnamesque social capital and polite civic virtue, and criticises the ill-disciplined use of rational choice language for scientifically neutralising the study of the civic. Indeed the findings from this study underline the argument made by Fine (2001) that existing social theory provides an arsenal of more specific and less value-laden concepts to elucidate the phenonema variously encompassed by social capital.

Micro, meso, macro-levels of interaction

In this study the terms micro-networks and references to the micro-level of interaction are indicators of interaction between residents’ groups and their members, neighbours of members and residents in the neighbourhood in which it is based. Meso-networks/ meso- level interaction refers to horizontal relationships between residents’ groups. Macro- networks/ macro-level interaction refers to vertical ties between residents’ groups and actors of the local state. Fuller explanation of the operationalisation of these concepts is provided in in Section 3.4.1 below.

3.2.3 Research philosophy This study is underpinned by a critical realist philosophy. The philosophical content of critical realism distinguishes itself both from positivism on the one hand and the broad relativist-discursivist camp of constructivists and postmodernists on the other (Steinmetz, 1998: 179) in specific ways relating to their ontological and epistemological positions. Fundamentally critical realism entails a depth ontology, as opposed to the flat ontology of empiricists which conceives of multiple levels of reality, incorporating a realm independent of human consciousness (Yeung, 1997: 52). Bhaskar’s (1975) model encompasses three levels. The first is the ‘empirical’ level of perceptions or experiences of events. This is the realm within which research data are located. The second level it the ‘actual’ world of events which occur but go unperceived or observed. The third is a ‘real’ world underlying

these, constituted of structures, mechanisms, powers and liabilities, not immediately available to experience, and which or may not give rise at any given time to events at the level of the actual, and experienced at the level of the empirical (see Steinmetz, 1998: 176-77; Smith, 1998: 299; Harré, 1979 in Blaikie, 1993: 162). With a relativist epistemology, it treats human knowledge of the world as inherently fallible (Marsh and Furlong, 2002: 31) and both theory and value laden (Olsen and Morgan, 2005: 31; Morgan, 2002: 5), refuting the notion of objective ‘scientific’ research, in the name of which much quantitative data are presented in the domain of government.

What may appear particularly challenging about the adoption of a critical realist approach to an empirical study using survey data is its rejection of the notion that only what is directly observable is measurable, and of the idea that the social world, like the natural world, may be approached as a closed system within which measurable universal ‘laws’ apply which can be used to predict outcomes. In particular critical realists rebut the view- central to the common practice of analytical statistics- that regular relations exist between variables and that these may be identified in the form of constant conjunctions (Olsen and Morgan, 2005: 256), and the corresponding approach which considers the existence of such a regularity as sufficient to indicate a relation (Olsen and Morgan, 2005: 256; Smith, 1998: 116-117). However, this does not preclude the use of quantitative data and statistical methods by the critical realist, but rather it differentially defines both the way they are used and the significance attached to them as compared to positivist practice (Porpora, 2001 in Olsen and Morgan, 2005: 264). As such, the methods used in the analysis of data in this study will seek to “to bring forth evidence of an otherwise hidden mechanism” (Ron, 1999: 5).

3.2.4 Research strategy This study adopts a dual research strategy, as laid out by in Olsen and Morgan’s (2005) “critical epistemology of analytical statistics”. This begins with an inductive approach to the quantitative component of the case studies, focused on the ten detailed empirical questions laid out above, followed by a retroductive approach, bringing in ethnographic evidence and further reflection on theory. Olsen and Morgan (2005: 275) describe the process of a critical realist approach to statistics as “induction (argument from evidence) with inference (argument which abstracts from the detail) and retroduction (argument which explains what conditions in reality may have or could have led to these observations)”.This does not therefore imply the adoption of any of the positivist assumptions traditionally associated with inductivism (Blaikie, 2000: 102) such as a presuppositionless orientation to data analysis. As Blaikie (2000: 103) points out, in practice inductivism too requires (and realists argue researchers inherently bear) some 71

“theoretical baggage’”. Olsen and Morgan (2005: 275) see variables not as facts but “ficts” and statistical analysis of relations between then as demonstrating “associations between ficts”. To move from simple association to causation requires development of an argument which takes “account of both contextual factors and specific mechanisms” which may be identified “within the survey data or from without, e.g. from case study evidence or qualitative data” (Olsen and Morgan, 2005: 275). The latter characterises the retroductive moment in this study. Though no strong causal claims are intended to be made here, the aim is to go beyond simple description of quantitative associations, by maximally exploiting the case study approach and the ethnographic dimension.

3.2.5 Comparative case study approach: a field method of research A case study approach was adopted for this research on the basis of the expectations of the CASE partner, the availability of data, and the difficulties inherent in data collection. Beacons NDC was established as the case study for the research at the time of initial proposal-writing. Indeed, although the intention was established early on that the study should be based around the collection of quantitative social networks data, the CASE partner emphasised the expectation that research should be built on substantial time spent within the Beacons area. The need to adopt a mixed method approach with an ethnographic periphery surrounding a quantitative core of data was further underlined by the lack of existing networks data from such an environment, the high likelihood of refusal to participate, made evident in a less than welcoming reception received by the author at an early meeting with residents, and the equally high likelihood of missing data using a self-completion networks survey- both because of its complexity, length and potential issues of low literacy amongst the population to be studied.

Case studies are both enlightening and challenging on a number of fronts: firstly they require the possession or development of place-specific knowledge and skills, and secondly the development of competency with multiple data collection techniques (Poteete et al., 2009: 37). Case studies also suggest many plausible relationships and factors which may influence the object of study (Poteete et al., 2009: 61). However, Basurto and Ostrom (2009: 5) assert that it is possible to avoid the “’my case is unique’ analytical trap” in analysing the results of small-N case study research. They argue that the presumption that all individual settings are so different as to bar the identification of common elements and common mechanisms driving them is plainly false; they use the diagnostic tools of medicine, to exemplify this point. This idea forms the basis for Ostrom’s (2007 in Ostrom and Basurto, 2009) multitier diagnostic framework for assessing the likelihood of voluntary collective action arising for the management of environmental

resources, and the likelihood of it being sustained over time, which this study returns to briefly in the concluding chapter.

This study uses two geographically contiguous areas for comparison, an approach favoured by both the CASE partner and academic supervisors. Whilst it is helpful from the perspective of verbal parsimony to refer to Gorton as the ‘comparator’ area, this is in no way an experimental design. Gorton was selected because on a number of baseline characteristics (as outlined above) it is comparable to Beacons. Indeed unlike the north area of NEM it was also reported to have some comparable community infrastructure with links to NEM through the community partnership, which made it suitable (and practical) for a study seeking evidence of factors explaining community infrastructure; it can no way be said to have been hermetically sealed from spillover effects from the NDC partnership next door. What the use of a comparative case study here allows is for it to go further in the task of identifying factors which may commonly impact on the propensity for residents of deprived urban neighbourhoods to connect around the regeneration effort and organise collectively. In this sense then, the comparison increases the “relatability” (Bassie, 1981 in Blaikie, 2000: 222) of findings from this study to other settings.

3.3 Data collection instruments and methods

3.3.1 Preliminary fieldwork: semi-structured interviews and observation During the period April 2009 to February 2010 a number of scoping interviews were undertaken with residents and officers, as well as meetings attended, in order to inform the design of the study and the data collection procedure and instruments. These are included in the full schedule of ethnographic work shown in Table 2 in Section 3.3.6. The scoping work encompassed nine interviews with officers from NDC/NEM, two interviews with officers from registered social landlords, an interview with the chief executive of a voluntary sector organisation, three interviews with four Beacons residents, two interviews with three Gorton residents, attendance of one NDC board meeting, two Beacons community partnership meetings, two Gorton community partnership meetings (Gorton All Together), one ward coordination meeting, one away-day meeting of the board of a voluntary sector organisation based in the Beacons area, and one open meeting of a Gorton residents’ group. Interviews were semi-structured around the questions shown in the two schedules in Appendix 6.

3.3.2 Data type and method: social network analysis of residents’ groups’ relations This study collects and analyses primary social networks data on the relationships between residents’ groups and between those groups and agencies of the local public and third sector operating in the two case study area. Very few other studies have undertaken 73

networks research into community infrastructure; as Lelieveldt et al. (2009: 4) observe, most scholarly work on civic engagement in neighbourhoods is undertaken at the individual-level, with organisational membership used as a proxy for social relations. Indeed the limited operationalisation of the networks aspect of the social capital in the literature has led to increasing calls to focus more rigorously on an explicitly networks approach (e.g. Blokland and Savage, 2008; Prell, 2006), not least given how common the evocation of the networked structure of governance and civil society has become (Baldassarri and Diani, 2007).

There appear to exist a handful of studies of networks of civil society organisations (e.g. Baldassarri and Diani, 2007 in the UK, Prell, 2006 in the USA; Lelieveldt et al., 2009/ Dekker et al., 2008 in the Netherlands) and of community elites (Laumann and Pappi, 1976, Laumann, Marsden and Galaskiewicz, 1977 in the USA), but no such studies of so- called very small-scale “below the radar” (see McCabe et al., 2010) community groups such as those included in this study. Indeed McCabe and colleagues’ (2010) review of the literature on behalf of the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) concluded that what material there is is not easily accessible because it tends to exist in ‘internal’ evaluations within the public sector, or appears in academic literature in a very fragmented way, scattered across fields (McCabe et al., 2010: 2). Furthermore the low-level, often informal, and shifting character of tenants and residents’ groups makes them a difficult target for study, as Lowe (1986: 84) observes. The access to the database of groups held by the CASE partner in this study, which the studentship arrangement permitted, therefore made visible a population of groups which might otherwise be challenging to access as an academic researcher.

Social network analysis has a long history tracing its roots back to the leading ideas of classical German sociology about the relationship between small-scale interpersonal configurations of social relations and large-scale social aggregates (Scott, 2000: 9). In line with this, the focus of attention in social networks research has always been firstly and foremostly on the relation which exists between two actors, whether an individual, a group of individuals, an institution or a country, for instance. As Holman (2008) explains social network analysis (SNA) allows researchers to examine connections between two actors: dyads, triads, and the overall structure of ties in a network in order to chart resource flows (Holman, 2008: 528). She suggests that this allows the researcher to “see inside the network” to assess who is active, who is powerful and so on (Holman, 2008: 528). In practice, especially in a study such as this, it is wise think less positivistically about data obtained based on people’s perceptions of their ties. When people are asked about their relations to others, as is the case in this study, what is obtained is only partial insights 74

based on their limited perception of their relations, rather than an objective exhibit of the relations themselves. Another benefit of a networks approach which Holman highlights (2008: 529), and which is of particular relevance to this study, is the potential for obtaining a multilevel perspective on human relations, allowing insight into how “individuals interacting in microstructures, are embedded in meso-level structures, which in turn are linked to macro level structures'' (Tindall and Wellman, 2001 in Holman, 2008: 529).

This study is what is known as a ‘complete’ or ‘whole’ network study in that it aims to capture all possible relations of a particular type between all actors within a specified network boundary. In other words, it is not a sample but a complete population based on the idea of a network as a bounded entity. This contrasts with ego-network studies where individual actors, often unrelated to each other, are asked to define their personal network, who is in it and something of the relationships between those others, referred to as ‘alters’. The data collected in this study are both one-mode data ie between the same type of actors (all residents’ groups) and two-mode ie between different sorts of actors (residents’ groups and public agencies); in the case of two-mode data this captures ties between the two different types of actors, and excludes those between actors of the same type. As well as collecting relational data on the ties between actors in a network it is routine to collect information on actor-level attributes to inform what characteristics of individual actors may be associated with the relations it engages in, in order to help assess the relationship between attributes of individual actors and their relational profile.

3.3.3 Data sources: defining network boundary and nodes In line with Laumann, Galaskiewicz and Marsden’s (1978) work on community structure as inter-organisational linkages, this study defines the boundary of the population of actors to be included in the networks under investigation on the basis of function and geography, which, as they suggest, may overlap (Laumann et al., 1978: 460), as indeed they do in this case. As previously stated the geographies in question are the respective boundaries of Beacons and Gorton as defined by New East Manchester in the administration of its role in those areas. One of the functions which Laumann and colleagues (1978: 459) identify is the sharing of an individual goal; in this case it would be the sharing of some kind of interest in NEM and neighbourhood improvement in the local area, as evidenced by residents’ groups presence in the database- this means being on the mail-out list for information about what is going on in the area, and receiving minutes and agendas for the community partnership meetings. The groups initially invited to attend the community partnership were all those small-scale groups historically known to NEM to be active in the two areas. However the breadth of group types encompassed by the database was in practice confined largely to tenants’ and residents’ groups, homewatch 75

groups and friends of parks groups, with one or two interest/ culture/ faith groups, but far fewer than NEM had hoped might come forward to take an interest in the community partnership structures.

Meanwhile the boundary of Laumann et al.’s (1978: 460) “superordinate organisations” of the local state to be included in the study is less clearly defined. The functional basis is organisations which residents and residents groups might contact or be involved with in relation to the delivery of services or supporting the needs of the community in their area. The obvious candidates are the mainstream agencies, many of them council services, which NEM works with day-to-day, and an initial list was drawn up with the advice of key NEM officers on that basis. Other organisations were added from studying repeated references in meetings and interviews and from consulting documentary sources, such as the list of local organisations residents were asked about their experiences of in multiple waves of the Residents’ Perceptions Survey undertaken by Beacons NDC (in 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008), and those listed in key information leaflets for local residents, such as ward newsletters. In the case of both the list of residents’ groups provided in the survey and the list of organisations, respondents were given the opportunity to mention other organisations they had regular contact with in their business and these were included in the network if mentioned by two or more separate groups26.

The treatment of the nodes is slightly less clear-cut in that individuals are (necessarily) used to stand for groups. The individuals initially contacted to speak for their group were the main named contacts in the list of group contacts for the CPs held by NEM. They were invited to bring along other group members to the interview if possible.

3.3.4 Core quantitative data collection method and response rates The key contacts named in NEM database were contacted via post with an invitation to participate in the study, and copy of the self-completion questionnaire on group attributes with the promise of £10 supermarket voucher per group, as an incentive to participate. Contact was made under the auspices of NEM, on NEM-headed paper. This may have helped to reassure participants of the legitimacy of the study, though it might equally have risked deterring some from participating. Following the letter, resident group representatives were contacted via telephone to request a face-to-face interview at a time and place convenient to them, usually in their home. They were encouraged, where possible, to complete the self-completion questionnaire in advance of the interview. Some residents proved difficult to contact because telephone contact details were no longer up-

26 It is entirely coincidental that the total number of agencies in each area turned out to be 128. No cut off was imposed to produce the identical totals. 76

to-date. In this case the researcher made trips into the field to knock on doors, in some cases visiting the same address on two or three occasions. Table 1 shows the final response rate.

Table 1. Responses and response rates Beacons Gorton Total groups in database 60 45 Groups contacted 59 42 Groups uncontactable 1 3* Groups declined to participate 2 0 Groups no longer active 26 12 Active groups interviewed 31 30 Total individual participants 41 42 Response rate 91.2% 100.0% *See explanation in body of text As many groups as possible were contacted. Where they proved uncontactable with repeated visits, neighbours were asked about the existence of the group. In Beacons the, the one uncontactable group and the two which declined to participate did receive nominations in the networks survey and so were included in the network analysis and in one or two analyses with attributes, since basic information was known about the gender of the leader and whether they attended the community partnership (i.e. conspicuousness by absence). For that reason, some of the totals shown in analysis are 34 instead of 31. In Gorton evidence of the ongoing existence of the uncontactable groups was not found, such that they were entirely excluded from the study, rather than being treated as isolates. If they were in fact still in existence, that would shift the response rate down to 90.1%. In Beacons none of the three missing groups were highly central in the network, and two were very peripheral. In Gorton, it may be assumed that if these groups existed at all they had no presence in this network.

At the interview the networks questionnaire is administered through initial self-completion with the respondent ticking a list to identify network contacts, with subsequent questioning delivered verbally and responses recorded on the survey sheets by the researcher. All interviews were audio recorded in order to allow verification of the responses if necessary and to capture additional qualitative ‘talk’ around the question responses, which might be relevant to the research questions. At the end of the interview participants were given a short individual-level questionnaire to complete about their own personal characteristics and received the £10 voucher. The duration of interviews ranged from 20 minutes to five

or six hours in two cases27, though the average duration was around 90 minutes28. Some residents were interviewed more than once, either because they had participated at the pilot stage and had not therefore been asked all the questions contained in the final version of the questionnaire, or in one case because the participant reported that they had Asperger’s Syndrome, and proved very difficult to take through the interview, particularly the networks part.29 In two cases in the Beacons area it was not possible to complete the full interview schedule, in one case because the interview, with Youth Forum members, required the presence of an officer with Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) accreditation and had to take place in the evening, after school hours, in the other because of apparent literacy/ concentration issues which made administration very difficult. Where further items were found to be missing from the self-completion questionnaires groups were contacted via telephone to obtain missing responses.

3.3.5 Fieldwork periods and ethnographic work Preliminary fieldwork was undertaken in the period April 2009 to February 2010, as described in Section 3.3.1 above. A pilot phase of network interviews was undertaken in February to April 2010 with eight groups, four from each case study area, during which the data collection tools were improved and some questions were added, answers to which were sought from pilot participants at a later stage. The main body of quantitative data were collected in the period February 2010 to January 2011. The number of times residents’ groups attended meetings of the community partnership in each area (held approximately quarterly), which was a measure used to capture participation in POS, was counted based on meetings taking place between September 2009 and March 2011. The author continued to attend community partnership meetings into 2012, the last attendance being Gorton’s community partnership, GAT in February 2012. The final pieces of primary intelligence gathered were as late as August 2012, through contact with a former NEM officer with whom the author remains in touch. Some additional fieldwork was undertaken in East Manchester in 2011 for another smaller study of conceptions and enactments of community and the implications for ‘mixed community’ policies, sponsored by the Transforming Cities Initiative (TCI), Seedcorn Grant scheme (now ‘cities@manchester’ run by academics in the University of Manchester’s School of Environment and Development). The project is as inter-disciplinary study with Liz Richardson in the Institute for Political and Economic Governance (IPEG) and Yasminah Beebeejaun in the Department of Planning. Only the fieldwork relevant to this study has been used here.

27 One Gorton resident invited the author for dinner in order to do the interview. Another Gorton resident, with many interesting tales to tell, simply talked the afternoon away. 28 This is an estimate, rather than a precise calculation. 29 An alternative data collection method was developed for this single interview, using specially constructed plastic boards and sticky labels bearing the names of alters. The need for this was made more pressing by the fact that the group in question was judged to be, in all likelihood, a highly central group in the networks. 78

Table 2 provides a summary of ethnographic work, which includes interviews, meeting observation, and one focus group. Lengthy field notation was undertaken in all cases, including recording of direct quotations, plus transcription of the focus group and three additional interviews undertaken in 2011. All networks interviews were voice recorded, and in a handful of cases quotations cited in Chapter 8 have been taken from review of these recordings, though most were not reviewed in this way, given their quantitative focus. Networks interviews are also listed in the summary of ethnographic work, since these required spending a large amount of time in the field which added to overall insights and understanding of the cases study areas and the operations of groups.

Table 2. Summary ethnographic research activity

Research activity Beacons Gorton Individual qualitative interviews with officers 9 2 Individual meetings with officers 5 2 Recorded telephone conversations with officers 1 2 Officers' meetings observed 1 2 Participatory budgeting exercises in Gorton- participant observation 3 NEM board meetings observed 3 Ward coordination meetings observed 1 Voluntary sector board meeting observed 1 One-day RSL customer conference observed 1 Beacons NDC evaluation focus groups with residents observed 4 NEM meeting for residents regarding service restructure observed 1 Guided tour of area by officer 1 Door-knocking in Gorton with officer (participant observation) 1 Beacons community partnership meetings observed 10 Gorton community partnership (GAT) meetings observed 12 Residents' group meetings observed 2 2 Individual network interviews 31 30 Repeated/ further network interviews 1 2 Individual qualitative interviews with residents 4 2 Contact with residents on doorstep 5 3 Contact with residents on telephone 28 13 Letters from residents 0 2 Additional work for TCI project used in this study Residents' focus group (6 residents- Beacons/ Gorton) 1 Individual qualitative interviews with residents 1 Individual interview with officer from voluntary organisation 1

3.3.6 Data collection instrument: design process This study uses a quantitative survey tool designed to collect data on the inter- organisational relations of resident’s groups, as well as on individual group attributes and attributes and perceptions of the individuals responding on behalf of their group. Much of the content of the resulting survey tools was built on the insights into the characteristics and functioning of groups and the kinds of resources conveyed by their relationships gained during the course of preliminary research. However in order to ensure that these elements were operationalised in a way which would provide data capable of being integrated into, and speaking to, existing academic work in this field, as well as to obtain a sense of what was practically possible in such a study, similar existing academic publications, and in particular the survey tools used to collect similar types of data, were sought and referenced. The questionnaires from five similar studies either looking at inter- organisational relations of non-profit/ civic society organisations, or public sector organisations were examined (e.g. Baldissarri and Diani, 2007/ Diani and Bison, 2004/ Purdue and Diani, 2004; Poole, 2008; Cotterill, 2007; Lelieveldt et al., 2009/ Dekker et al., 2008; Johnson et al., 2008; Holman, 2008). Some examination was also made of social capital-related measures used in the standard evaluation surveys undertaken by the national evaluation team and the local NEM Residents’ Perceptions Surveys.

Design of the self-completion section of the survey on the attributes of groups and the individuals responding on behalf of those groups was undertaken with initial reference to Don Dillman’s ‘Tailored Design Method’ (Dillman, 2007). A detailed review of the draft questionnaire was undertaken with two officers at NEM who work closely with residents’ groups. They helped to make substantial revision to the wording of questions and advised on the logic of questions and the suitability and range of response categories. Some of the questions were tested and discussed with two members of a Gorton residents’ group, and two different formats for the networks interview were tried at the pilot stage, one paper- based, one using cards, before the final paper-based version was developed based on this exercise. Two customer involvement officers at Eastlands Homes also went through the networks questionnaire and offered suggestions to improve it.

3.3.7 Data collection instruments Networks questionnaire

The types of relations measured in the studies referenced in the design of the networks question were similar across them all of them, and broadly reflect the five substantive headings which Kenis and Knoke (2002: 276) enumerate as encompassing the diverse substantive contents of interorganisational network studies: information transmissions,

resource exchanges, power relations, boundary penetrations, and sentimental attachments. Consistent with several of the other studies examined, Kenis and Knoke themselves treat the variety of relations as some kind of hierarchy or at least implying different intensities of interaction, progressing from basic communication or information sharing to collaborating, a higher risk relation requiring some trust and a greater resource commitment (Kenis and Knoke, 2002: 282). In the examination of vertical ties between civil society actors and the state such a hierarchy is reminiscent of Sherry Arnstein’s (1969) ‘Ladder of participation’ and indeed Dekker et al., (2008) operationalise the ladder in three measures of the involvement of civic organizations in local governance ‘informed’, ‘co-decided’, ‘co-produced’, akin to the role of citizens envisaged by civic rationale for New Labour public policy shown in Durose and Richardson’s (2009) typology (Figure 1 in Chapter 2). The relations measured and the scale of measurement are summarised in Table 3 below. The questionnaires and interview scripts are provided for reference in Appendix 6. For both sets of relations the respondent(s) was given the list of actors identified within the boundary of the network and asked to identify which they and other members of the group

Table 3. Relationships examined in networks element of study Relation 1-mode Data type Measure Categories

1.Direct personal contact Valued Strength of relationship 1=Weak; 2=Medium; 3=Strong

2. Receive information Valued Frequency 1=Weekly, 2=Monthly 3= Every 2-6 months 3. Give information Valued Frequency 4= Less than once every 6 months

4. Work together Binary Whether or not to date 0=No, 1=Yes

5. Work together future Valued Whether envisaged 0=No, 1=Maybe, 2=Yes

6. Share members Valued Count of cross-members

Relation 2-mode Data type Measure Categories

1-5 same as above

6. Policy panel Valued Count of members on alter policy panel 7. Board/ governor Valued Count of members on in board/ governor role 8. Employment Valued Count of members employed by alter 9. Volunteer Valued Count of members in ongoing volunteer role 10. Other Valued Count of members in any other formal role *The term ‘policy panel’ refers to governance structures described above

had had direct personal contact with, thinking back over the past two years. The direct and personal elements was intended to ensure responses on the basis of some kind of direct communication, by whatever medium, between individuals, rather than incidental indirect contact, such as seeing people at a meeting but never speaking to them.

The ‘past two years’ specification is included for two related reasons: firstly to ensure that that the respondent provides answers which reflect the nature of the network as it is at the current time, rather than, say, at the height of Beacons’ operations; secondly to provide a time frame for the question which is long enough to allow the respondent to comment on the typical level of contact associated with each relationship in subsequent qualifier questions.

It is common for network measures themselves to be further qualified using measures of tie strength. Granovetter’s 1973 paper ‘Strength of Weak Ties’ describes tie strength as based on “a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie” (Granovetter, 1973: 1361). Marsden and Campbell’s review of the measurement of tie strength concluded that some measure of closeness or intensity is better than measures based on time or frequency (Marsden and Campbell, 1984: 482). This study takes account of both perceived intensity of contact and frequency, through information-sharing.

A substantial number of questions were asked in the networks survey to provide further detail of the actual operation of relationships day-to-day and what they meant to residents themselves, including some open-ended questions. These elements were included to allow the raw measurement of ties to be fully located in the local context, insofar as it gave respondents the freedom to describe the nature of ties and the benefits in the specific context of East Manchester and their neighbourhood. Allowing descriptions to be given in one’s own words, based on one’s own experiences, also responds to the need specifically highlighted in Chapter 2, to account for cognitive processes and the phenomenological aspect of human relations. Emirbayer and Goodwin (1994) robustly critiqued and criticised social networks research for neglecting both context, and also specifically the agentic and cultural dimension of the social, highlighting the way in which well-known studies fell short of this, displaying a tendency towards structural determinism. Since then it has been more common for social networks studies and networks researchers to have regard for the issue of meaning (e.g. White, 1992; Mische, 2008b; Bellotti, 2008).

Group-level attributes questionnaire

Reference to the aforementioned networks studies informed decisions on which group- level attributes may have a bearing on network structure, such as age of the group in years, size in terms of number of members/ people involved, budget in terms of level of income over the past two years. A whole host of questions were included to establish the type and extent of activity of the group within the neighbourhood, as measures of what is termed in this study micro-network level interaction, after Diani’s (1997) reference to the term as describing personal network relations. The questionnaire also asks questions about sources of support and funding and participation in governance structures to capture accessing of POS.

Individual respondent questionnaire

This is a very short questionnaire, mostly containing questions on demographics, but it also has some key perceptions questions akin to some of those used in existing NDC/NEM surveys and what were, under New Labour, national indicator measures of community empowerment, most notably perceptions of how much the group can influence decisions which affect the area.

3.4. Data analysis

3.4.1 Data manipulation and operationalisation of concepts Networks data: meso and macro-networks

As stated earlier, in this study the social network elements are used to operationalise the meso-level and macro-level of interaction. The meso-level is captured by the one-mode networks of relations between groups, whilst the macro-level is captured by the two-mode networks of vertical ties between residents’ groups and actors of the local state. Technically the two-mode network would be more accurately described as meso-macro interaction, since the relations are between levels, rather than within them. However ‘macro’ is used on its own for the purpose of simplicity.

All data, both networks and non-networks, were initially inputted into Microsoft Excel with labels and records of measurement levels. In the case of the meso-network (one-mode) data, particular efforts was made to try to account for the effect of shared membership in these very small groups in which the relationships of individuals are taken to stand for those of groups (accepting of course the inherent “duality of persons and groups” (Breiger, 1974)). Briefly, in all but one case individuals who represented multiple groups were asked to respond regarding just one of those groups, and alternative group members

(perhaps not listed in the NEM database) were sought to respond on behalf of the other. In one case in Gorton this proved more difficult and an individual, arguably the most active in the whole network, provided responses for three of the four groups he was involved with, albeit with careful efforts made to distinguish between answers for one or another group (e.g. using multiple documents). However, it is impossible to single out precisely when a person is interacting in their capacity as leader of one group or another, most notably in the case of information-sharing. For this reason contact ties and information- receiving ties reported by an individual spanning two groups were assigned to both groups. Information-giving and working together were not, in an attempt to not excessively distort the apparent pro-active relational engagement of one group on the basis of the activity of another. Furthermore if both an individual non-sharing respondent and a sharer responding on behalf of their other group(s) reported the same tie and the reported values differed, the highest strength/ frequency of tie was retained over the lower one. The same procedure was used to address the implicit overlap in reporting of macro-network ties for groups with shared members reporting of macro-network ties.

Once this work was completed, both meso and macro-network ties were imputted into UCINET 6 (Borgatti, Everett and Freeman, 2002) and the meso-network data were further manipulated to account for differing responses of alter and ego. The contact ties were made symmetric (“symmetrised”) based on the average of the two reported tie strength: the strength of simple contact depends to at least some degree on the enthusiasm of both parties. The binary work together ties were also symmetrised, since one inherently cannot work ‘together’ alone. Shared ties were symmetrised for the same reason based on the maximum reported. The case of information-receiving and giving is a little more complicated. Here the values were firstly reversed so that 1 was the least frequent category and 4 the most frequent. This was undertaken on both meso-network and macro-network ties. Then a single ‘information-sharing’ matrix was created for meso- network ties by transposing the information-receiving matrix (so that it was effectively ‘perceived information-giving’) and aggregating it with the information-giving matrix, using Matrix Operations (Statistical summaries) in UCINET based on the maximum reported value. The net result was that if at least one party to a pair reported a tie from themselves to the other, a tie appeared in the new network, of whatever value the single reporter had given it. If both parties reported a tie, the larger value of the two was assigned to the tie.

Attribute data: micro-networks, ‘association’ and ‘representation’

Measurement of what has been termed in this study ‘micro-networks’ does not actually amount to a truly relational metric, as is the case for the meso and macro-network data.

The extent of the work required, and burden on the respondent, to collect data on the personal relationships between members of a residents group, in addition to the rest of the data collected here was simply too great. The only alternative was to use proxy measures of resident interaction around the group at the micro-level of the neighbourhood. Two indices were computed to try to capture this dimension of connectivity. Broadly speaking, the first, labelled ‘association’ captured horizontal relationality of the group interacting within the neighbourhood. The second, labelled ‘representation’ measured more vertical type interaction, insofar as the group might be considered a higher level dimension of within-neighbourhood interaction, capturing advocacy or consultation-type interaction. Initially these measures emerged from a principal components analysis (PCA) of a number of group-level attribute variables. Principal components analysis is an exploratory procedure used for reducing multiple sets of variables to one or more dimensions or components of highly correlated, and often conceptually-related, variables. The resulting scores produced on each dimension can be used as aggregate measures of a concept or characteristic which the individual variables loaded onto that dimension may be argued to collectively measure. However, closer examination of the distributions of values on the constituent variables in the PCA, as well as of the distribution of the component scores across the groups, raised doubts about the validity of one of the components as a measure. It was decided that new indices should be self-computed using a smaller selection of variables than had loaded onto the first component in the PCA and the same variables as had loaded onto the second. The constituent variables were standardised and summed to form the association and representation measures. The constituent variables in these two measures were the following:

Association  Frequency with which group runs activities or hold events which anyone can participate in- 5 categories  Number of people involved with group on a regular basis, not including any committee core members- 4 categories  Number of committee members- recoded from scale measure into 4 categories  Frequency of committee meetings – 4 categories

Representation  Frequency with which people who are not involved with the group come to group for help or advice- 5 categories

 Frequency with which members of group contact local services on behalf of local residents to report a problem or seek advice for them- 5 categories  Frequency with which members of group make a specific effort to speak to residents in the neighbourhood to find out what is going on or to get people’s views on what is important to them- 5 categories

All measures asked for responses based on level of activity or participation over the preceding two years. In the case of the association measure, the first item, frequency of running activities or events which anyone can participate in, was weighted double the other items. This was so that the measure would emphasise activity which might reach out beyond the usual suspects who take an interest in residents’ groups.

Political opportunity structures: key measures

The two key types of measure of POS in this study are those which relate to participation in governance structures, and those relating to accessing of funding or support from the local state for the running of one’s group. Three/ four operationalisations of participatory POS are as follows:

 Highest level of involvement in NDC governance- this is a four-category ordinal variable ranging with categories of no involvement, involvement in Residents’ Forum, membership of NDC board, membership of NEM board. Because so few groups were able to be represented on the NEM board (only one residents’ place during NDC, two from 2009), analysis using this measure in Chapter 7 is based on a version in which the highest two categories have been broadbanded to one, bringing together NDC board and NEM board membership.  Total number of times group attended community partnership (CP)- this is a scale variable. In order to employ it in the examination of the relationship between meso- network centrality and group attributes in Chapter 7, it was recoded into a binary variable indicating whether or not the group had attended three or more meetings during the fieldwork period (Attended CP three or more times). The premise here is that three or more attendances indicates a level of commitment to the structure.  Attends other forums- this is a binary variable which indicates responses to a question asking whether the group ever attends other participatory forums such as

ward coordination30, police neighbourhood partnership on crime and disorder and so on. This binary measure did not capture frequency of any reported attendance.

The operationalisations of POS as accessing of funding and support are as follows:  Start-up (referred to in survey as ‘set-up’) funding for group from NDC/NEM  Start-up help or advice for group from NDC/NEM  Start-up funding for group from any other provider  Start-up help or advice from any other provider  Total income over the preceding two years

The final measure, Total income, is considered to be a measure of POS since the most common source of income are grants, the vast majority of which come through the public sector.

3.4.2 Network data analysis: some key features for clarification Overall shape of meso-networks

In their 2007 paper on the inter-organisational networks of civil society organisations in Bristol and Glasgow, Baldassarri and Diani, (2007) provide two ideal-type network structure diagrams, shown here in Figure 4. These represent two extreme possibilities in the global structure of the relations between civil society organisations, variations on which might also be found in this study. The opposition which they represent, between decentralised and hierarchical structures are, according to Diani (2003a: 306) an important dimension of networks, in terms of affecting how a social movement operates and builds its identity (Diani, 2003a: 306). Looking at the ideal-type representations in Figure 4, the first, to the left, depicts a centralized, hierarchical network, whilst the right hand box shows a decentralised, polycentric network. In a hierarchical structure where relations are built around a core of central actors, the potential for mobilisation is high, however such a network is more vulnerable to being undermined by the loss of key players (Baldassarri and Diani, 2007: 741). The polycentric network on the other hand, is at less risk of such collapse, as the cohesion of the network is not dependent on a small number of key actors, and power asymmetries are low, however its lack of centrally focussed connectivity means it is less likely to generate large-scale mobilisation. (Baldassarri and Diani, 2007: 741).

30 Technically ward coordination is not a governance forum but a multi-agency service planning meeting. However residents in Beacons were encouraged to attend it, as one amongst the other governance structures operating in the area. 87

Figure 4. Ideal-type network structures: left- hierarchical, right- polycentric

Source: Baldassarri and Diani, 2007 Nevertheless it is important to note, as Baldassarri and Diani (2007: 740) do, that the few empirical studies of movements networks which exist have not always generated consistent results in this regard; some appear to evidence the merits of a decentralised and multipolar structures, others a highly centralised model. Further analysis of centralised networks can be undertaken using core/ periphery models, to establish the extent to which there is dominant core of multiple highly connected actors and a periphery whose ties connect principally to the core, rather to each other. Core/periphery structures have been found to be the dominant social structure in a great many contexts of human life (Persizt, 2009: 2) from a macro level, such as the structure of world trade, to very local situations, such as the social networks of injecting drug users (Persitz, 2009: 2-3)31.

The scale of networks: cohesion as solidarity and porosity

The networks analysis examines indicators of “structural solidarity” (Fararo and Doreian, 1998), which is based on observed network connections (Moody and White, 2003). The principal measures of cohesion are density, average degree, tie strength, and multiplexity, along with measures of “reach” within the network, based on average distance, and Friedkin’s (1983) “horizon of observability” as well as Luce and Perry’s (1949) clique analysis which is shown in Appendix 3. These terms are explained in the glossary. They are intended to capture in different ways how connected the network is overall and the extent to which any pair of actors are reachable to each other across the pathways made up by the ties in the network. Ideational solidarity is considered with reference to residents’ descriptions of the benefits of having relationships with other groups.

31 See Persizt, 2009: 2-3 for a fuller summary of published empirical studies exemplifying core-periphery structures. 88

“Porosity” is a metaphorical term borrowed from Bridge (2002: 25). He used it to refer to Granovetteresque/ Putnamesque weak ties, or bridging social capital, reaching out of the neighbourhood, contrasting them with strong, bonding ties of solidarity within the neighbourhood, and making the case that policy should focus on the development of weak ties. Porosity in this study focuses on the macro-network (two-mode) interface and might be thought of in the same ways as Fararo and Doreian (1998) think about solidarity- as having both structural and ideational facets. In this study structural porosity refers to the extent of maco-network (two-mode) connectivity between residents’ groups and actors of the local state, to reflect the idea that resources flow across the community/ state boundary. Like structural solidarity, it is measured using density and average degree. Ideational porosity is examined with reference to open-ended responses on the benefits of relations, and using the perceptions measures of influence, of the extent to which regeneration actors can help increase community spirit, and the extent to which they can help residents to improve the local area- three measures in the individual-level questionnaire. Indeed it is important to think about porosity potentially leading to flows in both directions- upwards and downwards.

Correlational analysis of small-N social networks: a note

In this study some bi-variate statistical analysis is undertaken to examine the relationship between two networks (Quadratic Assignment Procedure- QAP- correlation shown in Table 48 in Appendix 3) and between individual actor-level indices of connectivity (e.g. centrality) and attributes of actors using Multiple Regression QAP as simple regression to obtain a correlation coefficient (equal to standardised simple regression coefficient)- this analysis is shown in Chapter 7. Unlike the basic descriptive analysis in this study which is undertaken in SPSS 16.0, this analysis is carried out in UCINET and uses permutation tests to generate standard errors and significance (p) values for analysis. This is necessary because the assumptions of standard statistical analysis- randomly sampled independent cases- are violated here, where nodes and ties are systematically dependent. UCINET’s permutation tests are based on repeated simulations of data. In the case of actor-level scores (e.g. centrality) the scores are repeatedly randomly assigned to the different actor categories, proportional to the number of actors in each category, to produce a standard error of the distribution of values (Hanneman and Riddle, 2005). In the case of QAP correlation of matrices, the rows and columns of ties in the matrices are repeatedly randomly reassigned (Hanneman and Riddle, 2005) to the same end.

Narrative reporting: the retroductive moment

Following on from the core quantitative analysis undertaken in this study, the final stage of the research process involves considering the quantitative findings in the light of the ethnographic work, and with further recourse to theory. Chapter 8 lays out a narrative in which the findings emerging from this process are discussed, highlighting different aspects of the case study areas, the POS, and facets of individual agency which allow explanatory insights to be offered in relation to the quantitative findings. These are neither definitive, nor all-encompassing, but offer flashes of illumination into the depths of mechanisms described therein, akin to that offered by the emerging approach of facet methodology (see Mason, 2011).

3.5 Research ethics

A detailed assessment of the ethical implications of this study was undertaken and submitted to the University of Manchester’s Committee on the Ethics of Research on Human Beings, and the author appeared before the committee in May 2010. Formal ethical approval was received in June 2010, following a requested amendment to the information sheet provided to research participants to emphasis that there was no obligation to participate. However there are a number of ethical issues arising from this study which require elucidation, in particular those relating to the social networks approach, which Borgatti and Molina (2003) argue requires researchers to take extra care in addressing research ethics. This discussion takes its lead from the areas for concern which they highlight in their paper, many of which are plainly salient to this study.

The usual assurance of anonymity is made problematic, as Borgatti and Molina (2003: 338-339) point out, because knowing who the actors is the network are, is critical to the analysis- as well as to data collection. In this study individuals are not named in the roster provided to residents, but the idea is that groups are identifiable through participants’ knowledge of the individuals who represent them. Indeed the study relies on the very possibility that participants may be in contact with all the others in the study, and therefore anonymity within the network cannot be entirely assured. In order minimise the impact of this issue group names are never reported; indeed visualisation is used only once, and no attributes are included therein.

This raises another concern, highlighted by Borgatti and Molina (2003): the lack of consent provided by anyone whose group appears in the list, but who do not participate in the study, since the respondents to whom they are connected report on their connection to them. However since participants merely provide their own perceptions of their

relationship to others in the network, Borgatti and Molina (2003: 343) do not think that this should be an issue, though they later imply that it would be better if all those who are reported on do actually participate in the study (and thus give consent to inclusion)32. This draws attention to the possibility of creating new ethical issues by attempting to address others. For example, missing data arising from non-participation in networks studies is a much more serious issue than in ordinary survey data: actors in a bounded network are non-substitutable and therefore their absence may provide a distorted picture of the network (Borgatti and Molina, 2003: 343), particularly if they are central actors. This thus encourages the ethically responsible researcher to endeavour to maximise participation but increases the risk that potential subjects might feel pressurised into participation. The use of incentives (supermarket vouchers) was the approach adopted in this study, along with regular attendance of meetings, so that potential participants would become familiar with the author. Many of the key residents in the Beacons area had participated in a great deal of research during NDC, and the author of this thesis was warned that she might encounter some resistance to participation for this reason. However, the university’s ethics committee was concerned that the use of incentives might make residents feel obliged to participate, when they were not. It was therefore emphasised in initial contact that this was not the case.

Another area for concern is the possible implication of the impossibility of ensuring anonymity in a study of a specific small network of people in a specific setting, and the extent to which those implications are understood by participants. In this study a visualisation of a network from another study of civil society organisations was shown to participants at the start of the interview and it was explained to them that their group would be included in such visualisations, albeit without being labelled, and that they might therefore be potentially identifiable by others in the network. All participants were given a short information form, which they were invited to read before signing a standard-format consent form, conforming to university requirements. Of course, the extent to which “confidentiality is crucial” depends on the nature of the study and the participants, as Borgatti and Molina, 2003: 342) point out, citing the example of studies of AIDS sufferers or criminals as cases in which it might be quite critical. Only limited personal information was gathered on participants in this study, none of which was especially disclosive.

However, there are wider potential implications of the study which were not discussed directly with participations. Borgatti and Molina’s (2003) paper focuses on the collection of

32 In Beacons three groups are included in the meso-network, who did not participate in the study. None were central actors, and only three attributes were used in relation to them, which were made available through the NEM database: the gender of the representative, the type of group, and whether they attended the community partnership. 91

networks data in an organisational setting where participants might face the sack as a consequence of the researcher handing over network data in which they are identifiable. In the East Manchester setting the stakes are lower but this nevertheless merit consideration. For example, the comparison of the networks of Beacons and Gorton groups, and the identification of their weaknesses might be considered damaging to those residents’ groups included in the network, who are likely to be well known amongst council officers, who deal with them on a day-to-day basis and are involved in decisions about funding allocation. Of course, this study was commissioned and developed to review the successes and failings of policy and its execution in the East Manchester setting, but this does not preclude judgement of resident capacity itself, which has necessarily been considered, since it is an important explanatory factor.

In a sense, then, this is another area in which the risk of doing harm is increased in the pursuit of ethical practice. It was felt that the collection of substantial ethnographic data, at least by the standards of a survey-driven study, was necessary not only for purely scientific purposes, but in order to avoid the risk of misrepresentation. However in order to report the full meaning of the findings, it has been necessary to present the data in a way which increases the extent to which key individuals are identifiable, at least to others in the network. The data in question relates almost exclusively to observations made in public meetings, or in conversations in researcher-respondent capacity, but this nevertheless remains problematic. For this reason as much effort as was humanly possible has been made by the author to elucidate different perspectives on the arguments which the ethnographic data are used to illustrate- and to represent the enormous constraints and difficulties placed on participating residents and officers by the circumstances of their daily lives, and by externally-mandated expectations in their positions within the regeneration context, albeit without negating the role of individual agency.

3.6 Summary

This chapter has attempted to provide a comprehensive overview of the empirical basis of this study in the East Manchester context, its aims, development, design, execution and ethical issues. It has established the study as a quantitative study of community infrastructure operationalised as inter-organisational social networks, which includes a significant periphery of ethnographic work. This was required in order to permit a meaningful execution of the case study approach, both in terms of gaining access to participants and gaining sufficiently in-depth understanding to do justice to participants empirically and ethically. The chapter laid out key elements of the data analytic approach

and the way in which ethnographic data would be employed to illuminate the core of quantitative findings, consistent with the case study method and critical realist philosophy.

Chapter 4. Micro-networks of residents’ groups and the neighbourhood- level foundation of community infrastructure

This chapter examines findings in relation to the micro-networks of residents’ groups based around their role within the neighbourhood in which they are located, whether as a neighbourhood-based, park or green space-based, or identity/ culture-based, group. The first part of this chapter examines data relating to research question 1, which considers the demographic profile of participants, and scale of participation and opportunities for participation provided by the group. This allows something to be said about the extent to which residents’ groups are embedded in the micro-networks of the neighbourhood, allowing them to represent the wider population and serve as a neighbourhood-level resource. The second part of the chapter examines data relating to research question 2, to consider the functions which residents’ groups serve, both within the neighbourhood and as a resource to the neighbourhood through the support and intelligence provided by meso and macro-level relations. This allows insights into the purpose of community infrastructure, so that the study can draw conclusions about the outcomes associated with relationships, rather than being confined merely to description of the structure of those relations presented in chapter 5 and 6.

4.1 Interaction and representation: the composition of residents’ group participants and the scale of group activity

4.1.1. The socio-demographic composition of residents’ groups Table 4 provides frequencies on a number of measures of socio-demographic characteristics, some of which summarise the composition of groups and some of which are individual-level measures of the characteristics of the group members who participated in the study. The profile of Beacons and Gorton groups is found to be very similar on gender, ethnicity, employment status and housing tenure: women are over- represented33; ethnic minorities are strikingly under-represented; there are more retired people representing groups in both areas than there are people who are employed, or not in employment for a reason other than retirement; and group representatives are primarily owners of their homes, or social renters in non-council registered social housing. This broadly corresponds to the expected profile of residents’ group representatives suggested by Mohan’s (2011) analysis of the English ‘civic core’ based on the Citizenship Survey. The civic core of people who do most volunteering was found to be more likely than the

33 This tendency towards greater female involvement is even more pronounced at the level of individual participants in this study: 68.3% (28) of 41 Beacons respondents are female and 71.4% (30) Gorton respondents.

non-core to be female, of middle age, owner occupier, a long-standing resident in the neighbourhood of at least ten years, and with higher education (Mohan, 2011: 8).

Table 4. Socio-demographic characteristics of groups and respondents representing groups Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent Gender of group Male 926.5930.0 leaders Female 20 58.8 17 56.7 Mixed 514.7413.3 Gender mix of More women 18 58.1 16 53.3 group participants More men 39.7413.3 About even 10 32.3 10 33.3 Ethnic mix of group None 16 51.6 14 46.7 participants- proportion Less than half 14 45.2 13 43.3 of BME background About half 00.0310.0 More than half 13.200.0 Age of respondent in Under 18 37.337.1 years 18-24 00.000.0 25-34 24.912.4 35-44 5 12.2 4 9.5 44-59 14 34.1 11 26.2 60-65 717.11023.8 Over 65 10 24.4 13 31.0 Employment status Employed 15 36.6 11 26.2 of group leader Student/ unemploy/ home/ disabled 9 22.0 6 14.3 Retired 17 41.5 25 59.5 Housing tenure Council property 1 2.4 5 11.9 Housing assocation property 13 31.7 12 28.6 Rental from private landlord 1 2.4 1 2.4 Owner occupier 25 61.0 21 50.0 Shared ownership scheme 1 2.4 3 7.1 Age of group in years 1-3 years 39.7516.7 4-7 years 10 32.3 12 40.0 8-10 years 6 19.4 6 20.0 More than 10 years 12 38.7 7 23.3 Age of group in years Mean 9.3 8.5 Media 8.0 6.0 Length of time None 12.400.0 respondent 1-5 years 00.037.1 lived in the area 6-10 years 49.8511.9 11-15 years 49.8819.0 16-25 years 49.8819.0 26-49 years 18 43.9 9 21.4 50 or more years 10 24.4 9 21.4 Length of time in area Mean 35.0 28.7 in years Median 36.0 19.5 Length of time Less than 4 years 922.51024.4 respondent involved 4-7 years 12 30.0 22 53.7 with group 8-10 years 7 17.5 6 14.6 10-15 years 9 22.5 1 2.4 16 or more years 37.524.9 Group reps previous None 16 51.6 8 26.7 vol/ community group Yes 15 48.4 22 73.3

The demographic profile of participants in NDC nationally was found to be similar, emphasising older adults of working age, women more than men, and people with the

highest level of educational qualifications (CLG, 2010: 40). Oliver (1984: 603) describes the relationship between political and civic participation and socio-economic status (education and income) as “one of the most well-documented correlations in social science”. Though educational attainment is not measured in this study, the vast majority of participants where highly lucid and articulate people, very much including one participant who freely admitted a lack of reading and writing skills. The virtually non-existent representation of ethnic minority communities34 in these case studies indicates a degree of weakness in terms of the ability of those neighbourhood groups engaging with regeneration through NDC/NEM to be in meaningfully representative. Even in the ward with the smallest BME population in this study, Ancoats and Clayton (Beacons), it is estimated that 10 percent of the population is of BME origin (Manchester City Council, 2010). Meanwhile in the other wards, the figures range between 12.2 percent and 17.6 percent, with the exception of Ardwick ward, (covering West Gorton), with an estimated 48 percent of the population of BME origin (Manchester City Council, 2010)35.

The areas differ on other measures: firstly on the age of group representatives: Beacons groups tend to be run by people who are younger (in middle rather than retirement age), and indeed a greater proportion of Beacons participants are employed than is the case in Gorton, though further exploration finds that even in Beacons half of the female majority are retired. Beacons residents tend to have lived in the area longer than Gorton residents, by a considerable margin, comparing the median number of years. This finding should also be placed in the context of increased migration from both new EU accession states since 2004, along with the placing of asylum-seekers in private-rented accommodation within the NEM wards since the early/ mid 2000s as part of the UK Border Agency’s asylum-seeker dispersal; despite these new incomers, not a single participant in the study had lived in the area for less than five years in Beacons36.

This fact also suggests that people moving into properties on new developments in Beacons from outside, rather than within the area, may tend not to be drawn into residents’ groups; at least if they are, they are neither establishing their own new groups, nor taking the helm of existing groups with links to NDC, which would have led them to show up in this study.

34 At the individual respondent level only one single residents’ group representative in each geographical area was of BME origin, and two White British respondents in Gorton specified a religion other than Christianity in response to the ethnicity question. 35 These ward level projections derived by Manchester City Council using ONS experimental ward statistics for 2007 cited in Manchester City Council ward profiles, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2010d, 2010e. 36 The one respondent who has never lived in the area is a former Droylsden resident, just over the local authority/ Beacons boundary, who is involved with a green space group close to the boundary but within the Beacons area. 96

Further to this point residents’ groups in Beacons tend to have been running longer than Gorton groups: indeed the largest group age category in Beacons is ‘More than ten years’, thus predating the NDC initiative. Meanwhile nearly a third of Beacons participants are longstanding members of their group, going back ten or more years, though in both areas, most notably Gorton, there appear to be healthy numbers of people who joined groups within the preceding 7 years. Nevertheless in Gorton, though groups tend to be newer, the majority pre-date the area’s accession to the resident involvement structures of NEM in 2007, since they are more than 3 years old. However, it is worthy of note that nearly three quarters of Gorton’s groups are represented by someone with previous experience of involvement in a community or voluntary group, whereas a small majority of groups in Beacons do not have this experience.

4.1.2 The micro-network contact profile of groups: association and representation Next this chapter considers the scale and frequency of associational and representational contact and interaction between residents’ groups and local residents. Table 5 contains a number of different group-level measures of associational activity.

Generally the view articulated in the literature of participation being a ‘minority sport’ is, unsurprisingly, confirmed here: committee sizes and group sizes in terms of the number of people regularly involved with the group, tend to be small. Gorton errs on the side of smaller group size, and Beacons on smaller committee size; indeed nearly a third of Beacons groups have committees of 3 people or less. A very small number of people may be all that is required for a community group to function and be considered legitimate in representative terms, though three falls well below Gilchrist’s (2000) optimum six to eight members. Indeed, notwithstanding the numbers reported in the survey, impressions obtained in the course of interviews regarding the level of participation in groups suggests that as many as a third in each case study area may be based entirely around the activities of one or two people. Table 46 in Appendix 2, adds to this picture. It shows reasons given by residents for the demise of groups which were no longer active at the time of fieldwork, when contacted by telephone or on the doorstep in initial contact made using the database of groups provided by New East Manchester. As Table 46 shows, in the Beacons area the residualisation of group membership to one or two people was the issue most commonly evoked in reporting the decline of the group, cited by representatives of 12 former groups.

Table 5. Frequencies of key measures of associational contact and interaction Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent No. committee 1-3 10 32.3 6 20.0 members 4-7 15 48.4 14 46.7 8-10 4 12.9 7 23.3 11 or more 2 6.5 3 10.0 Number of committee Mean 5.6 6.3 members Median 5.4 6.0 No. people Less than 10 15 48.4 18 60.0 regularly involved 10 to 20 11 35.5 10 33.3 with group (past 2 years) 21 to 30 0 0.0 0 0.0 More than 30 5 16.1 2 6.7 No. people attending Less than 10 13 68.4 5 25.0 open meetings 10 to 20 2 10.5 7 35.0 (past 2 years) 21 to 30 1 5.3 2 10.0 More than 30 3 15.8 6 30.0 Frequency of Less than one every six months 6 19.4 6 20.0 committee meetings Once every six months 7 22.6 3 10.0 (past 2 years) Once every couple of months 12 38.7 10 33.3 Once a month or more 6 19.4 11 36.7 Frequency of open Never 12 38.7 10 33.3 meetings Less than once a year 1 3.2 1 3.3 (past 2 years) Once a year 6 19.4 5 16.7 Once every six months 2 6.5 3 10.0 Once every couple of months 7 22.6 5 16.7 Once a month or more 3 9.7 6 20.0 Frequency of running Never 11 35.5 10 33.3 events Less than once a year 1 3.2 2 6.7 (past 2 years) Once a year 6 19.4 3 10.0 Once every six months 4 12.9 2 6.7 Once every couple of months 5 16.1 5 16.7 Once a month or more 4 12.9 8 26.7 Tell local community No 8 25.8 3 10.0 about group activity Yes 23 74.2 27 90.0

The frequency and extent of associational activity may be more meaningful measures of capacity than raw participation counts, since they evidence the realisation of what it is to be a community group, rather than merely the potential locked in the individuals who carry the group title. On associational activity Gorton tends to perform better than Beacons; attendances at open meetings are particularly poor in Beacons with nearly seventy percent of groups selecting the ‘Less than 10’ people category. Whatever the reasons, this suggests that residents’ groups in Beacons do not elicit much interest from the wider population in the area, despite their potential to link residents to the regeneration initiative. Meanwhile the majority of Gorton groups hold committee meetings at least once every couple of months, and over a quarter run events or activities once a month or more, whereas frequencies in the bi-monthly to yearly range are more common in Beacons. The proportions of groups which never hold open meetings or run events is very similar in both areas: in the 30 to 40 percent range, whilst the vast majority of groups communicate their activities to the local community, though here too Gorton exceeds Beacons.

Closer scrutiny of which groups report not communicating in this way reveals that they are mostly groups with only one or two people involved, and who are not (or no longer) very active in their neighbourhoods; though, intriguingly, two of the Beacons groups in question are represented by individuals who are highly visible community activists within the realm of those engaging with local agencies/ in local governance. The fact that so many groups never hold open meetings is also noteworthy, particularly since formally constituted groups are supposed to hold an annual general meeting open to anyone. Further inspection of this issue reveals that, of those groups who report never holding an open meeting, three quarters of those in Beacons (9 groups), and 60 percent of those in Gorton (6 groups) declare themselves to be formally constituted. This gives an indication of how casual the practices of these groups may be, even amongst apparently more formalised, officially recognised ones.

Moving on from associational measures, Table 6 shows frequencies of representational or advocacy-type activity. These are responses to specific closed questions about three kinds of advocacy/ representative interaction with people in the neighbourhood: i) residents not involved with the group coming to the group for help or advice; ii) members of the group contacting local services on behalf of local residents or seeking advice for them; and iii) groups making a specific effort to speak to local residents to find out what is going on or to get people’s views on what is important to them (aside from through open meetings). What these amount to are i) advice or advocacy-seeking by local residents from the group; ii) advice or advocacy-seeking by the group on behalf of local residents; and iii) consultation with local residents by the group to inform their activities and interactions with agencies, allowing them to enact a representative role.

Overall such activities tend to be more frequent in Gorton than in Beacons. In Gorton engagement in representational interaction with local residents oscillates between 40 to 45 percent on the ‘Once a month or more’ category across all three measures, whereas the picture is more mixed and tending towards less frequency in Beacons. The fact that as many as 45 percent of groups in Beacons report never making a specific effort to consult local residents on their needs or interests raises serious questions about their capacity to represent and to be bridges from the neighbourhood to engagement in regeneration . Nevertheless, even in Beacons there appears to be a small core of groups which do engage in frequent representational

Table 6. Frequencies on measures of representational contact Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent Frequency people not involved with group Never 5 16.1 5 16.7 come to group for help or advice Less than once every six months 10 32.3 0 0.0 Once every six months 3 9.7 5 16.7 Once every couple of months 6 19.4 8 26.7 Once or twice a month 3 9.7 6 20.0 Once or twice a week 4 12.9 6 20.0 Frequency members of group contact Never 6 19.4 4 13.3 local services on behalf of local Less than once every six months 5 16.1 2 6.7 residents to report problem/ seek advice Once every six months 5 16.1 4 13.3 Once every couple of months 9 29.0 6 20.0 Once or twice a month 3 9.7 4 13.3 Once or twice a week 3 9.7 10 33.3 Frequency members of group make Never 14 45.2 8 26.7 specific effort to speak to residents to find Less than once every six months 1 3.2 4 13.3 out what is going on/ get their views Once every six months 4 12.9 2 6.7 on what is important to them Once every couple of months 3 9.7 4 13.3 Once or twice a month 7 22.6 2 6.7 Once or twice a week 2 6.5 10 33.3 interaction of one kind or another. The level of pro-activity implied by Gorton’s stronger representational profile should perhaps also not be overstated; it may be partly a bi- product of the more frequent, and better attended associational activities. Such events create space for consultative and advocacy-type interaction to take place casually, without any concerted efforts at door-knocking or ringing around on the part of either group members or non-member residents.

As an extension to this analysis of contact and representational capacity indices of association and representation were computed, as described in Chapter 3, which are used to also facilitate exploration of the relationship between neighbourhood-level micro- network interaction and meso and macro levels of community infrastructure, reported in subsequent chapters. Descriptive statistics and histograms of the distributions these indices are shown in Figure 5 below. These summarise the picture of somewhat greater micro-network level interaction in Gorton compared to Beacons, portraying an image of Beacons groups as mostly not so well-embedded in the micro-networks of the neighbourhood compared to those in Gorton when it comes to group activity and interactivity. Correlating the two indices for each area shows no correlation on the Beacons measures (r=0.142; p=0.445)37, and a weak positive correlation between the two with borderline statistical significance at the 0.05 level on the Gorton measures (r=0.349; p=0.058).

37 Statistics based on correlation coefficients and p values produced in UCINET 6 (Borgatti, Everett and Freeman, 2002), as provided by output from a simple regression with 10,000 permutations. 100

Figure 5. Distributions of scores on indices of association and representation Beacons (N=31) Gorton (N=30)

Association

Min= -5.83 Mean= -0.32 Min= -5.83 Mean= 0.33 Max= 8.51 Standard deviation= 3.17 Max= 7.38 Standard deviation= 2.54 Representation

Min= -4.13 Mean= -0.69 Min= -4.13 Mean= 0.71 Max= 4.20 Standard deviation= 2.38 Max= 4.20 Standard deviation= 2.53

4.2 The function of residents’ groups as actors within and beyond the neighbourhood

This analysis is built on in the next section to address research question 2 regarding the function which residents’ groups carry out in their own business, and in their interactions with other groups in the area.

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4.2.1 Group types and types of micro-level organising Table 7 below summarises the distribution of groups by the type of group, as well as the type of events groups report running in the neighbourhood, based on the coding of open- ended descriptions.

Table 7. Frequencies of group types and activity types Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent Group type Neighbourhood-based 25 73.5 17 56.7 Parks/ green spaces 7 20.6 7 23.3 Culture/ identity 2 5.9 6 20.0 Type of activities Fun/ social 20 100.0 17 85.0 run by group Cleaning-greening 8 40.0 6 30.0 Skills 5 25.0 6 30.0 Advice/ consultation 1 5.0 2 10.0 Cultural/ heritage 3 15.0 6 30.0 The largest category of group type shown in Table 7 encompasses groups who indicated that they were a tenants’ group/ residents’ groups/ community associations and/ or a neighbourhood watch group, since the general residents’ group purpose and the specific neighbourhood security purpose often coincided. Parks and green spaces includes allotments and cemeteries, whilst culture/ identity encompasses groups orientated towards history or heritage, or catering for a particular demographic group.

Responses for types of activities shown in Table 7 have been coded as multiple responses (hence the total percentages greater than 100). This shows that nearly all groups had run activities in the preceding two years which may be described as fun or social. These most commonly encompassed festivals and parties in parks, events for key calendar dates such as Guy Fawkes’ night, Halloween and Christmas, and barbecues and street parties. However it was difficult to single out any event run by residents’ groups as being quite plainly not intended to be for ‘fun’; the two groups in Gorton to whom this applied described events where the focus was very much on addressing problems on the estate or on the development of particular skills, without any corresponding ‘fun for fun’s sake’ aspect to them. As one might expect, cleaning and greening activities, which are so often a focus for active residents, ranked highly amongst those activities recounted. They included anything from putting together hanging baskets to clean-ups of parks and open spaces, and growing produce on allotments.

The ‘Skills’ category should not be interpreted in a strict employability sense, since it included arts and crafts and extended into the sphere of knowledge, such as activities which entailed learning about nature. The ‘advice/ consultation’ category includes references to meetings with officers and councillors, and one reference to an ‘open information day’. The fact that so few groups report organising events with a focus on 102

these types of activities may reflect the fact that they are harder to generate attendance for, and also the fact that open meetings, which were asked about separately in this study, are likely to be directed towards this sort of activity. Finally the ‘cultural/ heritage’ type of events include, most prominently, the activities to celebrate Gorton’s centenary celebrations (100 years since it was subsumed in Manchester City boundary), events run by a group who take care of a park and what was once the local manor house, and other activities linked to the heritage of an area, including Armistice Day celebrations.

4.2.2 Meso-level definitions of group purpose and resourcing Next to be considered are the purposes and resources which residents’ groups report as arising from their interactions with other groups beyond the neighbourhood at the meso- network level. Although this clearly means thinking beyond purely the micro-level focus of this chapter, it is critical to a full understanding of the impact which groups have at the micro-network level, since these purposes help define the resources which the group attracts into the neighbourhood through those relations.

Table 8. Frequencies of types of information shared by residents’ groups- coded open ends Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent 1. Signposting to officer contacts/ 'who to' 3 11.5 5 21.7 source things from 2. Sharing/ comparing experiences of local 2 7.7 0 0.0 services 3. Sharing 'how to' advice on problem-solving 10 38.5 3 13.0 and fighting causes 4. Sharing 'how to' advice on setting up 4 15.4 6 26.1 groups/ running events/ ideas 5. Local intelligence- on crime, building 12 46.2 12 52.2 development, decisions affecting residents 6. Local intelligence on what's going on- 7 26.9 6 26.1 events 7. Promoting what own group is doing- events 12 46.2 11 47.8 or action 8. Information on funding- where to apply/ 4 15.4 6 26.1 how to apply 9. Passing on info from local agencies/ NEM 0 0.0 2 8.7 on issues of interest- crime, housing refurbs. 10.Communication about socialising/ social 4 15.4 1 4.3 events Beacons N=26; Gorton N=23

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First to be considered here is the type of information shared with other groups in the network of meso-level relations, shown in Table 8. The categories are based on the coding up of open-ended responses to a question asking groups to give examples of the kinds of information they share with other groups. In both Beacons and Gorton local intelligence on the activities of big public and private actors (Item 5) is cited by the majority and near majority of responding groups, indicating that reacting to decisions affecting the area is a major component of the role enacted by residents’ groups in these settings. This may often amount to being a channel for information coming directly from actors at the macro-level, though only two of the Gorton groups are explicit about this. The reporting of signposting upwards to officers and funding sources also underlines how meso-network level interaction can be supportive of micro-network activity by promoting targeted macro- network interaction to obtain resources and generate service responses. The high levels of reporting of the promoting of one’s own group’s activities (Item 7) suggests that possibility that being active at the micro-network level within one’s own neighbourhood may help foment or sustain relationships with actors at higher levels; it gives a reason for

Table 9. Frequencies of types of things residents’ groups work together on- coded open ends Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent 1. Set up pilot projects which could become council services 1 5.3 0 0.0 2. Meet to decide joint action on issues; get back- up/ gang up on agencies when they're wrong 5 26.3 0 0.0 3. Meet to share intelligence e.g. on crime 1 5.3 0 0.0 4. Advice on how to do or get things- verbal support 4 21.1 3 15.8 5. Help other groups to set up/ get funding 3 15.8 0 0.0 6. Liaise to coordinate timetabling of individual group's events 1 5.3 0 0.0 7. Help at/ attend each other's events/ activities 9 47.4 13 68.4 8. Help organise for events- find volunteers, etc 0 0.0 2 10.5 9. Share resources- e.g. equipment or space 0 0.0 4 21.1 10.Joint events/ environmental clean-ups 0 0.0 2 10.5 11. Work with other groups on public agency forums 2 10.5 2 10.5 Beacons N=19; Gorton N=19

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contact and, depending on the activity, may also make groups more visible both to other groups at the meso-level and to state actors at the macro-level. Overall these responses suggest that Gorton groups are easily as network-aware and network-active Beacons, in terms of appreciating the resources which relationships can provide to groups and in actively mobilising them.

Moving on to Table 9 (above), this shows a heavy emphasis on support related to associational-type activity as the manifestation of working together ties, and reiterates the point that groups which are active at the micro-network network level can build concrete meso-network relations based around that activity, as well as drawing in specific resources for specific purposes. If there is any contrast to be made between Beacons groups and Gorton groups using the small counts here, it amounts to a greater tendency amongst Beacons groups to act and interact reactively to local agencies, ‘ganging up’ in opposition (Item 2). Another possible distinction is on the collective organising front. Though groups in both areas characterise mere verbal support and interaction in agency settings (items 4 and 7) as working together, there is evidence of a level of resource- sharing and collective organising in Gorton (items 8, 9 and 10) which isn’t spontaneously reported in Beacons. This may partly be a manifestation of the fact that Gorton groups are on average busier on the associational organising front than Beacons, as shown earlier in this chapter.

In practice the two areas have much in common, it therefore seems wise not to overburden these data with hefty claims of explanatory power. After all, Table 7 showed that when Beacons groups do organise activities, they are just as likely to be fun or social affairs as is the case for Gorton groups. Nevertheless, the idea that that the two areas may have different cultures of activism- one more horizontally orientated, one more vertically orientated- does offer itself as a possible explanation for the differences in Tables 8 and 9, and for the fact that Beacons groups perform somewhat more poorly on average than Gorton’s on the association and representation measures.

4.2.3 Macro-level collaboration which impacts on the neighbourhood Finally in this chapter considers how interactions between residents’ groups and local agencies may impact on the neighbourhood.

Groups were asked specifically about three types of collaboration with local agencies: i) working with local agencies on a project which provided a new resource for the neighbourhood as a whole; ii) work with local agencies which helped change the way

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Table 10. Activities undertaken by groups in collaboration with local agencies

Beacons Gorton Activity Count Percent Count Percent Involved in a project No 16 55.2 18 64.3 which provides new resource for neighbourhood Yes 13 44.8 10 35.7

Involved in change to No 24 82.8 20 71.4 way services delivered in Neighbourhood Yes 5 17.2 8 28.6

Involved in developing No 25 86.2 23 82.1 new policy affecting neighbourhood or wider area Yes 4 13.8 5 17.9

Beacons N= 29; Gorton N=28 services are delivered in the neighbourhood; iii) work with local agencies which led to the development of a new policy affecting the neighbourhood or wider area. Frequencies are shown in Table 10. Respondents were also asked to provided open-ended details of the kinds of activities entailed and which agencies they had worked with.

Looking at the frequencies of activities undertaken in collaboration with local agencies, this shows that in all cases the majority of groups do not report engaging in this kind of work through their group. In Beacons being involved in a project which provided a new resource for the neighbourhood was reported more frequently than in Gorton. In both areas such resources encompass new play equipment in parks, replanting, or more ambitiously from a Gorton group, working with a local school to get a new community room built for both school and community use. Changes to the way services are delivered were more likely to be achieved in Gorton than in Beacons, and included getting the council to provide more recycling bins, getting street-cleaning schedules or routes changed, and improved work with the police in liaison with the community. Policy development was the rarest outcome of collaboration with agencies, and mostly amounted to contributions made through participation in the governance structures of local agencies, or consultation exercises. It is surprising and impressive to find that groups in the Gorton area, which has not had the extent of support and linking to agencies provided by the NDC initiative, show as much, or even greater, engagement in resourcing, service-design and policy-design when compared to Beacons groups. However, the overall message here is that this level of activity is even more of a minority sport than residents’ group participation in general. As such it is a salutary reminder of the limits of what can be

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reasonably expected of small-scale, voluntary groups, especially in deprived neighbourhoods.

4.3 Summary of findings and discussion

In terms of what these data say in response to research question 1 regarding the scale and composition of groups, it is apparent that there are a number of obvious areas of weakness, insofar with regard to representing the wider neighbourhood: firstly in terms of low numbers, and secondly demographically, reflecting a lack of: younger people; people of non-White British origin, (who are more likely to live in private rented accommodation than the tenures most represented here); men of any age; and people not in employment for reasons other than retirement. The latter are likely to be the more vulnerable or over- stretched members of a community, such as people claiming out-of-work benefits who are limited in their capacity to participate in the labour market due to ill health, addiction, care commitments, poor educational attainment, or criminal record, or some combination of these. It is not surprising to find such groups not involved in residents’ associations, given the recognised patterns of participation cited earlier, and the obvious constraints which some of those conditions/ responsibilities may place on any kind of group participation outside of the home. The usual homophily effects, which were highlighted in Chapter 2, with reference to Knoke (1990) are also relevant; groups who do not easily identify with the kinds of activities commonly associated with these types of voluntary groups are unlikely to take an interest in them, or be encouraged by members of the group to do so. The findings in this chapter therefore emphasise a very important limit in the capacity for these types of groups to be representative of the full range of needs and life experiences within any area, especially deprived neighbourhoods with higher concentrations of people with complex needs.

It is in the same vein that in their 2008 paper on their research into participation in the Beacons NDC area, Blakeley and Evans strike a more positive, expressing surprise at just how much participation has taken place, in light of the obstacles, which they summarise as concentric circles of: the wider social and economic environment; the policies of the central state; the limited discretion available to local government; and the multiple deprivations faced daily by individuals and families within relatively excluded communities (Blakely and Evans, 2008: 110). Indeed, with regard to the latter point, it is worth emphasising that time poverty may be as much of a barrier as financial poverty in places where people are more likely to work long hours in low-paid jobs, and struggle with caring responsibilities associated with larger families and poorer health (NEF, 2010b: 3). The reality of high morbidity and mortality is brought out particularly strongly in the Beacons’

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area by the number of reports of the demise of groups relating to death or illness, shown in Table 46 in Appendix 2.

The relatively low level of organising and meeting within neighbourhoods must therefore also be seen in this light. Nevertheless, it compounds the problem of low participation resulting from such constraints since, by not running open meetings or low-commitments activities which a wider constituency can participate in, they remain closed to those who aren’t prepared, or don’t have the time, to be formally or regularly be associated with a group. With a third of groups in each area never holding open meetings or running events, and many groups, especially in the Beacons’ area, having little advocacy or representative-type interaction within the neighbourhood, the extent of representative capacity embodied by the population of groups in this study is immediately shown to be limited. Of course, this does not mean that the small number of individuals who are active under the residents’ group banner do not benefit their neighbourhood, particularly where they are monitoring service standards and calling agencies to account. Indeed the reality of small numbers need not necessarily be a major barrier to the successful and ongoing operation of groups. Oliver (1984: 602) recalls the godfather of community organising in the USA, Saul Alinsky’s, claim that participation by just three percent of the community is sufficient for a community-based organisation to be successful (Alinksy, in Thursz, 1972 cited by Oliver). This critical issue, as highlighted in Chapter 2, with reference to Wainwright (2003) and others, is openness at the foundations of neighbourhood groups, allowing representatives to be accountable to a wider constituency.

However the process of linking residents who participate in governance and service- delivery with their neighbours, to allow consultation on business raised in formal meetings requires skills and resources: the capacity to relate to constituent communities and back to agencies (Gaventa’s (2004:26) “skills of representation”), forums in which discussion within-community can take place (Taylor, 2011: 176) on the subjects reported back from meetings, and other information distribution mechanisms (Purdue, 2001: 2218), as well as some degree of financial resources to facilitate distribution to diverse constituencies (Engel, 2010: 11). In other words, it is no small ask. The kinds of settings provided by the activities and events captured in the measure of association are potential sites for fuller enactment of this demanding role. This is particularly so, given the importance of informal settings in opening lines of communication by lowering stakes and levelling the playing field in situations of unequal power, so that people feel less afraid to speak candidly (Gilchrist, 2004: 75-76). Fundamentally, informality allows people to become involved on their own terms, which is critical, given the fact that community involvement relies on the willingness of people to enter into it voluntarily (Gilchrist, 2004: 76). In light of these 108

issues, the finding of more limited association-type activity in the Beacons, relative to Gorton, presents more grounds for concern than might first appear to be the case, with regard to the sustainability of community infrastructure left in the area after the end of NDC.

This brings the discussion around to findings in relation to research question 2 regarding the function of residents’ groups. Most groups are not going about business which threatens to change the world or revolutionise the serving of public needs in the ways architects Big Society agenda of the current government would like- more voluntary provision, less from the state. Activities undertaken here are small-scale, many are social and sociable, and where they are problem-solving, they are likely to be directed towards environmental conditions and immediate operational issues of service-delivery. In Beacons, in particular, it seems activities are also more likely to be stimulated as a reaction to the actions of agencies rather than a response to needs raised by local residents or innovations born of self-organising within the community. However groups in both areas report organising events and supporting each other in such endeavours. As regards higher level activity and engagement with the local state, one Beacons resident did suggest the setting up of pilot projects which could become council services, reported as Item 1 in Table 9, but this individual is a board member of a local voluntary sector organisation which has undertaken such activity. Whilst the organisation originally emerged from the joining of three residents’ associations, assisted by NDC in its early days, it is now a highly formalised body with charitable status, a board of directors, paid staff and its own premises on two separate sites. This raises its own issues with regard to representation of the community, since the more formalised an organisation becomes, running government contracts and employing paid officers, the less it can be said to be embedded in the community, as Taylor (2011) and Chanan (2003) observe. Indeed Taylor (2011: 218) notes that even when community members remain involved in such organisations, they may offer no more control to service users in the community than state or market providers. As reported in Chapter 2, the response to such issues amongst participants in Engel’s (2010) study was to emphasise the advantages of retaining the capacity for self-provisioning within the community. However, the type of community infrastructure embodied by the residents’ groups in Beacons and Gorton is not sufficiently sophisticated or well-resourced to make such a level of independence from the state a realistic option. Indeed recent research by the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) confirms that voluntary organisations are typically fewer in number in deprived neighbourhoods (as measured by IMD) and tend to be more dependent on public funding than those in more affluent areas (see Mohan, 2011). The reality that many of the so-called groups in this study are so small, and some little more 109

than individual community champions bearing the ‘group’ label, only magnifies the risk of dependency. To echo Conn’s (2011) contrast of community outreach and in-pull, cited in Chapter 2, the infrastructure they embody may become a de facto outgrowth of the infrastructure of the state operating within the community, rather than a manifestation of the infrastructure of the community engaging with, but maintaining some independence from, the state. This issue is considered further in chapters 8 and 9.

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Chapter 5. Meso-networks and the inter-organisational level of community infrastructure

This chapter examines the meso-networks of residents’ groups. The first section, 5.1, presents data relating to research question 3, which considers the global structure of relationships between groups and what this says about structural solidarity and mobilisation capacity of the networks. This involves analysis of the scale, strength and shape of the network structure. This is followed by examination of responses to an open- ended question regarding the benefits of relationships with other groups, which are used to reflect back on the preceding structural analysis to draw conclusions about the capacity for these groups to mobilise collectively as a network.

The second section of the chapter, 5.2, examines data relating to research question 4, regarding the future of these networks: their durability and indicators of growth or decline. This involves analysis combining the measure of existing collaborative relationships (work together) and the prospective measure of anticipated future collaborative relations (work together in future) to assess the net decline or growth of connectivity. Qualitative responses to questions about reasons why groups don’t interact with one another are also considered, as well as reasons for the demise of groups themselves, to shed further light on the dynamics of network growth and decline. Finally this analysis is brought together with findings from the first part of the chapter to comment on the prospects for sustainability of these network structures.

The format of the network data analysed in this chapter, as it stood following data manipulation, is shown in Table 11 for clarification.

Table 11 . Meso-network relations in this study: post data manipulation Relation 1-mode Data type Measure Categories 1. Direct personal Valued Strength of Values: 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, contact-past two Symmetric relationship 3.00, based on averaging years responses: 0=None, 1=Weak, 2=Medium, 3=Strong 2. Information- Valued Frequency 0= None, 1=Less than once/ six sharing Directed over past 2 months, 2= Every 2-6 months, years 3= Monthly, 4= Weekly 4. Worked together Binary Whether or 0=No, 1=Yes Symmetrised not to date 5. Will work Valued Whether 0=No, 1=Maybe 2=Yes together in future Directed envisaged 6. Share any Valued Number Count of members shared by members Directed shared pair of groups

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5.1 Structural solidarity and mobilisation capacity: the scale, strength and shape of networks

5.1.1 The scale and strength of network structure: density and average degree Table 12 shows measures of density, the proportion of total possible ties present, and average degree, the average number of ties each actor has. Looking at the different types of relations, a pattern of declining connectivity can be seen, going from the direct personal contact network to shared membership. This is consistent with the idea that these measures reflect a hierarchy in the level of commitment expected and risk implied by the relation, going from mere contact (lowest) to sharing of members (highest), as was recognised in the design of the study. Comparing the networks in each area, what is initially striking it the lack of substantial difference in connectivity between the two: Gorton compares very respectably with Beacons, particularly on contact and working together in the future.

Table 12. Density and average degree in the meso-networks Relation Beacons Density Valued Average Valued av density deg deg Contact 0.37 0.58 12.24 19.24 Information-sharing 0.27 0.69 8.94 22.74 Working together 0.17 - 5.60 - Work together in the future 0.13 0.23 4.44 7.62 Share members 0.04 0.07 1.4 2.47

Gorton Density Valued Average Valued av density deg deg Contact 0.45 0.62 13.13 18.10 Information-sharing 0.26 0.65 7.40 18.93

Working together 0.14 - 4.10 - Work together in the future 0.19 0.31 5.47 8.90 Share members 0.04 0.07 1.20 2.00 Beacons N=1122; Gorton N=870

Focussing in more closely, first of all on contact ties, the average of around 12-13 ties in each area indicates that there is a good deal of contact of at least some sort between one group and another, providing a good foundation for collective action, were it to be deemed necessary. As a preliminary finding this establishes the fact that this population of groups does indeed exist as some kind of network, rather than as collection of islands.

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Comparing the two areas on ‘Contact’ shows that Gorton compares well with Beacons on connectivity at node-level (average degree exceeds that of Beacons), as well as on density. However, looking at the average degree on the valued data shows that Beacons’ nodes have on average a higher sum of the value of their degrees. This indicates that on average relations in the Beacons network are reported to be stronger. This is consistent with the higher average age of groups in Beacons, meaning that groups are likely to have had more time to build, and therefore strengthen relations, through familiarity. It also corresponds to Beacons NDC’s attempts to forge inter-group contact and an area-level identity through the East Manchester Residents’ Forum over the ten-year life of the partnership, which increased the opportunities for groups to come into contact with one another. However Gorton’s overall mobilisation capacity might be enhanced in other ways from having greater overall connectivity through weak, low-value ties.

On information-sharing, once again it seems that on average the groups in both areas have a good range of sources of information, though fewer than the total sum of their contacts (i.e. not all contacts are active information sources). On density as a proportion of all ties (binarised version of the data), Beacons and Gorton are almost identical (0.27 in Beacons to 0.26 in Gorton), and are very close on density as an average value (0.69 in Beacons to 0.65 in Gorton). However they diverge more clearly on average degree, with Beacons exceeding Gorton by 1.54 degrees on binarised data, and by a value difference of as much as 3.81 on the valued data, consistent with groups in Beacons tending to have stronger contact ties than in Gorton. Equally both density and average degree are higher in Beacons than in Gorton on work together ties, indicating a greater extent of collaboration in the former NDC area.

The reported level of envisaged future working together is interesting, since here Gorton exceeds Beacons on both density and average degree- on the latter by just over one degree. There are a number of ways of interpreting this. The fact that there is less pre- existing collaboration in Gorton than in Beacons (the ‘work together’ networks) suggests there may be room for further natural growth, assuming that there is some kind of natural limit to the inclination of, or indeed capacity for, inter-group working. Gorton also exceeds Beacons on both valued density and valued average degree. Recalling that there are two values for a present future working tie, where 1=Maybe and 2=Yes, the higher Gorton values also indicate higher levels of reporting a firm expectation of working with other groups in the future than in the Beacons area. So Gorton groups have both a greater number of potential future partners in collaboration, and a greater number with whom they see this potential as something quite firm, as opposed to just a vague possibility. It is possible that Gorton groups, who have on average fewer existing collaborations, are 113

unrealistically positive about the future, whereas Beacons groups base their assessment on the harsh realities of experience. Equally, the less firm expectations of future collaborations amongst Beacons groups may reflect the fact that they simply envisage being less active than Gorton groups in the future overall, and therefore expect to have less need for collaboration.

The final relation shown in Table 12 is the sharing of members. The results show that such sharing is very limited compared to the other types of connections between groups, and exists at almost identical levels in each of the two areas. Beacons has slightly higher average degree in the binary network and also in the valued network, indicating that there are both more of such connections between groups, and a slightly higher likelihood of multiple people connecting each pair of groups which share members in the Beacons area.

5.1.2 The scale and strength of network structure: tie strength, average distance, and reciprocity of information-sharing ties As will be seen later in this chapter, information-sharing of some sort is considered by residents’ groups in this study to be the most important overall benefit arising from relationships with other groups. Indeed networks research has found that the flow of information about actors in the network is a critical precursor to the higher level of activity of collaboration. This is because: i) it allows for the assessment of trustworthiness, based on reputation, and disincentivises bad behaviour (Gulati and Gargiulo, 1999; Granovetter, 1985); and ii) it provides the foundation for the development of transactive memory (Wegner, 1987), allowing judgements to be made about whom one should engage with towards a particular goal, and how accessible they are (Cross and Borgatti, 2003)38. This indicates information flow is the bedrock of network interaction, not just in terms of providing information from actors but also about them. Collaboration and effective collective action requires knowledge about what knowledge and resources others in the network possess. The flow of information is therefore a vital indicator of the scale and strength of a network. For this reason it is useful to briefly focus on some specific measures applied to the information-sharing networks. These are the distribution of tie strength values, which measure the frequency of information-sharing, and reachability, as measured by average distance and the proportion of groups in the network which are within Friedkin’s (1983) “horizon of observability”.

38 Wegner describes transactive memory as a theory of “group mind” (Wegner, 1987: 185), which explains how groups “leverage their collective expertise”, as Borgatti and Cross (2003: 442) put it. It “derives from individuals to form a group information-processing system” (Wegner, 1987: 191) based on individuals within the group each knowing what the expertise of the others in the group is. Wegner asserts that the formulation of transactive memory in a group is “fairly automatic consequence of social perception” (Wegner, 1987: 194). 114

Table 13 shows the distribution of values across actual existing information ties, indicating the frequency of information-sharing.

Table 13. Distribution of ties of information-sharing on valued measure of frequency: percentage of total possible ties by area Percentage of ties Value Beacons Gorton 1 Less than once every six months 17.2 19.4 2 Every 2-6 months 36.5 31.5 3 Monthly 21.4 23.0 4 Weekly 25.0 26.3 Beacons N= 304; Gorton N= 648

This table shows a picture of remarkable similarity between the two areas. Looking at the network in this way, the extent to which there is potentially room for much more (and more frequent) communication between groups is laid bare, with the majority of groups communicating only once every two to six months or less- although there is a large minority which engage in more frequent communication. This underlines the importance of access to information through the wider network, as a result of indirect connectivity. In this regard Everett, Jones and Borgatti (1998: 32) recommend the consideration of ‘distance’. Average distance refers to the average number of intermediate network actors through which information must flow to travel between any pair of actors in the network. Friedkin’s (1983) “horizon of observability” directs attention to the importance of actors to whom individuals are either directly connected or to whom they are indirectly connected by one intermediary. Examining distances in the binary information-sharing networks, shows that the horizon of observability is wide, and to an almost identical extent, for both Beacons and Gorton actors. The median distance is 2 between pairs of residents’ groups in both areas, with average distances of 2.22 and 2.10 in each area respectively. Furthermore nearly 75 percent of paths between groups in each area (74.9 percent of 1122 paths in Beacons, and 73.1 percent of 870 in Gorton) are of length two or less, placing them well within Friedkin’s horizon. However Gorton has a higher proportion of groups which are reachable at longer distances (path lengths of 3 or 4) than Beacons; indeed Beacons exceeds Gorton on the proportion of its paths which are completely null paths (no paths between actors) by some way- 11.6 percent to Gorton’s 3.3 percent.

Further analysis of cohesion in the information-sharing networks is shown in Table 47 in Appendix 3, using Luce and Perry’s (1949) clique analysis. This confirms the greater cohesion within the Beacons information-sharing network.

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In practice the communication flow in these networks is rendered more complicated by the fact that the actors are organisations rather than all just individual people, so there is greater potential for the flow to cease, or for distortion of messages to occur, at each intermediary node. However, given the small average size of these groups, this barrier is much less significant than it would be in a study of more conventional, larger-scale, formalised organisational actors. So, whilst the impact of this issue cannot be fully accounted for in assessing the information-transmission capacity of these networks, these distance indicators may be interpreted as showing good potential for information to flow across the network with reasonable speed and reliability in both Beacons and Gorton.

Finally reciprocity in the information-sharing networks ins considered, since it has been held up as so integral to social relations conceptualised as social capital, and is in practice a key characteristic of the way in which people mobilise resources through their personal relationships (Plickert et al., 2007: 406). Analysis of reciprocity in the directed, binarised information-sharing networks shows that it is high in both Beacons and Gorton39, with 83.13 percent of connected pairs linked by a reciprocal tie in Beacons, and 76.19 percent in Gorton. Again this is an indicator of higher structural cohesion in Beacons than in Gorton. Ansell (2003) argues that both direct and indirect ties are important for promoting norms of trust and reciprocity in a network. However, once again it should be kept in mind that the additional indirectness of communication passing through residents’ groups rather than individuals in this study may make the operation of reciprocity effects more complicated.

5.1.3 The scale and strength of network structure: multiplexity This section presents analysis of multiplexity in the meso-networks. The presence of multiple different bonds between actors is recognised to have implications for network cohesion, increasing the strength of the bond as multiplexity increases (White and Harary, 2001: 310), and indeed multiplexity may serve as a generative mechanism for collective action (Monge and Contractor, 2003: 168). This section of analysis treats multiplexity as the sum of the individual network types examined in earlier sections. This decision takes inspiration from Diani’s (2003b: 314) suggestion that “if we are mainly interested in identifying the most solid components of a movement, then looking at multiplexity in additive terms might be advisable”. Thus this next step involves additively combining all five networks in each area. Correlating the networks (shown in Table 48 in Appendix 3) reveals very high correlations between contact and information-sharing and declining

39 It should be recalled that the way this network was transformed for analysis maximally exploits the reporting of ego and alter for each dyad, so that if either reported giving or receiving of information this was recorded as a tie present (=1) in the matrix. 116

correlations between networks with the increasing level of commitment implied by the tie, consistent with the declining density of the networks observed in Table 12. Binarised data were used to compute an additive multiplex network from all these networks, simply summing the zeros and ones across matrices. Given that multiplexity is being used to discriminate between stronger and weaker parts of the network, it was decided that the ‘work future’ network should be binarised at values greater than 1, so as to minimise the impact of possible social desirability bias, which appeared to characterise some responses to this question in the course of data collection.40 In other words, if a group only answered ‘Maybe’ to the possibility of working together in the future, this response was coded to zero.

The distribution of the different summative tie values within the two areas is shown in Table 14 below.

Table 14. Distribution of values of ties- percentage of total ties by area

Percentage of ties Value (total of combined ties) Beacons Gorton 0 62.92 54.71 1 7.04 17.35 2 13.81 12.18 3 7.66 6.67 4 6.68 6.32 5 1.87 2.76 Beacons N= 1122 ties; Gorton N=870 ties.

The null category (‘0’) shown in Table 14 merely reconfirms the contact network densities, therefore not adding anything new to previous analysis. However the subsequent categories do. The second largest category in Beacons is 2, so a combination of two different ties, whereas in Gorton, the largest category is 1, that is, only one tie type (which must of course be ‘contact’), and the second largest is 2. However it is interesting to note that Gorton also has a higher proportion of ties which combine all five relations than Beacons: 2.76 percent compared to just 1.87 percent of Beacons ties. Summing the percentages in categories 2-5 shows that 30.02 percent of Beacons’ ties are multiplex (and 73.8 percent of actual existing ties) compared to 27.93 percent in Gorton (and 69.8

40 Some respondents were inclined to repeat the expression ‘I wouldn’t want to rule it out’ and similar when asked about the likelihood of working with alters in the future, even when other measures suggested that the relationship was weak and unlikely to lead to collaboration. 117

percent of actual existing ties). In other words, Beacons exceeds Gorton on the volume of multiplex ties overall, but only by a small margin.

In order to maximise the analytical value of having data on multiplex tie combinations, the next step in multiplex analysis involves qualitatively combining each of the five different networks, so that each combination is given an individually distinguishable value. The frequency of the occurrence of each combination can then be counted for the two geographies. These frequencies are shown in ascending order of magnitude in Table 15. It should be pointed out that whilst the qualitative multiplex procedure does not symmetrise (in the networks where ties are non-symmetric), it does binarise the values (greater than 0) in each respective matrix, before adding them together. As such, a ‘work future’ tie has been added to this mix for both ‘Maybe’ (=1) and ‘Yes (=2) responses in this procedure, thus making it a more optimistic view of the data than the approach taken in the additive procedure, in which ‘Maybe’ was coded to zero. The qualitative multiplex analysis offers a more in-depth picture of the ways in which residents’ groups in these two areas relate to one another than simple addition of ties.

Firstly the percentage of null ties here corresponds to those in the ‘contact’ network, once again confirming Gorton’s higher network density on contact ties. Looking further down the table, the comparative distributions of tie combinations seems consistent with the older average age of groups in Beacons compared to Gorton, and the history of Beacons NDC in actively working to bring groups together. For example, the most common combination of ties in Beacons is Contact plus Information-sharing, whilst in Gorton it is just Contact, thus confirming the findings using additive frequencies. So in Beacons the most prevalent relationships involve, not just knowing someone from another group, but also sharing information with them, whilst the next most common combination is all relations, excluding shared membership, but including envisaged future working together relations.

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Table 15. Frequencies of different multiplex combinations of meso-network relations by area

Relations Beacons Relations Gorton

Count Percent Count Percent

None 706 62.92 None 476 54.71

Contact+Info 109 9.71 Contact 119 13.68

Contact+Info+Work+WorkFut 84 7.49 Contact+Info 75 8.62

Contact 74 6.60 Contact+Info+Work+WorkFut 57 6.55

Contact+Info+Work 44 3.92 Contact+WorkFut 42 4.82

All 25 2.23 Contact+Info+WorkFut 30 3.45

Contact+Info+WorkFut 23 2.05 All 27 3.10 Contact+Work 20 1.78 Contact+Info+Work 24 2.76 Contact+Info+Work+Share 9 0.80 Contact+Work+WorkFut 6 0.69 Contact+Work+WorkFut 8 0.71 Contact+Work 5 0.57 Contact+WorkFut 8 0.71 Contact+Info+Share 4 0.46 Contact+Info+Share 8 0.71 Contact+Info+Work+Share 3 0.34 Contact+Work+WorkFut+Share 2 0.18 Contact+Work+WorkFut+Share 2 0.23

Contact+Share 1 0.09

Contact+WorkFut+Share 1 0.09

Beacons N=1122 ; Gorton N=870 ties

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Meanwhile for Gorton, Contact plus Work Future comes much higher up the ranking of frequency than in Beacons, accounting for 4.2 percent of Gorton’s ties, compared to only 0.71 percent for Beacons. Similarly the combination of Contact, Information-sharing, and Work Future, accounts for 3.45 percent of Gorton ties, compared to 2.05 percent in Beacons. This suggests a wider scale prospect for the deepening of currently under- developed relations between groups in Gorton, compared to Beacons, consistent with the ‘more room to grow’ argument put forward earlier. By contrast, these figures suggest that in the Beacons area, if you have contact with a group with whom you don’t already share information or work, you are highly unlikely to anticipate working with them in the future.

Also interesting to note is the presence of relationship combinations including working together and working together in the future that exclude information-sharing. For example, in Beacons there are 20 Contact plus Work relationships. This suggests the possibility that groups come together to deliver very specific event or work on a particular activity, and then have little or no contact with each other outside of this activity. So, collaboration may on the one hand quite reasonably be assumed to be built on the lower-commitment activity of information-sharing, through which groups can get to know one another and build trust. On the other hand, these data suggest that the fact of having worked together should not automatically be assumed to indicate frequent communication, even if it may have preceded it (a fact which might simply be missing from these data, which only refer to the preceding two years).

5.1.4 The scale and strength of network structure: benefits of relationships between groups This next section examines the benefits which residents’ groups themselves attribute to inter-group relations. Table 16 shows results from answers to the open-ended survey question ‘What do you think are the main benefits of having relationships with other residents’ groups?’ Responses were coded to the items shown in the table, with most groups’ responses coded to multiple items.

The largest coding category in both areas is ‘Sharing experiences/ learning from each other’. Indeed it is the largest by a considerable margin in Gorton, with nearly 65 percent of groups citing this as a ‘main benefit’. Indeed looking across the range of items, half of the twelve thematic codes relate to some kind of spreading of knowing or information- sharing, including Item 10.

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Table 16. Main benefits of relationships with other residents’ groups- counts & percentages of total number of responding groups

Beacons Gorton Beacons Gorton 1. General info- 10 14 8. Improving the area as a 1 5 what’s going on in 34.5% 50.0% whole 3.4% 17.8% area 2. Sharing 11 18 9. Information on funding 3 2 experiences/ 37.9% 64.3% and support opportunities 10.3% 7.1% learning 3. Strength in 5 6 10. Signposting to officer 3 3 numbers/voice 17.2% 21.4% contacts 10.3% 10.7%

4. Helping with 3 8 11. Improve community 3 2 each other’s 10.3% 28.6% relations/ neighbourliness 10.3% 7.1% activities/ pooling people/ or resources 5. Socialising/ 5 2 12. Moral support 1 6 friendship 17.2% 7.1% 3.4% 21.4%

6. Getting 3 5 13. Raise profile of own 1 1 knowledge of wider 10.3% 17.9% group 3.4% 3.6% the area

7. Networking/ 2 3 making new 6.9% 10.7% connections to knowledge Beacons N=29; Gorton N=28.

This indicates quite unambiguously the importance of these networks as conduits for information and learning and recalls the reference earlier in this chapter to the importance of information for developing of transactive memory (Wegner, 1987); collective knowledge of the knowledge and resources across the network.

However, the notion of actually working together appears less prominent in the minds of these groups. Furthermore, if collaboration is considered a ‘higher level’ relation which ensues with the prior building of trust over time, Beacons’ history does not seem to have especially elevated it as an goal in the minds of its residents’ groups. A greater number of Gorton groups provide responses which fall under Item 4 ‘Helping with each other’s activities’ than Beacons groups, by a margin of five groups. Likewise an orientation towards improving the area as a whole, not just acting for one’s own group/ neighbourhood, (Item 8) is more common in Gorton than in Beacons (five groups to one).41 Socialising and friendship responses (Item 5) are more common in Beacons than

41 It should be pointed out that this is slightly misleading, as one respondent represented two groups with the same response, so this only actually amounts to four independent responses, but this is still three greater than in Beacons. The only other instance of such double-counting is for two Beacons groups on item 5 121

in Gorton (five groups in Beacons, compared to two in Gorton), which it might be suggested is consistent with the longer-standing community engagement activity within Beacons NDC. However moral support type responses (under Item 12) were more common in Gorton, with six such responses, compared to only one in Beacons. Meanwhile direct reference to other groups as a source of information about what resources/ recourse is available to them from the local state (items 9 and 10) are not as prominent as one might expect in either area, though these specific benefits might very well be subsumed by the other more general categories relating to information and know- how.

Overall these responses may be taken to provide some indication, not just of what people value in their relations, but also simply of what they consider to be actually available within the network, recalling that none of the groups which were successfully interviewed (and therefore provided a response to this question), are complete isolates- all have at least one relationship with another residents’ group.

Reflecting on the comparison of the two areas using these responses shows both sets of residents’ groups have well-developed awareness of the advantages of relationships with other groups, and sharing knowledge and learning from each other quite clearly holds great importance within the scope of that. Gorton’s groups appear at least as well inclined towards mobilising inter-group relations to the benefit of their group as those in the Beacons area, with possibly a greater orientation than Beacons groups towards collective action and interaction to the benefit of the area as a whole, not just their own group/ neighbourhood. If this is the case then it is difficult to say exactly why. However the fact, seen in Chapter 4, that Gorton groups are more likely than Beacons groups to be run by people with previous experience of being part of a community or voluntary group may be relevant to explaining this.

5.1.5 The shape of network structure: centralisation and core/periphery analysis The next section presents analysis of the overall configuration of meso-network ties, to consider whether these networks tend towards a hierarchical or more polycentric configuration discussed in Chapter 3. To begin with component analysis and visualisation of networks was undertaken to identify the presence of denser areas of networks that are highly connected internally, but weakly connect to other areas. None of the meso- networks, apart from the shared membership networks, were found to divide well into multiple cohesive subgroups; most actors formed part of a single large component, the remainder being isolates. Having established the uni-centric structure of these networks,

‘Socialising/ friendship’, such that there were only four individual responses in this category, rather than five, but representing five groups. 122

the next step taken in the analysis was to examine the extent of their hierarchical configuration, using basic centralisation statistics, followed by core/ periphery analysis.

Table 17 shows centralisation values for all the networks, based on valued ties where the networks are valued, and in all cases on binarised versions of ties, to allow meaningful comparison across all the different types of relations.

Table 17. Degree centralisation of meso-networks (as percentage of most centralised possible structure) Beacons Gorton Centralisation Binarised Valued Binarised Valued Contact 50.76% 33.02% 51.23% 37.44%

Info-sharing 40.77% 36.89% 34.25% 22.35% (indegree) Info-sharing 37.65% 34.55% 34.25% 33.06% (outdegree) Working together 39.96% - 33.00% -

Work together in 20.48% 19.33% 41.14% 30.50% future (indegree) Work together in 36.09% 33.38% 37.57% 26.93% future (outdegree) Share members 6.78% 18.18% 5.54% 21.43%

Beacons N=1122; Gorton N=870

Focussing first on the binary values across all the networks, it can be seen that the most centralised networks are the contact networks, each at around 50 percent. Apart from the shared membership networks, which display low centralisation, the remainder of the relations are almost all centralised within the 30 to 40 percent range.

In the contact networks there is little to separate the Beacons and Gorton networks with regard to their binarised structures. For the valued relations, high degree is concentrated in a smaller number of actors in Gorton, as indicated by the fact that Gorton exceeds Beacons by 4.42 percentage points on valued centralisation.

On information-sharing Beacons is more centralised than Gorton on both receiving (indegree) and giving (outdegree) of information and on both binarised and valued data. As it happens Gorton’s centrality on receiving and giving is in complete balance in the binarised data (both 34.25 percent centralisation). But whereas in Beacons it is slightly higher on valued centralisation for indegree compared to outdegree, the reverse is true in Gorton, and by as much as 10.71 percentage points (33.06 percent to 22.35) on the

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valued data. Thus in Gorton the regularity of giving information is considerably more concentrated in a few central hands than is the receiving.42

On collaborative ties (working together) Beacons proves slightly more centralised than Gorton, by nearly 7 percentage points. Once again the comparison of envisaged future collaboration ties proves more interesting. In Beacons centralisation is highest in the giving of nominations of future collaborative partners (outdegree), whereas in Gorton the reverse is true. Gorton is over 20 percentage points more centralised than Beacons on binarised work-together indegree, indicating the receipt of nominations for collaboration is more concentrated in a smaller number of groups in Gorton than in Beacons. This would appear to suggest popularity of the central actors in Gorton, though it might again also be associated with the simple fact that there is more room for further tie growth in Gorton. In the valued networks the difference in centralisation between the two areas is less stark, however Beacons is again more highly centralised on valued outdegree than indegree; in other words the sum of the values of outgoing ties (based on values of ‘Yes we will work together in the future ties’ =2 and ‘Maybe we will’ =1) in the network is concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of actors than is the case for incoming ties.

Finally the shared membership networks show fairly low centralisation in both areas, at very similar levels, particularly as reflected in the binarised values. And whilst Beacons is slightly more centralised on binary ties than Gorton, Gorton’s higher centralisation on relations which count the number of shared members reflects the facts that the number of shared members is concentrated in fewer Gorton groups than is the case in Beacons. Indeed, a brief examination of visualisations of the shared membership networks indicate that they are much smaller than the other networks, entirely excluding many groups, and that their overall structure is completely different: the Beacons network is a connected, polycentric structure, and Gorton’s is polycentric and partly segmented (i.e. it has multiple subgroups that are not interconnected). These are clearly not core/periphery structures and therefore will not be included in the next stage of analysis using core/periphery procedures.

Moving on to the core/periphery analysis, visualisations of the contact networks are shown in figures 6 and 7 below, with core and peripheral nodes highlighted, to give a clear sense

42 Directed ties are commonly used as a measure of actor prestige, which is generally held to increase as the actor becomes the object of more ties (Wasserman and Faust, 1994: 174). However the assessment of prestige partly requires consideration of the nature of the tie, since for ‘advises’ relations, those who are senders might be considered more prestigious than receivers (Wasserman and Faust, 1994: 175). If central actors in Gorton are high givers of information then it might be reasonable to associate outdegree with higher standing in this case. 124

of the meaning of core and periphery analysis.43 For the Beacons network shown in the visualisation at Figure 6, the procedure for core/periphery analysis defined a core of 18 residents’ groups. The image shows the 18 groups identified as ‘core’ nodes as blue squares, whilst the peripheral groups are represented as yellow circles.

Figure 6: Beacons 1-mode ‘Contact’ network: core and periphery (coreness)

N=34, blue square= core groups, yellow circles= peripheral groups

Figure 7: Gorton 1-mode ‘Contact’ network: core and periphery (coreness)

N=30, blue square= core groups, yellow circles= peripheral groups

43 In each case the nodes are partitioned into core and periphery based on the coreness partition produced by the continuous procedure in UCINET. 125

For the Gorton network, the continuous core/periphery procedure in UCINET identified nine core actors. In both geographies a denser core can very clearly be discerned from the visualisations, however the Gorton core is only half as large as the Beacons core. The rest of the statistical outputs from the core/periphery analysis are shown in Table 18.44 This focussed on core sizes and the density of cores and peripheries as metrics for analysis, rather than visualisations, though its include correlations which UCINET reports as a measure of the extent to which the networks subjected to the procedure fit the idealized model of a core/periphery with the same number of actors. A correlation of 1 would indicate a perfect fit. Here the best fits are around the 0.7 mark. The lowest correlation of 0.54 on the ‘work future’ network, is a value which Borgatti and Everett (1999: 381) also generate in one of their empirical examples, describing it as “indicating a strong but far from perfect fit with the ideal model”.

Table 18. Results of core-periphery analysis of meso- networks Beacons

Correlation Core size Core density Periph density

Contact (valued) 0.714 18 1.493 0.112 Contact (binary) - - 0.791 0.117 Info-sharing (valued) 0.692 16 2.004 0.108

Info-sharing (binary) - - 0.708 0.069 Work together (binary) 0.660 14 0.604 0.026 Work future (valued) 0.540 9 1.278 0.095 Work future (binary) - - 0.681 0.058 Gorton

Correlation Core size Core density Periph density

Contact (valued) 0.721 9 2.389 0.231 Contact (binary) - - 1.000 0.224 Info-sharing (valued) 0.609 12 2.205 0.281 Info-sharing (binary) - - 0.795 0.088 Work together (binary) 0.767 9 0.778 0.029 Work future (valued) 0.573 7 1.619 0.142 Work future (binary) - - 0.736 0.086 Beacons N=34 nodes, 1122 ties; Gorton N=30 nodes, 870 ties.

44 UCINET’s continuous core/periphery procedure was used to analyse all the valued datasets and the core partition this produced was applied to the binarised versions of the data in order to obtain core and periphery densities as a proportion of the total possible number of ties. The categorical core/periphery procedure was applied only to the work together network, which was binary in its original form. 126

Moving from the model fit to the core/periphery statistics, Beacons is found to have larger core sizes than Gorton on all relations. The largest difference is on the contact and working together relations, on the size of the Beacons core exceeds that of Gorton by nine and five nodes respectively. Gorton’s cores are also all denser than those of Beacons, a condition made easier to achieve by their smaller size, and in the case of the contact network, the core is maximally connected with a density of 1 (100 percent of all possible ties are present). Gorton’s cores also have higher valued density, most strikingly on contact, where the average value is 2.389, so between a medium strength (=2) and strong strength (=3) of tie, compared to Beacons 1.493. The difference between Beacons’ and Gorton’s cores is much smaller on valued information-sharing, where the average value of the core in Gorton exceeds Beacons by only 0.201. However Gorton also has higher density than Beacons in its peripheries, meaning that peripheral actors have a greater level of inter-group connectivity, independent of the core actors, than do those in the Beacons networks.

The densities of the off-diagonal blocks in the core-periphery model, not shown in the table, are mostly as expected (denser periphery to core, than core to periphery), with the exception of Beacons work together in future. Here the disparity between indegree and outdegree centralisation seen in Table 17 is echoed, with a density of 0.169 for the core to periphery block compared to 0.129 for the periphery to core block in the binarised version of the network.45 This confirms the view of centrally positioned Beacons groups as net collaboration-seekers rather than being highly sought out for collaboration themselves. A general lack of inclination towards collaboration by peripheral actors, rather than a specific rejection of the core may be a factor here, though the core may also suffer visibility problems because of its size, making it apparently rather amorphous, despite meeting formal definitions of coreness based on the pattern of ties.

Finally, having analysed the shape of the individual meso-networks, the same procedures was applied to the additive (non-qualitative) multiplex networks, examining density, average degree, centralisation and core/periphery structure. The relevant statistics are shown in Table 19.

As one would expect, these networks very much resemble their constituents structurally. Where all networks are added together, Beacons’ residents groups have on average a slightly higher total value of ties than Gorton’s (looking at average degree), though there is very little to separate the two on either average degree or density. As is the case

45 The difference is less striking for the comparative mean values, based on the valued data: 0.276 compared to 0.213. 127

Table 19. Statistics for scale, strength, shape of additive multiplex networks Beacons Gorton

Density (valued) 0.930 1.008 Average degree (valued) 30.940 29.233 Indegree centralisation 30.00% 32.65% Outdegree centralisation 28.14% 32.65% Core/periphery correlation 0.708 0.704 Core size 17 10 Core density (valued) 2.386 3.331 Periphery density (valued) 0.243 0.376 Beacons N=34 nodes, 1122 ties; Gorton N=30 nodes, 870 ties. in the constituent networks, Beacons has a considerably larger core than Gorton, with less multiplexity overall. Core groups in Beacons have, on average, ties constituted of just over two out of the five constituent relations (2.386), compared to the Gorton core members who have ties constituted of just over three (3.331) out of the five on average.

Table 20 shows the distribution of tie values within each of the multiplex cores. Just over fifty percent of ties in the Gorton multiplex core are constituted of four or five different relations, of which 20 percent have a value of five, compared to just 6.99 percent of Beacons’ core ties. Indeed summing the percentage in categories 2 to 5 in each area shows that nearly 90 percent of Gorton’s core ties are multiplex (88.89 percent) compared to only 72.8 percent in Beacons.

Table 20. Distribution of values of ties in core- as percentage of total ties in core

Percentage of ties Value Beacons Gorton 0 16.90% 0.00% 1 10.29% 11.11% 2 25.00% 16.67% 3 19.85% 22.22% 4 20.96% 30.00% 5 6.99% 20.00%

An important qualitative insight should be added here to temper enthusiasm regarding the connectivity of Gorton’s core. Three of the core groups are run by the chair of Gorton All Together who is a very prominent community leader and busy activist. To some extent then the high level of multiplexity is therefore dependent on the shared membership of this 128

individual by multiple groups, helping to foment information flows and collaboration. This is no bad thing in itself, but it highlights the disproportionate role which individuals may play, and suggests that Gorton’s network might be very vulnerable to the loss of this individual.

Reflections on the literature provide further insights into the potential implication of core/periphery structures. Everett and Borgatti (2003: 20) suggest that core/periphery structures with high concentrations may be advantaged in certain contexts by the fact that actors in the network are highly accessible to each other, and the lack of subgroups may preclude the development of antagonisms or alternative ways of thinking. However (Borgatti, 2005) points out that the dominance of the core means that what is spread is what the core wants to be spread, for which reason they are not good at innovation because of the ease with which new ideas can be drowned out by accepted wisdom. Thus the Beacons and Gorton networks may be differentially advantaged in different situations.

5.2 The durability of meso-network structures: future work ties and reasons for non-contact

The next section of this chapter presents findings which focus on research question 4, examining indicators of the durability of the network in terms of signals of growth and decline, as well as taking account of findings from the previous section regarding the overall strength of the network.

5.2.1 The durability of network structures: future ties Firstly durability is examined using answers to a closed survey question specifically about future contact. The second part of the durability analysis is based on a more elaborate manipulation of the data on collaboration and future collaboration, combining ties. Though it must be acknowledged that the future work together ties are merely speculative and potentially subject to social desirability bias in reporting, they do offer some kind of a view of the potential for network growth and decay.

Frequencies of responses to the question ‘Do you think your group is likely to make contact with other groups (that you are not currently in contact with) in the future?’ are shown in Table 21.

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Table 21. Likely to make new group contacts in the future- frequencies Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent No 4 14.3 3 10.7 Maybe 17 60.7 11 39.3 Yes 7 25.0 14 50.0 Beacons N= 28; Gorton N=28 The responses shown suggest a greater inclination towards forging future meso-network connections amongst Gorton groups than amongst those in Beacons. This question asks about new contacts, rather than sustaining existing ones, so responses might be expected to be affected by the existing level of contact groups have. Gorton groups have more contacts (in the basic ‘Contact’ network) on average than those in Beacons, however the fact that Beacons groups have on average more highly developed, multiplex ties might make them less inclined to feel the need to build new relationships than Gorton groups; indeed they may feel quite adequately resourced by the relationships they already have. Without further information it is impossible to go beyond speculation in explaining these responses.

Further evidence of the future trajectory of meso-network connectivity is sought using an additive combination of Work and Work future ties. The distribution of various combinations shown in Table 22 offers a view of the net gain or loss of collaborative relations in the future work networks.

Table 22. Frequencies of combination of ‘Work’ and ‘Work future’ networks- counts and percentages

Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent No work+No work future 898 80.0 674 77.5 No work+Maybe work future 23 2.0 48 5.5 No work+Yes work future 11 1.0 26 3.0 Work+No work future 73 6.5 32 3.7 Work+Maybe work future 20 1.8 13 1.5 Work+Yes work future 97 8.8 77 8.9 Beacons N= 1122; Gorton N= 870

Once again these data provide a reminder that there are a lot of entirely null ties here: 80 percent of ties in Beacons and approaching 80 in Gorton. However, what the combination of Work and Work future ties underlines once again is a possible greater inclination amongst Gorton groups, compared to those in Beacons, towards future collaboration with 130

groups with whom they have never previously collaborated: 8.5 percent of Gorton ties are a combination of not having worked together to date and expecting to do so in the future either quite definitely (‘No work+Yes work future’= 3.0 percent) or possibily (‘No work+Maybe work future’= 5.5 percent). In Beacons by comparison this total is only 3 percent, of which only 1 percent state a positive ‘Yes’ to future working.

Meanwhile, what might be labelled as the ‘net loss’ ties (‘Work+No work future’ or ‘Work+Maybe work future’) conversely suggest greater negativity towards the prospects for working with existing collaborative partners in Beacons than in Gorton: 8.3 percent of Beacons ties are in these two categories, of which 6.5 percent are ‘Work+No work future’ and 1.8 percent are ‘Work+Maybe work future’, compared to a total of only 5.2 percent in Gorton (3.7 percent ‘Work+No work future’ and 1.5 percent ‘Work+Maybe work future’).

Next net tie gain/ loss is examined across the actors in the network. In order to do this the analysis focussed on the network of ties which combine ‘Work’ and ‘Yes work future’ ties, thus assuming that the combination of ‘Work’ and ‘No work future’ or ‘Work’ and ‘Maybe work future’ signal a tie loss. Degree in the ‘Work’ network is subtracted from degree in this ‘Work+‘Yes work future’ network (which contains both in- and out-degrees) to obtain a net gain or loss value for each actor. Table 23 shows summary statistics resulting from this.

Table 23. Net gain/ loss of indegree and outdegree on work ties

Beacons Gorton Indegree Outdegree Indegree Outdegree Min -14 -8 -8 -5 Max 2 2 7 2 Mean -2.4 -2.4 -0.6 -0.6 Median -2.5 -1 -0.5 0 SD 3.3 2.4 1.6 2.7 Beacons N= 1122; Gorton N=870

The figures in Table 23 show both Beacons and Gorton on a trajectory of net loss of collaborative ties. However in the case of Gorton this is a case of ‘only just’, with a median of zero on outdegree. In Beacons the picture is bleaker, with a quite dramatic mean loss of 2.4 ties (the mean degree in the Beacons ‘Work’ network is only 5.6) and a high minimum (or maximum, if thought about the other way) of 14 lost ties on indegree. Indeed, inspecting the full range of values (not shown) shows that in Beacons only two groups gain ties on indegree and two on outdegree, compared to six which gain on outdegree

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and seven on indegree in Gorton. Meanwhile 50 percent of Beacons groups show a net loss on outdegree of three or more ties and nearly a third with a net loss of three or more on indegree, compared to only 13.3 percent on each in Gorton. Thus, whilst Gorton has lower cohesion than Beacons overall, according to the density and average degree statistics for the additive multiplex network, the probability of disconnection of the network via tie loss may well be higher in Beacons than in Gorton- though it is not possible to say anything about timescales here, nor about the likelihood of lower order ties of basic ongoing contact and information-sharing remaining, even where groups cease to work together.

Either way, neither area is making enormous net gains on collaborative ties, but clearly the signs are that Gorton errs more on the side of growth than does Beacons. It seems that the process of shedding ties is common to both networks, and something which may reflect the level of commitment required to maintain multiple relations, the level of work required by individual groups to contribute to collaborative activities, or some combination of both. To cast further light on this issue, the next and final piece of analysis in this chapter examines responses from residents’ groups to being asked about reasons why they don’t, or might not, form relationships with one another.

5.2.2 The durability of network structures: reasons for non-contact between groups Representatives of residents’ groups were asked which of the reasons shown in the table (Table 24) are reasons for not having contact with (some) other groups; in other words, what issues keep groups apart. The frequencies of responses are shown as a percentage of total respondents. These do not sum to 100, column-wise, as multiple responses were possible.

The two stand-out issues to start with here are time and geographical distance. Indeed, though Beacons NDC attempted to bring groups together across neighbourhood boundaries, distance clearly remains an issue for many groups in the area. It is surprising that so many groups in Beacons selected Item 3: ‘We haven’t have chance up to now’, and equally Item 5: ‘We’ve never heard of them’.

Respondents were also asked to indicate approximately what proportion of the groups in the full alter list they felt the selected response applied to, ‘One or two’, ‘A few’, ‘Many’, ‘Most’ or ‘All’, in relation to the items where such a qualifying question made sense. It was surprising to find that four of the nine Beacons groups who selected Item 5 indicated that they had never heard of either ‘many’, or in one case, ‘most’ of the other groups in the network. Identifying which groups had responded in this way revealed that in three out of 132

Table 24. Reasons why groups don’t have contact with other groups Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent 1 We don’t have time to engage with other groups. 15 53.6 9 32.1 2 We don’t see any real benefit to what our group does from having 13 46.4 11 39.3 contact with other groups. 3 We haven’t had the chance to have contact up to now. 6 21.4 5 17.9 4 They are located in a different/ neighbourhood/ area 14 50.0 13 46.4 5 We’ve never heard of them. 9 32.1 7 25.0 6 They have different interests to us. 11 39.3 8 28.6 7 They have very similar interests to us, which puts us in competition. 2 7.1 1 3.6 8 We had previous contact which fizzled out. 12 42.9 8 28.6 9 We had previous contact which ended badly. 2 7.1 1 3.6 10 We have chosen not to have contact with them because the group or 517.90 0.0 its members have a negative reputation. 11 Other 5 17.9 7 25.0 Beacons N= 28; Gorton N=28 the four cases these were older groups which were now being run by new people in the same neighbourhood, who had succeeded people who had been active with the group when NDC was at its height. This in itself is a success story for the groups in question, however it highlights to extent to which intergroup contact may be very much mediated by individuals, and that without ongoing reasons for the group as a whole to have contact with other groups, that link may die away.

The fact that as many as twelve groups in Beacons report the fizzling out of relationships gives further credence to the idea of a declining curve of connectivity in Beacons, and indeed, five of the 12 indicated that this related to ‘many’ of the groups in the list. However it is not possible to say to what extent selection of this response relates to groups that have fizzled out and are no longer active, or ties that have dissolved to groups included in the network here. A difference of interest (Item 6) is also an important barrier, especially in the Beacons area. This may be connected to Item 4, since the activities of many groups is firstly focussed on their own neighbourhood.

However, in this regard it is striking that so many groups, particularly in the Beacons area, have selected Item 2, relating to a perceived lack of benefits of relations, particularly given the positive responses to the open-ended question about perceived the benefits

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presented in Table 16, though this may partly be a psychometric peculiarity.46 Nevertheless, it is worth noting that there appears to have been some additional difficulty, over and above issues of time and effort, in Beacons, highlighted by responses on items 9 and 10, relating to contact which ended badly and negative reputations. However, when asked about the proportion of groups these items applied to, all responses were in the lowest two categories of ‘one or two’ or ‘a few’. Equally competition between groups does not seem to be a significant dividing line, based on responses here. However, all in all these responses suggest that there are plenty of forces working against inter-group contact, particularly in terms of the time and effort required to make it and sustain it.

5.3 Summary of results and discussion

The summary of results begins with consideration of findings in relation to research question 3. Firstly, Beacons meso-networks are found to be more cohesive overall, taking account of both the scale of connection and its strength. However Gorton may potentially be advantaged both by its greater connectivity on weak strength contact ties, and by the shape of its structure. Compared to Beacons it has a smaller, more highly multiplex core, better suited to developing shared identity and goals and acting as a coordinating hub; its periphery is better connected within itself than Beacons; and the pattern of in-degree and out-degree centralisation tends to suggest that central actors have good visibility amongst peripheral actors, as they are as likely to be nominated for future working as are peripheral actors are by the core. Of course this may also be a function of there being greater ‘room to grow’ in this network. In contrast the Beacons core is more likely to nominate future collaborators in the periphery, rather than the reverse, raising questions about the extent of the visibility within the network as a whole of its larger, less well- connected core. Equally it may be the case that it is highly visible, and suffers in some way from the reputation it has, or the fact that it is unable to construct any clear purpose for peripheral groups to seek future collaborations with its members. People need clear reasons for collective mobilisations and the fact that so many groups selected the category ‘We don’t see any real benefit’ in relation to contact with other groups only underlines this point; it gives cause to question the extent to which these networks are capable of mobilisation as a collective, regardless of the structure they outwardly display here. It is by no means certain that pairwise interactions signal the capacity for group interaction involving three or more interconnected network actors.

It is worth briefly considering this issue further in the light of theoretical position referred to in Chapter 2, of recent network analysts such as Barry Wellman, who argue that

46 I.e. when asked about benefits the mind is focussed on recalling those, whereas when the notion of a no- benefit situation is proposed, especially alongside other suggested barriers, such as time and distance, a more negative mode of cost-benefit analysis may be adopted in the mind. 134

geographically bounded networks have become less important in the modern age of cars, telephones and the internet. These arguments suggest that is now rare for networks operate as the solidarities (Plickert et al., 2007: 406, Wellman 2001b). Since people no longer walk door-to-door to seek assistance, and therefore do not observe each other and participate collectively in social support (Plickert et al., 2007: 406), it is argued that it makes more sense to think about sociality based on “networked individualism” (Wellman, 2001b). This is based on pairwise interactions linking to different individuals in different places, each of whom provide different types of resources, thus dispersing sociality (Plickert et al., 2007). However, as suggested in Chapter 2, this argument requires qualification. In Fischer’s extensive study of the effect of urbanism, published in 1982 he noted the relationship with dispersion of ties and the higher education and affluence (Fischer, 1982: 170). Physical proximity may therefore continue to be more important where nearness is critical (Fischer, 1982; see also Bridge, 2002: 11-12), such as in situations of poverty, old age and infirmity, a point which is therefore relevant here.

However residents’ groups located in different neighbourhoods do not operate on a day- to-day basis in a way which makes them visible and easily accessible to each other in the manner of a solidaristic communality. Thus even relatively small distances across the Beacons and Gorton areas, might be enough to reduce interaction to networked individualist contact between pairs of groups rather than as a collective. Foth and Hearn’s (2007) research comparing practices of collective interaction versus individualised networked interaction within residential apartment blocks offers insights in this regard. They found that collective interaction within place tended to be about place i.e. problem- solving, but that it usually fell away once problems were resolved. Whereas peer-to-peer socialising, for the sake of socialising, in place provided a more enduring basis for emergent collective behaviour, because personalised, social interaction helped build neighbourhood identity (Foth and Hearn, 2007: 12). Thus if many ties are enacted day-today, merely in a pairwise fashion, that does not rule out the possibility for collective mobilisation under the right conditions. Some of the fun sociable association-type activities organised by groups might serve this purpose- where residents to get to know each other in a low-commitment, sociable way, with collective identity developing organically. This also re-emphasises the importance of leadership, discussed in Chapter 2, to assist in generating a sense of common purpose (Tarrow, 1994) and ideational solidarity (Fararo and Doreian, 1998) beyond the immediate benefits provided by individual network connections- particularly given the fact that such a large number of groups were willing to agree with the proposition that there weren’t any benefits to be had from relations with other groups.

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The remainder of the findings from this chapter, regarding the future of these networks and their sustainability addressed by research question 4, suggest that Beacons network may be contracting, whereas in Gorton there are signs of growth. Given the lesser multiplexity and weaker tie strengths of Gorton’s networks, it may be the case that the two areas are simply at different points on the same curve, with Gorton having more room to grow before a subsequent decline occurs. However the loss of NDC as an umbrella and focus for contact between groups raises questions about the future for Beacons, given that sustaining contact with other groups is suggested in this chapter to be hard work, and given the general tendency towards some kind of tie loss in both areas. In Gorton, on the other hand, any vulnerability of the network may stem from its centralised structure in terms of dependency on key actors in the core, particularly one key individual involved with multiple groups and with a high profile role as Chair of Gorton’s community partnership. However this situation has the benefit of providing clearer leadership to define a purpose for collective, rather than network individualist, interaction. Gorton is also underpinned by greater levels of association activity, compared to Beacons, shown in Chapter 4. This may help to further strengthen peer-to-peer contact to potentially promote collective behaviour, when necessary, in the way proposed by Foth and Hearn (2007), and sustain the network into the future.

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Chapter 6. Macro-networks, political opportunity structures and the porosity of the community/state interface

This chapter examines findings in relation to the interface between the community and agencies of regeneration and the local state, focussing on political opportunity structures, macro-network connections, and residents’ perceptions of this interface. It begins by presenting findings in relation to research questions 5 and 6. This firstly involves examination of the extent of participation in the political opportunity structures of NDC/ NEM governance structures, other local participatory structures, and voting behaviour. Secondly it assesses the extent to which the political opportunity structures constituted by funding and support of NDC/NEM and other state/ third sector actors was accessed by residents’ groups.

From there the chapter moves on to examine metrics of macro-network connectivity, in response to research question 7. This analysis measures the scale of macro-networks, using standard metrics applied to meso-network data in Chapter 5, as well as scrutiny of the positional profile of agencies connected to residents’ groups in the macro-network, looking at the identity of the top ten most central agencies. The final section presents data relating to research question 8 on residents’ perceptions of the nature of the macro- network interface. This firstly considers open-ended responses defining the benefits which residents attribute to relationships with officers of the local state. Secondly it examines closed responses to questions regarding the extent of conflict or challenge to officers enacted by residents in their relationships with them, and the proportion of such instances which have resulted in a positive outcome from the perspective of the resident. Thirdly it considers further responses to closed questions on the perceptions of the extent to which residents’ can influence local decisions, to which regeneration agencies can increase community spirit, and to which regeneration agencies can help residents to get involved in improving the area. The chapter closes with reflections on the contribution of the political opportunity structures of regeneration to the community infrastructure in the two areas indicated by the findings in this chapter.

6.1 Political opportunity structures: participation and support for residents’ groups

6.1.1 Participation in local political opportunity structures of resident involvement This section examines the extent of participation in resident involvement structures, as well as voting behaviour, as an indicator of wider political engagement. Table 25 shows the frequencies of participation at different levels, in different structures.

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Table 25. Frequencies of participation in political opportunity structures Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent Highest level of involvement in None 9 29.0 NDC governnance Residents' Forum 12 38.7 NDC board 6 19.4 NEM Board 4 12.9 Group attended community No 20 58.8 12 40.0 p'ship 3 or more times Yes 14 41.2 18 60.0 Total number times group Mean 2.3 3.8 attended community p'ship Median 1.5 4.0 Group attends forums run No 11 35.5 6 20.0 by other agencies Yes 20 64.5 24 80.0 What proportion of general None 0 0.0 2 5.7 elections respondent voted in Not very many 0 0.0 0 0.0 since eligible to vote Some 2 5.4 0 0.0 Most 5 13.5 2 5.7 All 30 81.1 31 88.6 What proportion of local None 3 8.1 2 5.7 elections respondent voted in Not very many 0 0.0 0 0.0 since eligible to vote Some 3 8.1 0 0.0 Most 6 16.2 2 5.7 All 25 67.6 31 88.6

Looking first at participation in NDC governance, as the backdrop to engagement with NEM as the successor body to NDC, finds that over two thirds of groups were involved at some level, and a nearly a third at the NDC/NEM board level. This indicates that some kind of direct participation in governance structures of the initiative was a common feature of the life of the groups in this study who survived to the end of the scheme. However, of the nine groups not involved in NDC governance in any way local, knowledge obtained in the field suggests that such groups were not necessarily un-engaged with the regeneration initiative. Indeed the age of these groups ranges across the life of the scheme, including two dating back to its first year, three of whom reported receiving set- up funding from NDC, and only one of whom received no set-up help or support from the initiative, having been established very near to the end of the scheme. The principal support and focus of attention for the two other groups is the largest social landlord in the area, Eastlands Homes.

Moving on to the NDC successor structure of the community partnership, this shows that a good deal of the earlier participation amongst Beacons groups has dropped off, with only 14 making three or more meetings during the fieldwork period. Gorton groups, by contrast, seem to have a greater level of interest in its community partnership, though even there forty percent of groups did not attend the community partnership’s meetings three or more times during the fieldwork period.

However, attendance of forums run by other local service-providers is much better in both areas, standing at an impressive eighty percent in Gorton. This suggests a strikingly high 138

level of commitment to participation in an area which did not receive the intensive intervention that Beacons did. However this measure does not capture the frequency with which these groups attend other forum meetings, so the proportion of frequent attenders may be somewhat lower.

Voting is far more common amongst residents’ group representatives in both areas than the average levels reflected in the turnout rates in these wards. Table 49 in Appendix 4 shows that this tended to remain within the 15 to 30 percent range with some peaks further into 30s and even 40 percents, the latter during the general election year, 2010, which have since declined to around earlier levels. Indeed in the two Beacons wards turnout was lower in 2012 than in the first year of NDC in 1999. The long-range stability/ decline of voter turnout in the Beacons wards suggests that, whatever the impact of the scheme on individual activists, it did not quantifiably effect the local population’s engagement with the permanent political structures of the state that it left behind.

Nevertheless high levels of voting are found amongst residents’ group representatives in this study, a finding which is consistent with the recognised relationship between involvement in voluntary associations and voting behaviour reported in studies of voting in Britain such as Denny and Doyle (2008) and Clark et al. (2004), as well as Parry et al. (1992 in Docherty et al., 2001: 2230). In this study there is little to separate the distribution of voting in Beacons and Gorton for general elections, though it is surprising to find two people who have never voted amongst the residents’ group representatives in Gorton. For local elections the distribution of responses remains the same in Gorton as for general elections, but in Beacons 12 people report that they have not always voted in local elections, including three who have never voted. In a socio-spatial context of low political participation the behaviours of these non-voters is of course closer to the norm than that of the voters; indeed socio-economic status and educational attainment are also well recognised as negatively associated with voting, and with political and civic participation in general (see John, 2009b: 494 for key works). The fact that the level of voting is about the same or slightly less amongst active residents in Beacons and Gorton would seem to confirm the message from turnout figures that whatever the singular impact of NDC was in the local area, over and above the contribution of mainstream services and political opportunity structures, it was not felt in the domain of political engagement.

6.1.2 Start-up and ongoing resourcing of residents’ groups through the political opportunity structures of state The next section examines the extent of resourcing of residents’ groups in the two areas, as measured by the variables reported in Table 26. Beginning with start-up resourcing for groups, the results show that the majority of groups in both areas, not just the NDC area, 139

received funding and support at the point of establishing the group. However, rates are higher in Beacons, where the main source of funding and other support (help/ advice)47 is NDC, whilst in Gorton the main source is the city council. Lower down in the table the council is also shown to be leading grant provider for groups in the two years preceding this study, in both areas. The second most significant source of funding and support, ‘Other’, refers to two of the major social landlords in East Manchester, who were cited in all responses in this category.48

Table 26. Extent and sources of financial and non-financial support resources of residents’ groups at set-up and in two years prior to study Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent Received start-up funding No 9 29.0 14 46.7 from any source Yes 22 71.0 16 53.3 Received start-up help/ advice No 6 19.4 13 43.3 from any source Yes 25 80.6 17 56.7 Source of start-up funding* NDC 14 63.6 2 12.5 City council 8 36.4 14 87.5 Other 3 13.6 2 12.5 Source of start-up help/ advice** NDC 16 64.0 7 41.2 Novas Scarman 1 4.0 2 11.8 City council 9 36.0 9 52.9 4CT 1 4.0 0 0.0 Other 7 28.0 4 23.5 Total group income over past None 8 25.8 1 3.3 two years Less than £1000 10 32.3 14 46.7 £1000-£4999 6 19.4 8 26.7 £5000-£9999 3 9.7 3 10.0 £10000-£14999 3 9.7 3 10.0 £15000-£19999 0 0.0 1 3.3 £20000-£24999 1 3.2 0 0.0 Source of income Grants 22 91.7 27 93.1 Own fundraising 16 66.7 9 31.0 Other 4 16.7 9 31.0 Grant providers NDC 11 52.4 5 20.0 City council 16 76.2 20 80.0 Third sector/ charity 1 4.8 3 12.0 Lottery/ Awards for All etc 5 23.8 4 16.0 Social landlord 6 28.6 4 16.0 Item marked * and ** are questions allowing multiple categories to be selected, hence percentage totals exceed 100.

Looking at the responses for total income over the two years leading up to the study, two aspects are surprising: firstly the fact that Gorton groups seem as adept as Beacons groups at generating income, including at the higher levels; and secondly the fact that so many Beacons groups report having no income whatsoever. However the latter would

47 Novas Scarman, who appear in the category of responses to this question, is a charity which until 2010 held the contract for delivering Manchester City Council’s community development and capacity-building across the city. 48 Two of the three Beacons groups selecting ‘other’ cited Eastlands Homes, as did the only Gorton group. The remaining group in Beacons named Guinness Northern Counties, another registered social landlord (RSL). 4CT is another third sector organisation established in the Beacons area, with the support of NDC, on the back of three existing residents’ groups. 140

seem consistent with the comparative distributions of association activity within the two areas, whereby Gorton groups were shown to be on average more active. Any significant activity requires funding, and, given the limited personal wealth in these two areas, any funding is likely to come principally from external sources, which will usually mean formally accounting for its use. The fact that Gorton groups are so successful at obtaining grants, would be more surprising, given the skills and experience required to write successful bids, were it not for the fact that Gorton has been found to have a greater proportion of groups with previous experience of involvement in community groups than Beacons. However Beacons groups engage in their own fundraising in greater numbers than do Gorton groups; this tended to take the form either of contributions from members through annual fees (around £1 per week) or through lotteries/ tombola, or contributions from the wider public through fees charged by the group for running events or revenue from charging for refreshments at such events. ‘Other’ sources of funding encompassed donations of money, goods or time from local businesses or local people, and ‘own pocket’.

6.2 The profile of the macro-network interface between community, regeneration and the local state

The next section of this chapter examines macro-network ties linking residents’ groups into the community/ state interface. Table 27 provides a recap of the types of relations measured and the scale of measurement used. All ties are inherently directed in these

Table 27. Macro-network relations measured in this study Relation 1-mode Data type Measure Categories 1. Direct personal contact- Valued Strength of 0=None, 1=Weak, past two years symmetric relationship 2=Medium, 3=Strong 2. Give information Valued Frequency 0= None, 1=Less than once/ directed over past 2 six months, 2= Every 2-6 years months, 3= Monthly, 4= 3. Receive information Weekly

4. Worked together Binary Whether or 0=No, 1=Yes directed not to date 5. Will work together in Valued Whether 0=No, 1=Maybe 2=Yes future directed envisaged 6. Participation in service Valued Count of forum directed group 7. Board or governor role members in 8. Paid employment role these roles 9. Ongoing volunteer role 10. Other

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two-mode networks, since actors in the second mode (agencies) did not participate in the study, so it is not possible to symmetrise ties based on a negotiation between the accounts of each party to a tie, as was done with meso-network data.

6.2.1 The relational profile of the macro-network interface Table 28 shows measures of density and average degree in the macro-networks.49 The same pattern of declining connectivity going from the contact network to formal links is found here as was the case in the meso-networks, going from contact to shared membership.

Table 28. Density and average degree in the macro-networks Relation Beacons Density Valued Average deg Valued No. ties density average deg Contact 0.2097 0.4834 26.84 61.87 Give information 0.1215 0.2838 15.55 36.32 Receive information 0.1419 0.3682 18.16 47.13 Working together 0.1116 14.29 Work together in the future 0.1242 0.2203 15.90 28.19 Formal link- service/ policy forum 0.0171 0.0232 2.19 2.97 68 Formal link- board/ governor 0.0038 0.0038 0.48 0.48 15 Formal link- ongoing volunteer 0.0066 0.0108 0.84 1.39 26 Formal link- employed 0.0043 0.0068 0.55 0.87 17 Formal link- other 0.0003 0.0003 0.03 0.03 1 Gorton Density Valued Average deg Valued No. ties density average deg

Contact 0.1831 0.3971 23.43 50.83 Give information 0.1063 0.2750 13.60 35.20 Receive information 0.1078 0.2945 13.80 37.70 Working together 0.0930 11.90 Work together in the future 0.1294 0.2253 16.57 28.83 Formal link- service/ policy forum 0.0159 0.0242 2.03 3.10 61 Formal link- board/ governor 0.0031 0.0031 0.40 0.47 12 Formal link- ongoing volunteer 0.0083 0.0115 1.07 1.47 32 Formal link- employed 0.0024 0.0031 0.30 0.40 9 Formal link- other 0.0005 0.0008 0.07 0.10 2 Beacons N ties= 3968; Gorton N ties=3840; Beacons N actors= 31 and 128; Gorton N actors= 30 and 128

The connectivity of Gorton groups in the macro-networks compares very respectably with Beacons, despite groups in the area having had less support to develop such connections. Indeed, the greater efforts in Beacons to ensure the dissemination of information to groups and the wider community is reflected in the particularly high connectivity in the receiving-information network, with just over 18 ties per group on average. Meanwhile on Work future ties Gorton is found to have higher density and

49 The total number of ties is based on the multiplication of the sum of actors in each mode, since it theoretically is possible for every actor in one mode to have a tie with every actor in the other. 142

average degree compared to Beacons, as was the case in the meso-network, and the larger difference between average degree in the work together network and in the work future network in Gorton than in Beacons again suggests a greater growth trajectory for the connectivity of Gorton groups.

On the measures of more formal relationships enacted through regular involvement in service panels/ policy forums, other governance structures, employment or ongoing volunteering roles, Gorton also compares very well to Beacons; indeed it has a greater number of ongoing volunteering ties, and the number of board or governors roles suggests that Gorton groups are as willing and able to enter into this level of committed role as their supposedly more experienced Beacons counterparts. However, most of the volunteering roles appear to be in state-initiated community champion positions of community guardians or KINs50; these are effectively a formal, individualised labelling of the activities typically undertaken by people running residents’ associations or neighbourhood watch schemes, though there are a handful of people who volunteer for a church or in a community centre. Meanwhile the employment links between residents’ groups and local agencies tend mostly not to reflect senior level employment positions51, and ‘other’ roles are what might be termed ‘reverse’ volunteer roles, such as a third sector organisations doing the accounts for a local group pro bono, or the MP being a member of one of the Gorton groups.

Next the communication interface measured by giving and receiving of information ties is examined more closely. Table 29 shows the distribution of information ties by tie value. The distribution of values on receiving information ties is very similar in Beacons and Gorton, though there is a slight inclination towards higher frequency in Gorton. On giving information the difference between the two is slightly greater again, with nearly two-thirds of Beacons ties in the bottom two frequency categories, whilst the majority in Gorton is once again spread across the top two most frequent categories. Together these tend to suggest a slightly higher level of interaction across this interface in Gorton, which would be consistent with the higher levels of activity of Gorton groups in general within the

50 The Community Guardians scheme is a volunteer scheme run by Manchester City Council. A Community Guardian is an individual resident who 'adopts' their local area and who works closely with the council to ensure that any environmental problems in the area are dealt with promptly. The Key Individual Network (KIN) is a scheme run by Greater Manchester Police in partnership with the city council. The network is made up of individuals who, according to Greater Manchester Police’s website volunteer to “work for their community by forwarding crime prevention messages and helping to decide priorities on behalf of local residents”. http://www.gmp.police.uk/mainsite/pages/6c28d80b9c6c15aa8025793c00475e3b.htm 51 For example, a number of people work as classroom assistants or dinner ladies at local schools, however Beacons ties include a group with a member who runs one of the children’s centres, and both areas count a church minister amongst their activists. 143

Table 29. Frequencies of macro-network information ties by tie value

Receive information Percentage of ties Value Beacons Gorton 1 Less than once every six months 14.2 12.8 2 Every 2-6 months 35.9 30.2 3 Monthly 26.1 28.0 4 Weekly 23.8 29.0

Give information Percentage of ties Value Beacons Gorton 1 Less than once every six months 21.8 17.2 2 Every 2-6 months 41.3 30.4 3 Monthly 18.5 28.9 4 Weekly 18.5 23.5 Receive: Beacons N= 563. Gorton N= 414; Give: Beacons N= 482, Gorton N= 408 neighbourhood, as well as their higher levels of participation in the political opportunity structures of the local state, compared to Beacons’ groups, seen in Table 25 above. Arguably Gorton residents may also have more issues to raise with local agencies than those in the ‘regenerated’ Beacons area.

6.2.2 The positional profile of the macro-network interface: identifying the most highly connected state actors The next section offers who’s who of the top ten most central state actors in the macro- network, to identify which agencies residents’ groups have the greatest level of contact with. With average degree of residents’ groups in these networks lying in the range of 11 to 18 ties, analysis focussing on the top ten most central actors allows examination of those agencies which are likely to account for a sizeable proportion of residents’ groups most regular interactions across the macro-network interface.

Table 30 reveals that NEM is the chief information-distributor in both areas. This is more surprising in the case of Gorton than it is in Beacons. Indeed information is received from NEM by 97 percent of groups in Gorton, even greater proportion than in Beacons, which says a great deal about the extent to which it proactively engaged with the community in the non-NDC area from 2007/08. The high ranking of Neighbourhood Policing and the city council’s Street Environment Team52 across the all three relationship types is

52 The Street Environment Team is very much community-based, with officers who work closely on the ground with residents to sort out issues, mostly around street and property (grounds) cleanliness. Manchester 144

Table 30. Degree centrality of top ten most central agencies for receiving/ giving information and working together relations with residents’ groups Beacons Gorton Agency/ actor Degree Agency/ actor Degree Receive Information 1 NEM 0.87 NEM 0.97 2 Ward Coordination 0.77 N'hood Policing 0.87 3 N'hood Policing 0.71 Ward Coordination 0.60 4 Street Environment 0.65 Street Environment 0.50 5 Eastlands Homes 0.65 Community Guardians 0.47 6 4CT 0.55 Cllr Wendy Helsby 0.40 7 Manchester Leisure 0.48 Gerald Kaufman MP 0.40 8 Valuing Older People 0.48 Manchester Leisure 0.37 9 Community Safety Coordinators 0.45 Community Safety Coordinators 0.37 10 Tony Lloyd MP 0.45 Eastlands Homes 0.37 Give information 1 Street Environment 0.74 N'hood Policing 0.83 2 N'hood Policing 0.74 Street Environment 0.80 3 NEM 0.68 NEM 0.70 4 Eastlands Homes 0.58 Cllr Wendy Helsby 0.57 5 Ward Coordination 0.52 Gerald Kaufman MP 0.47 6 Manchester Leisure 0.52 Highways Services 0.43 7 Community Safety Coordinators 0.45 Eastlands Homes 0.40 8 Cllr John Longsden 0.42 Community Safety Coordinators 0.37 9 Tony Lloyd MP 0.42 Community Guardians 0.37 10 4CT 0.39 Cllr Jackie Pearcey 0.37 Work together 1 NEM 0.77 Street Environment 0.73 2 N'hood Policing 0.71 N'hood Policing 0.73 3 Street Environment 0.68 NEM 0.70 4 Ward Coordination 0.65 Ward Coordination 0.57 5 Manchester Leisure 0.55 Cllr Wendy Helsby 0.47 6 Eastlands Homes 0.45 Gerald Kaufman MP 0.43 7 Community Safety Coordinators 0.42 Manchester Leisure 0.37 8 Cllr Mike Carmody 0.42 Community Safety Coordinators 0.37 9 Park Wardens Service 0.35 Cllr Jackie Pearcey 0.37 10 4CT 0.35 Eastlands Homes 0.23 Beacons N tie= 3968; Gorton N ties=3840; Beacons N actors= 31 and 128; Gorton N actors= 30 and 128 Degree reported here is normalised degree, which indicates the proportion of all possible ties possessed by the actor in question. unsurprising, given that crime and grime issues are the staple business of residents’ groups such as these; likewise ward coordination, whose support officers are the route to grants administered by the council. New ways of working with the community on crime constituted a key element of NDC, which the new ‘community safety coordinators’, named

Leisure is another department of the council, which oversee parks and green spaces, as well as other leisure services. It is a main contact with residents running friends of parks groups. Valuing Older People is multi-agency programme within the council, focussed on improving services and opportunities for older people. It runs a network that attracts substantial participation from east Manchester’s active residents. 145

in the rankings in Table 30, were a part of. As the largest social landlord and provider of channels for resident involvement in services it is also not surprising to find Eastlands Homes appear as it does here.

There seems to be little to dramatically differentiate the two areas on the membership of the top ten most central agencies, however the high ranking of elected representatives in Gorton, including on Work ties is worthy of note; in particular the, now former, Liberal Democrat member for Gorton North ward, Wendy Helsby, a Gortonian born and bred, and the longstanding Gorton MP of forty years Gerald Kaufman. Indeed forty percent of groups report regularly receiving information from both, and even higher proportions report giving information to them. This indicates that Gorton groups are generally as politically engaged at the local level as those in Beacons, if not slightly more so on collaborative ties. However, one councillor in Beacons does make it into the Work top ten in Beacons, another into Give information, and these residents also seem to have a reasonable level of information-sharing interaction with their MP, Tony Lloyd.

6.3 Perceptions of the macro-network interface

This section presents data in response to research question 8. It examines perceptions of the nature and extent of the porosity of the macro-network interface.

6.3.1 The profile of benefits and conflicts flowing through the macro-network interface This section begins by examining responses to an open-ended question asking residents about the benefits of having personal relationships with officers in local agencies. Responses were coded into the items in Table 31 and were assigned to multiple categories.

Looking it the items in Table 31 it should be clear that there is some overlap in the codes; indeed this reflects the fact that some responses amount to specifications of more general benefits, such Item 8 where trust is specified, though it is clearly implicit in other items.53 Focussing in on interpretation of the residents in the table, they clearly highlight the importance to residents in both areas of simply getting things done, and as quickly and efficiently as possible (e.g. Item 4). Thus it ought to be recognised that the drive for results which underpins contemporary public management is in itself not entirely at odds with the attitudes of community activists.

53 These responses were the most challenging to code of all the open-ended data reported in this study. They were laden with affect and layers of meaning beyond the face value of the words themselves, highlighting the potential value of a more in-depth approach for examining questions of personal experience such as these. 146

Table 31. Benefits of having direct personal relationships with officers in agencies- coded open ends Beacons Gorton

Count Percent Count Percent

1 More friendly/ comfortable/ become friends 6 20.7% 2 6.9%

Learn who is who, amongst officers- networking to other 2 8 27.6% 16 55.2% services through known officers Feel more confident in communicating/ speaking one's 3 10 34.5% 8 27.6% mind/ explaining in detail

4 Quicker/ more efficient 14 48.3% 16 55.2%

5 Generates personal commitment from officer 11 37.9% 18 62.1%

6 Less buck-passing/ being passed around 6 20.7% 1 3.4%

7 Educates officers about community needs 2 6.9% 1 3.4%

8 Increased trust in officers by residents 8 27.6% 4 13.8%

9 Officers less sympathetic because they know you. 1 3.4% 0 0.0%

10 Mutual understanding- of each other/ what's possible 12 41.4% 5 17.2%

Greater personal engagement from residents- more likely 11 26.9%00.0% to report things

12 No specific benefits 0 0.0% 1 3.4%

Beacons N=29; Gorton N=29

Comparing the distributions of responses across the items in the two areas two areas it is clear that many of the perceived benefits of these relationships are common to both Beacons and Gorton groups. However, there some small differences, which suggest subtly different orientations. Firstly evocations of mutual understanding (Item 10), and of friendliness, or specifically friendships with officers (Item 1) are more common in Beacons than Gorton; the latter recalls more frequent references by Beacons groups to friendship and socialising as subjects for information-sharing between groups and as benefits of relations with other groups, reported in Chapters 4 and 5 respectively. Amongst Gorton groups, on the other hand, the networking or brokerage aspect of relationships with officers (Item 2) is considerably more common, as is the idea of generating personal commitment from the officer to the individual (Item 5). Feeling confident and being better able to articulate one’s needs clearly, firmly and in detail is held up as an important benefit amongst groups in both areas, though it is cited slightly more often in Beacons. One Beacons resident observed that that personal recognition can cut either way, including less sympathetic treatment, as shown in Item 9. Indeed implicit in several of these items is a sense of the state being a slippery entity, which needs to be captured and pinned down, and which isn’t naturally responsive, understanding of the circumstances of people’s lives, or personally empowering. Responses relating to the reassurance provided by officers 147

who understand the individual, and through building personal commitment, to guard against the risk of buck-passing, hints at an anxiety felt by residents about these relationships.

Indeed relationships between active residents and the local state can produce situations of conflict as well as cooperation, as the brief review of existing research on NDC governance in Chapter 2 highlighted. It is therefore important to consider this mode of interaction across the macro-network divide. Residents’ group representatives participating in this study were asked to indicate the frequency with which they had come into conflict or had to challenge officers of local agencies when trying to get something done over the preceding two years. Responses are shown in Table 32.

Table 32. Frequency with which residents’ group engaged in conflict or challenge with officers in preceding two years Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent Frequency of Never 10 34.5 12 42.9 conflict Rarely 7 24.1 4 14.3 Sometimes 6 20.7 5 17.9 Often 6 20.7 7 25.0 Always 0 0.0 0 0.0 Beacons N= 29, Gorton N= 28

The distribution of responses shown in Table 32 is very similar in the two areas, with over a third reporting never experiencing conflict, and the rest reporting its emergence with varying degrees of frequency. No-one reports always experiencing conflict; indeed that would reflect very badly on officers as well as groups, though perhaps those groups who are most confrontational are least likely to survive and therefore to have made it into this study. The possibility that reporting of more frequent conflict reflects more frequent interaction with agencies was examined by testing for correlation of this variable with macro-network centrality of groups. Moderate strength statistically significant correlations (in the range 0.366 to 0.47754) were found with macro-network centrality of residents groups in the networks of receiving information, giving information, and working together. A relationship was confirmed with all three measures in Beacons, though it was weakest with work together. In Gorton conflict was only correlated with giving information and working together, and most strongly with the former. These results indicate some degree of relationship between contact and the emergence of conflict situations.

54 Correlations produced in UCINET, based on 25,000 permutations. One-tailed statistical significance at 0.05 level. 148

Groups were also asked about the outcome of conflict: how often this resulted in a positive outcome from their perspective. Responses are shown in Table 33.

Table 33. Proportion of situations of conflict or challenge with officers resulting in a positive outcome from the group’s perspective Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent Proportion of conflict None 3 15.8 1 6.3 situations with positive Some 5 26.3 3 18.8 outcome for group Most 8 42.1 8 50.0 All 3 15.8 4 25.0 Beacons N= 19, Gorton N= 16 Once again the distribution of responses is very similar in the two areas, with few instances of zero satisfaction. It would be surprising to find higher frequencies of reporting that ‘All’ conflict was resolved to the satisfaction of residents, since it is to be expected that some individual expectations will not be consistent with agency priorities and equitable service-provision. However, these results tend to suggest that for the most part, those groups that persist in interacting with the local state are able to manage the emergence of conflict reasonably fruitfully, though as many as 3 groups in Beacons report situations of no satisfactory resolution. Indeed conflict is stressful and the persistence required to turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’, when faced with the superior organisational power and informational resources of the state, can be considerable. This underlines why enduring personal relationships with officers can be so valuable in neighbourhoods with a lot of problems to be managed.

6.3.2 Perceptions of empowerment and regeneration’s impact on community The next section examines perceptions of empowerment, and the impact of regeneration on community and resident involvement in neighbourhood improvement, as measured by

Table 34. Frequencies of responses to empowerment and community impact questions- individual respondent questions Beacons Gorton Count Percent Count Percent How much respondent thinks Not at all 1 2.5 2 4.9 their group can influence A little 16 40.0 8 19.5 decisions affecting area Quite a lot 21 52.5 23 56.1 A great deal 2 5.0 8 19.5 How much respondent thinks Not at all 3 7.5 0 0.0 regeneration has helped/ can A little 12 30.0 5 12.8 help increase community spirit Quite a lot 14 35.0 21 53.8 A great deal 11 27.5 13 33.3 How much regeneration has Not at all 2 4.9 0 0.0 helped/ can help local residents A little 12 29.3 4 9.5 get involved in improving Quite a lot 13 31.7 23 54.8 where they live A great deal 14 34.1 15 35.7

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the three categorical questions shown in Table 34. These questions were asked of each individual participant in the study, rather than as responses provided on behalf of the group, since they ask about subjective opinion.

The most positive responses shown in Table 34 are received for the measure of helping residents to get involved in improving where they live, whilst the least positive are for the question on influence. On all measures, the majority of respondents select the highest two categories, however it is surprising to find that on all three the proportion of respondents who selected the highest two categories is higher in Gorton than in Beacons. Indeed, even in this small population of the most committed resident activists, there are individuals who feel that regeneration makes no contribution to community spirit, nor to helping residents to get involved, and that they have no influence whatsoever on decisions affecting the local area. In some respect the results which are most difficult to explain are answers to the third question regarding involvement, since so much of NDC was about involving residents in neighbourhood improvements and encouraging other agencies to do the same. Yet fourteen Beacons residents in this study appear to believe they largely failed in this endeavour.

Perhaps, however, the different way of asking the questions in the two areas has had an effect here, with one employing retrospection (‘have helped’), and the other encouraging reflection on current conditions and the hypothetical (‘can help’). However, retrospection would be difficult to eliminate from a survey in the Beacons area, since regeneration in its most visible guise is behind them, and the present circumstances offer an uncertain trajectory. Anxiety and doubt about what has been left behind seems somewhat built into this scenario. Equally Gorton respondents may be, to some degree, indulging in the fantasy of what might be, if only they could attract more funding and more intervention into their area.

Indeed it is worthy of mention that the most positive responses received in Beacons to any of the individual-level perception questions in this study were those given to the question about the extent to which regeneration had made Beacons a better place to live over the preceding 10 years (see Table 50 in Appendix 4). 70 percent of responses to this question are in the top two, most positive, categories. Similarly, when casually asked at the end of interviews if they felt on balance NDC had been a good thing, no-one denied this, despite the fact that there were some negative responses to the survey question. However, physical improvements alone are plainly not enough to improve people’s day-to-day

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experiences and interactions, or their sense of having someone to continue to listen or help when the NDC bandwagon rolls out of town.

6.4 Summary of findings and discussion

In response to research question 5, regarding the extent of participation in the political opportunity structures of resident involvement in regeneration, the majority of Beacons groups were found to have participated in the governance structures of NDC, however the rates of attendance of meetings of the successor structure of the community partnership suggest a loss of interest in this type of engagement, at least in relation to this NDC successor body. Gorton’s residents appear to be more enthusiastic about the community partnership in their area, though here too there is a large minority which is apparently not engaged with it. Participation in other involvement forums appears to be at a much higher rate in both areas, though data on actual frequencies of meeting attendance, which were not collected, might have been less impressive. Voting is also majority sport amongst group representatives in both areas. The fact that it is slightly lower in Beacons than in Gorton would appear to support the message coming from the stability/ decline of recent electoral turnout figures, which indicates that the presence of NDC did not help serve any democratic renewal goals at the local level, though these were never an explicit aim of the programme. This raises questions about the de-politicisation of civic participation in regeneration and the managerialist focus on service-delivery forums under New Labour’s governance reforms.

Moving on to findings in relation to the accessing of POS resources of funding and support, addressed by research question 6, Beacons was found to out-perform Gorton with respect to the extent of start-up support accessed by groups, which was principally provided in Beacons by NDC. However, Gorton was found not to be as far behind in this regard as might have been anticipated, and compares very respectably to Beacons on indicators of its groups’ capacity to obtain funding from various sources. Indeed, the measure of total income over the past two years shows that Gorton groups secured greater financial resourcing overall compared to those in Beacons, where a sizeable minority of groups reported no income whatsoever.

Findings relating to research question 7, regarding the profile of macro-network connections and the structural porosity of this interface, showed greater overall connectivity across the macro-network interface in Beacons compared to Gorton. However, Gorton compares favourably once again, and shows some signs of more active engagement, as measured by the frequency (tie values) of information receiving and giving. There are also signs of a possible trajectory of a greater growth of connectivity for

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Gorton groups on future work together ties. Meanwhile rates of participation through formal links into service panels, board/ governor roles, employment, and volunteering roles are very similar in both areas, whilst much of the volunteering appears to centre on what might be termed ‘sub-residents’ group’ activities of community guardian and KIN roles, rather than the many routes to independent volunteering beyond mainstream public agencies. This may say something about the weakness of the local voluntary sector on the one hand, and about the willingness of local residents to engage with it on the other. Indeed these roles in key local public services have a more direct, clear benefit for the residents themselves, than other types of volunteering. This is not an unreasonable motivation amongst people living in conditions of relative poverty, both in terms of money and time, and in places with many problems and therefore greater cause for the public to intervene to address them.

Further to research question 7, data on the top ten agency actors connected to groups across the macro-network interface underlined the major role which NEM has had as a disseminator of information, to a degree which ought to cause some concern about its subsequent demise and the slimming down and re-design of services across the city, including in East Manchester. Other key mainstream actors in the top ten are those which one would expect to find there, emphasising the importance of community-level working on issues of crime and grime, which were much improved through community policing and better street environment management relationships with the community during NDC. In both areas there are significant links between groups and elected members, though it appears these relationships may be somewhat more developed in Gorton, particularly with respect to collaborative relationships.

Finally, moving on to findings in relation to research question 8, regarding perceptions of the macro-network interface, the benefits of macro-network relations cited by residents provide evidence that macro-network connections can make a significant difference to residents’ group representatives in a number of ways, which may help encourage ongoing involvement by making their business easier, the experience friendlier, and by allowing the potential for learning and improvement, on the part of both residents and officers. However, implicit in these perceived benefits is a sense of routine low expectations and barriers to be overcome. The fact that the majority of groups have experienced some kind of conflict with officers and the correlation between conflict and centrality, suggests that such pressures are part and parcel of the experience of relations across the macro- network interface. This may be one reason why participation remains a minority sport. It may also be related to the comparatively lower frequencies of positive feelings of influence reported amongst Beacons residents’ groups, which on average have more

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interaction with agencies than those in Gorton. On all three of the individual-level perceptions measures Gorton groups responded more positively overall.

In relation to this subject, it is worth briefly re-visiting Ipsos MORI’s 2008 analysis empowerment using the national NDC surveys, which included a longitudinal element. This revealed that the biggest changes downwards in the measure of feeling able to influence local decisions was amongst people who had previously been involved in NDC governance but no longer were (Ipsos MORI, 2008: 56). They suggest that part of the explanation here may lie in the fact that involvement gives a clearer insight into what is possible, and therefore raises expectations, however it seems equally plausible that the experience of involvement itself was disappointing. The latter interpretation would fit with Dargan’s evidence, highlighted in Chapter 2, about the misunderstandings and resultant conflict related to the expectation among some residents of being put in control of the NDC partnership, caused by misleading use of the term ‘community leadership’ by NDC (Dargan, 2009). Either way, their argument that “it is better not to raise expectations of influence at all than to initiate it then let it dissipate” seems reasonable. It is quite conceivably part of the explanation for the evaporation of the NDC succession structures of the community partnership within such a short space of time, following the end of the scheme. The discussion in Chapter 8 sheds further light on this.

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Chapter 7. A multi-dimensional profile of community infrastructure: networks, attributes and political opportunity structure

This chapter brings together key elements of the empirical analysis presented in chapters 4 to 6 to build up a multi-dimensional profile of community infrastructure, taking account of group attributes and engagement with political opportunity structures (POS), as well as the multiple levels of network connection. In this chapter community infrastructure at the micro-level is brought into the analysis using the indices of association and representation reported on in Chapter 4. Meanwhile the meso and macro-networks are investigated from a positional point of view, examining the centrality of individual groups in the networks of relations, based on how connected they each are. As discussed in Chapter 3, actors occupying central positions in the network have a key role as lynchpins and leaders; centrality is therefore routinely used to capture power and influence. The different measures employed in this chapter reflect different aspects of this, taking account of local centrality (degree) as the principal measure, as well as global centrality, reaching out into the network (closeness, measured as radiality and integration) and power or influence (betweenness).

The chapter begins by examining results in relation to research question 9, regarding the relationship between the three levels of community infrastructure captured in this study: the micro, meso, and macro. The first section presents analysis of the relationship between micro-level interaction measured by the indices of association and representation and measures of centrality in the meso-networks of information-sharing and collaboration (work together). This is followed by analysis of the relationship between each of these two levels of interaction (micro-network indices and meso-network centralities) and centrality in three of the macro-networks: giving information to agencies and receiving information from them and collaboration with them (work together).

In the second section the chapter moves on to results in response to research question 10, which asks which attributes of groups, including their accessing of political opportunity structures (POS), are related to the community infrastructure profile of groups at the micro, meso and macro levels. This analysis examines the bi-variate association between the micro-network indices of association and representation, meso- and macro-network centralities, and multiple non-POS and POS-related attributes of residents’ groups, the latter being the measures of resourcing through funding and support from the local agencies, and participation in governance structures.

In the final section this analysis is brought together to reflect on the how the data presented in this chapter respond to the two research questions which framed the

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analysis. This discussion also briefly considers a problematic attempt at principal components analysis using the data presented in this chapter, which is shown in Appendix 5, since it is informative in drawing overarching conclusions from the data in this chapter.

7.1 The interplay between micro, meso, and macro-networks

This chapter begins with presentation of correlational analysis of the relationships between the indices of micro-network interaction, association and representation, and measures of centrality in the meso- and macro-networks of information-sharing and collaboration (work together).

7.1.1 Micro-network interaction and meso-network centrality Table 35 shows correlation coefficients measuring the strength and direction of the bi- variate relationship between association, representation and measures of centrality, which were described in Chapter 3.55

Table 35. Correlations between indices of association and representation and measures of centrality in meso-networks of information-sharing and work together

Information-sharing Work Outdeg Indeg Integ Radial Betw Degree Beacons Association r 0.096 0.008 0.183 0.207 -0.049 0.077 p 0.608 0.965 0.302 0.249 0.793 0.678 Representation r 0.320 0.262 0.136 0.163 0.543 0.415 p 0.078 0.156 0.487 0.400 0.001 0.022 Gorton Association r 0.693 0.595 0.153 0.654 0.591 0.612 p 0.000 0.001 0.463 0.000 0.000 0.000 Representation r 0.406 0.419 0.487 0.220 0.506 0.360 p 0.025 0.022 0.003 0.249 0.004 0.052 Beacons N= 31 nodes/ 930 ties; Gorton N=30 nodes/ 870 ties. Coefficients in bold are statistically significant at 0.05 level on a one-tailed test (F statistic), as per the corresponding value of p shown. P values are based on 25,000 permutations.

The values shown in Table 35 show a considerable contrast between Beacons and Gorton. In Beacons only the representation measure is shown to be related to any of the measures of centrality: quite strongly so, in the case of betweenness in the information- sharing network, a little less strongly with degree in the work together network. It makes sense that groups with members who are willing to engage in the advocacy-type activity dealing with the state to solve problems on behalf of neighbours (as captured by the

55 The coefficients are Pearson’s r, with p values based on permutation tests in UCINET, as explained in Chapter 3. 155

representation measure) should have higher betweenness; problem-solvers doubtlessly get reputations in places with many problems and a generally wide-scale reluctance to engage with the state. And in a network of residents’ groups whose members view joining forces to monitor and ‘gang up’ on agencies over poor services to be a manifestation of working together (as shown in Table 9 in Chapter 4), the correlation between work together and representation seems logical. The fact that association is not related to inter-neighbourhood relations at all is surprising, though it was shown to be lower on average than in Gorton, so perhaps the level of activity is simply too low to produce an effect at the meso-network level.

When it comes to the interpretation of betweenness, it is worth recalling Brass’ (1984: 537) observation that it is a concept which is “far more difficult to envision or observe” than other measures of centrality, a statement of even greater salience to a study in which the actors are, strictly speaking, groups of people, rather than individuals. Nevertheless Brass makes use of betweenness in his 1984 study, finding it is related to reputational power (1984: 537), whilst Krackhardt (1990) uses it to control for positional power in a study of cognitive accuracy in the identification of powerful actors in a network, based on a separate reputational measure of power and influence. Meanwhile, Diani (2003b) uses it as a measure of influence in social movement networks.

In Gorton both association and representation are correlated with the meso-network centrality measures: both measures are positively related to centrality but association is more strongly correlated overall. This includes a strong relationship between association and degree on the work together network, in contrast to Beacons where only representation is correlated with this measure. It is possible that this distinction is related to differences in the types of activities which groups in Beacons and Gorton work together on, noted in Chapter 4. In Gorton there is a greater tendency towards collective organising of events- which would correspond more with association-type activity- rather than ganging up against local service-providers.

The relationships with the measures of closeness centrality (integration and radiality) are also interesting in this regard. In Gorton it is groups which are active advocates and problem-solvers in their neighbourhood- those scoring well on representation- which tend to have higher integration centrality, a measure which indicates that they are reachable by others through indirect ties (multiple steps) coming inwards to them. Meanwhile groups which organise and publicise events and hold meetings within their neighbourhood- those scoring well on association- have higher radiality i.e. connectivity reaching out into the network, through indirect ties. The explanation for the relationship between representation

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and integration suggests that having a reputation as a problem-solver and advocate attracts an in-flow of information in Gorton, not just from direct connections, but from indirect ones. Meanwhile the relationship between association and radiality suggests that groups running events and making things happen in the neighbourhood are more likely to be deliberately sending information out into the network, to publicise their activity, and this is travelling beyond direct connections. Equally the fact that they are organising something makes them generally more visible and people may therefore talk about them and spread word of their activity, without any deliberate action to publicise it on the part of the group itself. Meanwhile both association and representation are quite strongly correlated with the brokerage-type role implied by betweenness. This again suggests the possibility that both these types of activity elevate the status of groups within the information-sharing network. Of course it is also possible that the direction of causation is the reverse, from network position to activity, but this seems a less plausible mechanism in a network of actors who aren’t directly proximate to each other on a day-to-day basis, and which are organisations, albeit small ones.

7.1.2 Micro- and meso-network network correlation with and macro-network centrality Moving on to the relationship with the macro-network level of community infrastructure, Table 36 shows correlations between macro-network degree centralities (of residents’ groups in network of relations with agencies) and both the micro-network indices of interaction, and meso-network centralities.

Focussing first on micro-network indices of association and representation, Table 36 shows that representation is correlated with all three measures of macro-network centrality in both areas, and in each case, most highly with degree in the receiving- information network. This makes sense, since groups which aren’t able to communicate with, and generate a response from, local agencies are unlikely to be sought out to assist local residents, and are unlikely to bother to make any effort to speak to local residents to find out what they want or need in the area (recalling that these were types of activity incorporated into the representation index).

However a clear contrast between Beacons and Gorton is once again found in relation to association. For Gorton groups association is highly correlated with degree centrality in all three of the macro-networks, indeed more strongly than representation. This indicates that groups who are very busy interacting and running activities within their immediate neighbourhood/ locus of operation are also the most likely to be highly connected to local

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Table 36. Correlations between micro-network indices, meso-network centralities and macro-network centralities Beacons Macro-network centralities Receive info Work together Give info deg deg deg r 0.237 0.241 0.391 Association p 0.200 0.193 0.030 r 0.470 0.534 0.452 Representation p 0.006 0.002 0.010 Meso-net Info r 0.593 0.662 0.588 outdegree p 0.000 0.000 0.001 Meso-net Info r 0.558 0.721 0.551 indegree p 0.001 0.000 0.001 Meso-net info r 0.611 0.730 0.826 betweenness p 0.001 0.000 0.000 Meso-net Work r 0.733 0.831 0.699 degree p 0.000 0.000 0.000 Gorton r 0.664 0.684 0.626 Association p 0.000 0.000 0.000 r 0.561 0.621 0.460 Representation p 0.001 0.000 0.011 Meso-net Info r 0.659 0.694 0.608 outdegree p 0.000 0.000 0.000 Meso-net Info r 0.478 0.558 0.437 indegree p 0.007 0.002 0.016 Meso-net info r 0.662 0.684 0.692 betweenness p 0.001 0.000 0.000 Meso-net Work r 0.536 0.575 0.565 degree p 0.002 0.001 0.002

N Beacons groups=31 for association and representation and one-mode centralities based on total N of 34 groups in network; N Gorton groups, in all cases= 30. N agencies in two-mode (macro) network in Beacons and Gorton= 128. P values are based on 25,000 permutations. Coefficients in bold are statistically significant at 0.05 level based on F statistic. agencies. However in Beacons the only statistically significant correlation between centrality in the macro-networks and association is in the macro-level work together network- and this is the smallest coefficient in the table. Again this may to be related to the lower level of associational activity taking place overall in the Beacons area. Given the idea that community-building was a goal of NDC regeneration, albeit one facing severe competition from other the rationales for Labour’s neighbourhood policy discussed in Chapter 2 (economic, political, social), finding only a very limited relationship between macro-network connection and association seems important, particularly given how strongly this contrasts with the Gorton case.

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Moving on to the relationship between meso- and macro-network measures of centrality, all four meso-network centralities are found to be highly or very highly correlated with macro-network connection in both Beacons and Gorton.

In Beacons it is betweenness in the information-sharing and degree in the work together meso-networks which are most highly correlated overall with the macro-network centralities. The fact that betweenness is the meso-network measure most strongly correlated with both the micro-level (with the representation measure) and the macro-level (with work together) fits once again with a picture of a Beacons community-infrastructure built, from bottom to top, rather more on problem-solving and service-monitoring than on associational style self-organising.56 It also fits with the very high correlations between work together (as a ‘ganging up’ activity) in the meso-network and all three measures of macro-network centrality: the community/ agencies interface is integral to enacting representational/ ganging-up type roles, with receiving information from agencies found to have highest correlation of all with meso-network work together centrality. Those groups which work together horizontally in Beacons are recipients of information from many sources in the local state. Furthermore all of this would seem to fit with the NDC’s general emphasis on information-dissemination and mobilising residents to demand better service performance to improve the area.

In Gorton betweenness and outdegree in the information-sharing meso-network have the strongest correlations with the three macro-network measures, suggesting that the most pro-active givers and controllers of information flow in Gorton are also the most highly linked into the macro-network. Taking all three levels of interaction together, the picture in Gorton, in contrast to Beacons, is one of high integration across the three levels. However the slightly stronger relationships between association and meso- and macro-network centrality than with representation is consistent with a history of infrastructural growth coming more from the ground up, based on fun, sociable, not necessarily problem-related, interaction.

7.2 Attribute correlates of connectivity: the relationship between attributes of groups and their micro, meso and macro-network level interactivity

The next section examines the relationship between attributes of groups and metrics of their connectivity in the micro, meso and macro-networks. This focuses on POS and non-

56 Of course it is difficult to quantify the relationship between the quantitative measures and the qualitative reports of the nature of groups’ activities in order to demonstrate a direct relationship, particularly given the small numbers in this study (only five groups gave responses coded specifically to the ‘ganging up’ category). Nevertheless it is the strongest, most logical interpretation based on the sum contribution of the survey and the ethnographic data available here. 159

POS related attributes, with analysis sub-divided to consider correlates of micro, meso and macro connectivity in turn.

7.2.1 Correlates of micro-network interaction Table 37 below shows the results of tests of association between the two indices of micro- network interaction, association and representation, and multiple non-POS attribute measures of residents’ groups theorised as possible correlates, including membership and leadership characteristics.57

Table 37. Correlation of micro-network measures, association and representation, with non-POS attributes of residents’ groups- Pearson’s r Beacons Gorton Assoc Repres Assoc Repres R -0.108 0.190 0.121 -0.089 1. Group age in years P 0.550 0.310 0.535 0.645 R 0.272 0.272 0.088 -0.058 2. Group age in years squared P 0.134 0.143 0.669 0.774 R 0.398 0.321 0.671 0.333 3. Group size (no. regularly involved with group) P 0.027 0.078 0.000 0.071 R 0.545 -0.124 0.503 0.024 4. Group Type (2 cats- non-n'hood based groups) P 0.002 0.504 0.006 0.902 R 0.325 0.336 0.030 0.145 5. Any BME membership P 0.071 0.063 0.870 0.447 R -0.133 -0.074 -0.139 -0.084 6. Gender of group leader (2 cats- female) P 0.548 0.693 0.458 0.663 R 0.081 0.126 0.153 -0.061 7. Group leader employed P 0.667 0.501 0.415 0.748 8. Leader previously involved in community/ vol R 0.305 -0.025 -0.055 0.172 group P 0.095 0.895 0.768 0.366 N Beacons groups=31; N Gorton groups, in all cases= 30. P values are based on 10,000 permutations. Coefficients in bold are statistically significant at 0.05 level based on the F statistic. Variables 3 to 10 are categorical. Variable 4, group type is a binary measures where 0= Neighbourhood based and 1= Green space, culture or identity based. Variable 5 is binary where 0= No BME members and 1=Some. Variable 7 is a binary variable where 1=Female.

Table 37 shows that the micro-network measures of association is related to the size of the group, based on how many people are regularly involved with it, and the type of group in both areas, in both areas, though the strength of the correlation with size is much greater in Gorton than in Beacons. This is unsurprising, since it is a constituent variable in

57Use of the word ‘membership’ in the variable names in this table refers to the characteristics of members as reported in responses to summary measures included in the group-level survey. ‘Leader’/ leadership refers to the characteristics of individual respondents who participated in this study on behalf of their group, based on the demographic information provided in the individual-level survey. If more than one person participated, the characteristics of the most prominent person were used. 160

the association index. However its much stronger relationship to association in Gorton reflects its stronger relationship with the other constituent variables in the index, including the frequency of running events or activities which was double-weighted in the computation of this measure, as described in Chapter 3. Thus bigger groups with more bodies involved and groups based around green spaces and culture/ heritage or identity (the second category on the binary Group Type variable), tend on average to have higher levels of interaction than neighbourhood-based groups, through association-type activity i.e. running events/ activities and holding meetings. However the relatively small number of green space and culture/ identity groups compared to the neighbourhood-based groups must be noted in interpreting this coefficient, as it means the neighbourhood-based category is likely to have a greater variation of scores, as would be reflected in measures of dispersion, such as standard error. In other words, this does not mean all the neighbourhood-based groups score poorly on association. Indeed inspection of the values of association, case-by-case, shows it includes some high scoring neighbourhood groups, as one would expect.58 Nevertheless the permutation test does take account of the number of cases in each category. And the results make sense substantively, insofar as green spaces, and identity/ cultural interests lend themselves more naturally to collective gatherings and celebrations than the problem-solving, street-monitoring focus of neighbourhood-based groups.

None of these attribute variables is correlated with the measure of representation, and overall it must be concluded that this set of measures is lacking as a source of any insight into micro-network interaction.

Table 38 shows the results of tests of correlations between the measures of accessing POS in the form of resources to support the starting up of groups, and also as measured by ongoing funding, captured by the total income measure. Start-up funding or help do not display any relationship with current levels of association and representation in either area. However these findings are only interesting with respect to the lack of correlation with NDC funding and support in Beacons (variables 3 and 4) and the lack of correlation with any source of funding or support in Gorton (variables 1 and 2): in Beacons most groups received start-up funding or help from one source or another, whilst in Gorton almost none received start-up funding or help from NDC, so these variables will not distinguish well between groups. The lack of relationship in the cases of variables 1 and 2 in Gorton and 3 and 4 in Beacons may in part be a function of the fact that few groups in this study are recently established so any effect of start-up is less likely to be related to

58 Of the top 10 most highly ranking groups by association score five are neighbourhood-based groups in both Beacons and Gorton. 161

Table 38. Correlation of micro-network measures, association and representation, with POS attributes- Pearson’s r Beacons Gorton Assoc Repres Assoc Repres r 0.284 0.135 -0.152 -0.140 1. Start-up help/advice- any source p 0.117 0.471 0.433 0.466 r 0.116 0.012 -0.065 -0.140 2. Start-up funding- any source p 0.531 0.949 0.727 0.458 r -0.114 -0.063 0.078 -0.007 3. Start-up help- NDC p 0.543 0.728 0.682 0.968 r -0.064 -0.092 0.223 0.312 4. Start-up funding- NDC p 0.738 0.620 0.281 0.098 r 0.620 0.027 0.606 0.130 5. Total income past 2 years p 0.000 0.888 0.000 0.494 6. Highest level involvement in NDC r -0.087 0.183 governance- 3 cats p 0.648 0.321 r 0.128 0.141 0.011 0.237 7. Total number times attended CP p 0.496 0.451 0.953 0.205 r 0.061 0.170 0.108 0.628 8. Attends other forums p 0.749 0.369 0.568 0.000 N Beacons groups=31; N Gorton groups, in all cases= 30. P values are based on 10,000 permutations. Coefficients in bold are statistically significant at 0.05 level based. All variables are categorical, apart from variable 7. recent levels of activity. Indeed, the importance of some kind of financial resources to support organising within the neighbourhood is underlined by the strong correlations between association and total income over the preceding two years, for both Beacons and Gorton groups.

The POS measures of participation in governance also have no demonstrable relationship with micro-network level interaction, with the exception of attending other (non-NDC/NEM) governance forums in Gorton, which is highly correlated with representation. This indicates that such forums may be an important resource for representational activity, and suggests that the label of ‘community representative’ may be more meaningful for those residents who attend these forums in such a capacity in Gorton, than may be the case in Beacons. However, it should be recalled that 80 percent of Gorton groups report attending these forums, and that the measure does not capture the frequency of attendance. It therefore seems wise to avoid making too strong a statement on the basis of this bi- variate relationship. Nevertheless the fact that no such relationship at all is found in Beacons is perplexing. It suggests that the interface between resident and state provided by forum meetings is not likely to be utilised to represent the concerns of a wider body of residents within the neighbourhood in which individual activists reside. Of course, these 162

groups may have been more active in this regard in the past, but it nevertheless problematises their representational capacity at the time of the NDC initiative ending- and therefore raises questions about their contribution as community leaders in future years.

7.2.2 Meso-networks of information-sharing and residents’group attributes This section examines the relationship between attributes of residents’ groups and meso- network connectivity focussing solely on measures of centrality in the information-sharing network. There are a number of reasons for focussing on information-sharing, the most obvious of which is the fact that information is the most cited benefit of relationships between groups in this study, as reported in Chapter 5. Indeed existing research also shows that the flow of information about and from actors in the network is a critical precursor to collaboration, as discussed in Chapter 5. Furthermore Laumann and colleagues (1977: 597) emphasise the importance of communication exchange for the linking of up networks of community-based elites.

The analysis in this section focuses on whether residents’ groups differ in centrality, based on the mean value for the category of attribute variable they are in, and if so, whether the differences between categories are statistically significant. Like correlational analysis, this is a way of examining the relationship between two variables, but using the categorical nature of most of the ‘explanatory’59 variables in this study. Rather than examining the extent to which values of the ‘dependent’ and ‘explanatory’ variable increase or decrease together across their distributions, it focusses on the mean value of the ‘dependent’ variable at different levels of the explanatory variable.

Tables 39, and 40 shows mean centrality scores in the information-sharing network for each category of non-POS, and POS-related attributes found to be statistically significantly related to centrality based on testing differences between the means in each category using a t-test or ANOVA.60 The centralities are all values from binary networks and are normalised values, showing the proportion of total possible ties each group has. The attributes shown are subsets of a larger group included in the analysis- that is, the same set of variables shown in the correlational analysis in Tables 37 and 38 above. For reasons of economy and relevance only those found to have a statistically significant

59 Clearly this is merely bi-variate analysis, and the possibility of a bi-directional relationship between group attributes and network measures is recognised. However, some attributes are quite clearly ‘prior’ to network measures, and broadly the attributes here are treated in the manner of explanatory variables, and the network measures as dependent. 60 This analysis was undertaken in UCINET. Where the attribute variable in question has two categories the results reported are based on a t-test for the difference between means and significance at the 0.05 level based on a two-tailed test. Where the attribute variable has more than two categories an analysis of variance is used (ANOVA), and in this case the p value is based on an F-test, which merely indicates the likelihood of the means not being of equal value (Field, 2005: 311); it does not allow anything to be said about the probability of the means differing in particular ways. 163

difference between means on at least one of the measures of centrality are shown in the table. In order to understand the nature of the relationship between variables found to have some statistically significant association the actual means are presented for each category, since the tests do not indicate the probably of categories differing in particular ways (i.e. which is/are larger or smaller than which).

Table 39. Mean centralities on binary information-sharing on categories of attribute variables- Beacons N Outdeg Indeg Integ Radial Betw Group age in 1-3 3 39.39 42.42 79.80 78.54 3.65 years 4-7 10 16.97 18.18 63.56 63.26 0.62 8-10 6 29.29 25.75 73.48 74.62 1.77 > 10 12 36.36 36.62 76.89 77.15 4.25 Group type Neighbourhood-based 25 23.39 23.76 66.82 66.73 2.17 Parks/ green spaces 7 41.13 41.99 79.55 79.11 3.28 Culture/ identity 2 24.24 16.67 69.32 71.97 1.33 Highest level None 9 21.55 21.55 72.56 71.97 0.85 involvement in NDC Residents' Forum 12 26.26 25.76 66.98 67.61 1.84 governance NDC &/or NEM board 10 39.09 40.00 78.18 78.26 4.91 Attended CP 3 No 20 19.39 19.39 63.60 63.48 1.87 or more times Yes 14 38.10 38.10 78.14 78.30 3.04 Proportion alters None 12 18.93 17.68 64.52 64.77 0.75 met through NDC/ Some 5 31.52 29.70 75.30 76.06 1.85 NEM CP Most 5 40.00 38.18 77.12 78.03 5.07 All 9 35.02 39.06 78.03 77.10 3.90 N= 31, apart from ‘Group type’ and ‘Attended CP 3’ or more times, where N=34. Means in bold have statistically significant differences at the 0.05 level. Reported p values are based on 10,000 permutations.

The first thing to note here is the small number of attribute measures that have made it into this table, compared to the complete set of variables which were examined in the analysis- all those in Tables 37 and 38. This is suggestive of limitations of the measures captured in the survey for explaining structural properties in these data. In this chapter connectivity is considered from a positional perspective, that is, analysing ties as related to the position of individual agents in the network; more sophisticated analysis using regression models, and focussing on ties rather than actors could account for structural forces which may be implicated in the interconnection of residents’ groups, such as reciprocity, transitivity, and higher order clustering. In this study, some brief exploration of the effect of homophily i.e. the impact of two groups having the same attribute on the likelihood of connection, was undertaken, using ANOVA density models (variable homophily). The results are shown in Tables 51 and 52 in Appendix 5. Overall this analysis confirmed the low explanatory capacity of these attribute variables considered in the body of this chapter- few models produced a statistically significant R-squared and where there was significance, the size of the coefficient was very small. The effect of geographic distance was also explored in a simple bi-variate analysis, shown in Table 53 164

in Appendix 5. This confirmed, that as one would expect, that greater spatial disconnection decreases the likelihood of groups sharing information. This is consistent with high frequency of responses identifying location in a different neighbourhood as a reason for groups not having contact with each other, reported in Table 24 Chapter 5. Returning to the results reported in this chapter in Table 39, the non POS-related group attribute, group age displays something of a curvilinear relationship here, with the newest and oldest age categories having the highest mean centralities. Betweenness is the only measure on which there is a statistically significant difference between means, and indeed the oldest groups have much higher betweenness than those in the other categories. Inspecting the data more closely reveals that, of the three newest groups with high centrality, two are represented by people who are personally well-embedded within the existing community infrastructure: one group involves someone with a long history of involvement in NDC and local politics (and who happens to represent another highly central, but older, residents’ group within the network), as well as counting a member of NEM staff amongst its members; meanwhile the second of the three groups shares a member with the first and is represented by someone who has had prominent presence in the Beacons community partnership and on the NEM board, and who was previously employed by NDC. This is an example of people with experience in one group going on to become involved in, or set up, another. However, leaving aside these exceptions, on average newer groups in Beacons are less well embedded in the meso-network of information-sharing, than the older ones. The analysis of homophily using group age shown in Table 51 in Appendix 5 produced a model which showed that groups in the 4-7 year age category are less likely to be connected to each other than to groups in other age categories, whilst the eldest groups, over 10 years of age are considerably more likely to have ties to each other than to groups in the other categories. This seems to confirm that there is some kind of positive (in the sense that the two increase together) relationship between meso-network connectivity and group age, with more highly central older groups preferring contact with each other to engagement with newer, emerging groups.

Moving on to group type, this shows that, as was the case at the micro-network level on the measure of association, green space groups display a higher propensity towards connectivity than other types on average. Indeed it was observed earlier, in relation to association, green spaces lend themselves better to the running of events and activities open to a wider audience than neighbourhood-based groups. However, once again the issue of the distribution of groups across categories of group type comes into play here: the comparatively much larger category of neighbourhood-based groups does include some highly central groups.

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The remaining non POS-related group attributes were not found to be statistically significantly related to mean centrality. Surprisingly, inspection of mean centralities by categories of group size revealed that, on outdegree and indegree, the largest groups have the lowest mean centralities compared to those groups in the smaller categories of size, though the differences were not statistically significant. However it is also worth noting that in the case of the previous involvement in a community or voluntary group measure, those groups which did have a leader with such experience had higher centrality on average on all five measures.

Moving on to consider the POS-related variables, involvement in NDC governance is found to be related to centrality in the information-sharing network, though not as definitively as might have been expected. Indeed those groups which participated in the lowest level of governance, the Residents’ Forum, do not have much higher mean centralities than those who did not, whilst groups involved at board level are clearly much more central. Betweenness is the only measure with a statistically significant difference of means, giving a strong indication that participants in the boards of NDC or NEM occupy brokerage positions between actors not directly connected to each other61. No doubt the privileged information and access which members of the board enjoyed helped draw in this sort of communication flow. This picture is consistent with an interpretation of betweenness as an indicator of influential status, after Brass (1984), Krackhardt (1987) and Diani (2003b).

By contrast it is interesting to note that attendance of the community partnership meetings displays a statistically significant relationship with all measures of centrality here except betweenness, though mean betweenness is still higher amongst the CP’s regular attenders. Indeed, given the recent advent of the community partnership in Beacons (late 2009) at the time of data collection (2010-2011), it would not make sense to suggest that its association with centrality might derive from any kind of causal pathway. However, the link between participation in the post-NDC community partnership and NDC governance structures provides a better possible explanation. The CP was, after all, branded as a successor structure to NDC governance and indeed, over 70 percent of groups who attended the community partnership three or more times during the fieldwork period were involved with NDC governance (Residents’ Forum, NDC board or NEM board), and 50 percent at the level of NDC or NEM board.

61 Of course, though individuals were interviewed, the actors are groups, which somewhat complicates the interpretation of positions of high betweenness as equating with brokerage roles. 166

The final measure in this table, proportion alters met through NDC/ NEM, is one which has not been considered up to now in this thesis, so the frequencies of responses in each category are interesting in and of themselves. Nearly two thirds of responding groups indicate that at least some of their relationships with other groups were initiated by contact through NDC. The fact that the highest mean centralities are for groups who first met ‘most’ of their current alters in an NDC setting indicates the ongoing salience of the NDC initiative to the community infrastructure at the end of the scheme when these data were collected. Furthermore in the analysis of homophily, shown in Appendix 5, involvement in NDC governance did not produce a model with a statistically significant fit. However the community partnership variable did: groups which attended three or more times were more likely to be connected to each other than to those who did not, with the reverse applying to groups which did not attend so many times, or at all.

The remaining POS related variables tested but not found to be statistically significantly associated with centralities based on t-test/ ANOVA were attending other governance forums, not run by NDC/NEM, and those measures relating to start-up funding/ support and total income, though the groups which attend other forums did have higher centralities on all measures. The only start-up measures capable of meaningfully distinguishing groups, namely those relating to NDC funding or support, were found to have very little difference between the means on each category and on some measures mean centrality was higher for groups which had not received start-up resources. Total income over the preceding two years, on a version of the original variable aggregated into four categories, did not distinguish groups by centrality either.

A full descriptive summary which gives an overview of the nature of the relationship between centrality (based on core/ periphery) and all the attributes included in this analysis is provided in Table 54 in Appendix 5. This contains means, medians and modal categories on attribute measures, for the core and the periphery of the information-sharing network respectively, based on the core/periphery partition generated by the continuous core/periphery model of information-sharing using valued data.

The results from the centralities analysis in Gorton are considered next. In Gorton, unlike Beacons, a relationship is found between group size and centrality, with the largest groups the most central on all measures, though a statistically significant difference is found only on outdegree, radiality and betweenness. In Chapter 5 it was noted that the Gorton information-sharing network is more centralised on outdegree than indegree, and it was observed (in Footnote 42 in that chapter) that, though indegree is more often used as a measure of actor prestige, outdegree may also be considered in this way, depending on

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the relation in question. Indeed, in Gorton then, it seems that there is a core of larger sized groups (and which are more likely to be active in at the micro-network level, as shown by the correlations in Table 37 in Section 7.2.1) which sustain their centrality through sending information out into the network, via connections both through direct ties and indirect ties. In line with this, the differences on mean betweenness centrality suggest that they may have reputational influence in the network.

In Gorton the relationship between group type and centrality shows the same pattern as in Beacons, though here the statistically significant differences between means is found in the case of outdegree and radiality, rather than on indegree as in Beacons. Taken with the correlation between group type and association this further strengthens the argument that the profile of these groups in Gorton may be related to them actively publicising their activities. In the homophily analysis shown in Appendix 5 non-neighbourhood based groups were also shown to be more likely to have ties to each other than to neighbourhood-based groups, though the model was shown only to explain a small proportion of the variation in connectivity in the network. It makes sense that the more common interests of such groups might lead them to be more highly connected.

Table 40. Mean centralities on binary information-sharing on categories of attribute variables- Gorton N Outdeg Indeg Integ Radial Betw Group Size <10 18 19.35 21.65 72.37 69.35 1.93 10 to 20 10 30.69 28.28 69.91 75.17 4.11 >20 2 55.17 46.55 84.91 85.78 14.13 Group type- 3 cats N'hood-based 17 18.66 19.47 70.79 68.00 3.08 Green spaces 7 35.96 33.50 79.80 78.20 4.88 Cultural/ identity 6 32.76 33.33 68.25 78.02 2.92 Attended CP 3 No 12 18.68 17.24 67.24 71.55 2.38 or more times Yes 18 30.08 31.03 75.81 72.94 4.19 Proportion alters None 18 27.39 26.63 71.22 73.23 3.50 met through Some 6 27.01 25.86 77.16 75.43 5.22 CP Most 3 29.89 34.48 77.30 75.29 3.16 All 3 6.90 9.19 64.94 58.33 0.11 Attends other No 6 14.37 14.37 55.89 66.81 0.57 forums Yes 24 28.30 28.30 76.50 73.78 4.19 Total income in None 1 6.90 10.34 68.10 62.07 0.04 past 2 years > £1000 14 17.24 16.50 67.55 68.90 2.13 (4 cats) £1000-£4999 8 34.48 34.05 77.69 80.60 4.42 £5000+ 7 34.48 35.96 77.46 70.57 5.54 Group got start-up No 28 24.38 24.63 71.74 71.76 0.67 funds from NDC Yes 2 41.38 37.93 81.47 81.03 10.00 N=30 Means in bold have statistically significant differences at the 0.05 level. Reported p values are based on 10,000 permutations.

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The remaining non-POS attributes were not found to have any statistically significant relationship with the meso-network centralities, however the same pattern of higher mean centrality for the oldest and youngest age categories was found. Closer examination revealed that of five newest groups three were set up by longstanding residents and community activists. This then suggests the same general relationship between group age and centrality as in Beacons- an overall natural tendency for groups to build up relationships over time, with some ‘serial offenders’ choosing to establish new groups, following on from having a role in older ones.

Moving on to the POS-related variables, attendance of the community partnership is shown to be associated with higher connectivity as found in Beacons, though statistical significance does not extend to the indirect connection measures of integration and radiality, nor betweenness. It is worth briefly bringing in correlations on this measure as a point of comparison between Beacons and Gorton here, given that this structure is the one NEM structure they share (and given its defining importance in the study). The continuous measure of total number of attendance of community partnership is strongly, and statistically significantly correlated with outdegree and indegree in Beacons (outdegree, r=0.696; indegree r=0.672), as well as moderate strength correlations with the other three measures, in the range r=0.458 to 0.476).62 In Gorton only indegree, integration and betweenness are statistically significantly correlated with attendance of the CP, and the coefficients are smaller- much smaller in the case of indegree.63 Indeed the homophily model shown in Appendix 5 shows that groups which attended the CP three or more times during the fieldwork period were more likely to be connected to each other than to those which did not, however the model explained less of the variation in connectivity in Gorton than it did in Beacons.

The variable proportion alters met through NDC/ NEM has been included in Table 40, despite the fact that it was found to have no statistically significant relationship with the meso-network centralities, because it is an important indicator of the role NEM in fomenting meso-level connectivity. The distribution of cases across the categories of this variable is consistent with the lesser importance of the CP suggested by the correlations between the centralities and total number of attendance of community partnership, and the comparison of the homophily models, shown in Appendix 5. Nearly two-thirds of groups built all their current relationships independently of NEM’s intervention. This

62 Beacons correlations: Outdegree r= 0.696 p=0.000 indegree r=0.672, p=0.000 integration r=0.459, p=0.004; radiality r= 0.476, p=0.002; betweenness r=0.461, p= 0.009. P values based on 10,000 permutations. 63 Gorton correlations: Outdegree r= 0.284 p=0.126 ; indegree r=0.365, p=0.047; integration r=0.314; p=0.084; radiality r=0.103, p=0.586; betweenness= r=0.351; p=0.055. P values based on 10,000 permutations. 169

underlines the fact that the relationship between centrality and regular attendance of the community partnership is principally one of association, rather than causality. Already well-networked groups have chosen to be a part of it, rather than participation in it generating that connectivity.

Meanwhile attending governance forums run by agencies other than NEM is associated with higher centrality on average- however, most groups report this participation, but nevertheless those that don’t are poorly networked when it comes to communication with other groups. The fact that most do report attendance may help account for the high number of groups who report having initiated none of their relationships with other groups through their involvement in the CP (as per proportion alters met through NDC/ NEM measure).

Moving on the to POS resources variables, a relationship between accessing resources of funding or support is only found between the centrality measures and total income (aggregated into four categories) and not with the start-up variables. Though the NDC start-up funding is included in the table, it says little about the network as a whole, given that only two groups benefitted from this resource. Total income is related to centrality across three of the five measures in Gorton, including radiality. This would seem to fit with the argument made in respect of the correlation between total income and association and radiality and association: groups which are more active themselves become more visible in the network, and organising requires funding. And indeed qualitative responses on the nature of working together ties (Table 9 in Chapter 4) and the perceived benefits of relations with other groups (Table 16 in Chapter 5) suggest Gorton groups are more likely to connect with each to help in the organising of each other’s events than is the case in Beacons.

Finally no statistically significant relationship is found between mean centralities and the remaining start-up funding and support variables. However it is worth noting that on the measures of start-up resourcing from any agency, mean centrality was found to be higher for those groups who did not receive such support, than it is for those who did in Gorton- the opposite of what was expected. This suggests something of a self-organising, self- mobilising instinct in Gorton, irrespective of the immediacy of state intervention to support it. A summary table describing the core and peripheral actors in Gorton using the variables included in this analysis can be seen in Table 55 in Appendix 5.

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7.2.3 Correlates of macro-network connectivity Next this chapter turns to examine the relationship between macro-network relations between residents’ groups and agencies, and the non-POS and POS-related attributes of groups.

Table 41. Correlations between residents’ group attributes and their macro-network centralities- Beacons Beacons Macro-network centralities Receive Work together Give info deg info deg deg r 0.269 0.088 0.173 Group age (continuous) p 0.140 0.634 0.346 r 0.323 0.197 0.241 Group age squared p 0.075 0.255 0.190 r -0.070 -0.031 -0.048 Group size p 0.715 0.878 0.800 Group Type (2 cats, non- r 0.198 0.275 0.367 n'hood based groups) p 0.285 0.123 0.041 Previous involvement in r 0.155 0.208 0.239 community/ vol group p 0.424 0.275 0.191 Gender of gp leader (2 cats- r 0.006 -0.176 -0.049 female) p 0.964 0.370 0.795 r 0.033 0.101 -0.002 Any BME members p 0.865 0.601 0.998 r 0.200 0.206 0.172 Start-up help- any agency p 0.282 0.253 0.362 r 0.280 0.223 0.240 Start-up funding- any agency p 0.122 0.240 0.194 r 0.175 0.144 0.085 Start-up help- NEM p 0.362 0.459 0.653 r 0.182 0.137 0.083 Start-up funding- NEM p 0.342 0.472 0.671 r 0.096 0.128 0.298 Total income past 2 years p 0.599 0.498 0.103 Highest level involvement in r 0.354 0.431 0.342 NDC governance (3 cat) p 0.051 0.013 0.062 Total number times attended r 0.372 0.478 0.363 CP p 0.036 0.005 0.044 r 0.236 0.315 0.059 Attends other forums p 0.210 0.077 0.750 N groups=31 (N alters (agencies)=128), apart from ‘Group Type’ ‘Total number of times attended CP’ where N=34. P values based on 25,000 permutations. Coefficients in bold are statistically significant at 0.05 level.

Tables 41 and 42 show correlation coefficients from analysis undertaken correlating attributes with the degree (deg) centrality of residents’ groups in the network of relations 171

measuring: the giving of information by residents’ groups to agencies, the receiving of information from agencies by residents’ groups, and relationships of collaboration i.e work together ties.

Table 41 once again shows the weakness of most of the attribute data collected in this study for explaining community infrastructure. Looking at the non-POS variables, only one has any kind of correlation with the centrality measures: Group type has a fairly weak correlation with work together degree centrality in the macro-network. Non- neighbourhood-based groups are somewhat more likely to have collaborative ties with local agencies, and this may well reflect the importance of the relationship between friends of parks groups and the park wardens and managers, managing budgets which the group may have a say in the spending of, and sanctioning the group’s activity within them. Surprisingly group age is not statistically significantly correlated with any of the centrality measures, though a weak relationship is suggested between giving information and age squared.

Moving onto the POS measures, once again the measures of start-up resourcing for groups turn out not to be related to connectivity; likewise the more salient measure of current resourcing, total income over the past two years. Of the participation measures of POS measures, once again participation in NDC/ NEM governance is found to be related to network connectivity to some degree, but only the correlation with receiving information is statistically significant at the 0.05 level, with a moderate-sized coefficient. This indicates that, at least by the end of the scheme when the data were collected, participation in NDC governance was associated more with groups being on the receiving end of information across the macro-network interface, than being involved in pro-active giving of information or working together with local agencies.

By contrast attendance of the community partnership is correlated with all three measures of macro-network centrality, though the size of the coefficients shows that the relationships with receiving information is the strongest, with only weak relationships found with giving information and working together. Attending other governance forums is not statistically significantly correlated with any of the macro-network centrality measures.

Moving on to Gorton, here group size is found to be an important correlate, in contrast to Beacons where no relationship with size was found: the relationships with all three measures of macro-network centrality are quite strong, but strongest is with the giving and receiving information centralities. Indeed large Gorton groups may be said to provide a

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Table 42. Correlations between residents’ group attributes and their macro-network centralities- Gorton Gorton Macro-network centralities Receive Work together Give info deg info deg deg r -0.159 -0.130 -0.157 Group age (continuous) p 0.383 0.480 0.410 r -0.168 -0.071 -0.207 Group age squared p 0.338 0.699 0.282 r 0.689 0.704 0.510 Group size p 0.000 0.000 0.003 Group Type (2 cats- non- r 0.334 0.397 0.458 n'hood based groups) p 0.067 0.027 0.012 Previous involvement in r -0.018 0.050 0.068 community/ vol group p 0.919 0.812 0.722 Gender of gp leader (2 r -0.281 -0.325 -0.088 cats- Female) p 0.131 0.076 0.623 r 0.332 0.271 0.337 Any BME members p 0.067 0.146 0.073 r -0.182 -0.171 -0.150 Set up help- any agency p 0.359 0.382 0.421 Set up funding- any r 0.003 0.008 -0.043 agency p 0.986 0.964 0.826 r 0.120 0.183 0.177 Start-up help- NEM p 0.544 0.328 0.342 r 0.355 0.324 0.413 Start-up funding- NEM p 0.055 0.068 0.015 r 0.233 0.241 0.345 Total income past 2 yrs p 0.234 0.198 0.061 Total number times r 0.279 0.317 0.212 attended CP p 0.137 0.087 0.264 r 0.309 0.344 0.260 Attends other forums p 0.098 0.064 0.173 N groups=30 (N alters (agencies) =128). P values based on 25,000 permutations. Coefficients in bold are statistically significant at 0.05 level. strong information and action interface between local agencies, other residents’ groups and residents within neighbourhoods, in light of the fact that this variable is also an important correlate of meso-network centrality and micro-level interaction as measured by the association index. There appears to be no relationship at all with group age, however group type comes out again as a correlate of connectivity, no doubt for the same reason mentioned in relation to Beacons regarding parks groups, though the coefficients are larger here.

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Moving on to the POS-related measures, the only measure statistically significantly correlated with macro-network centrality is the NEM start-up funding measure, and as noted earlier this was obtained by only two groups in Gorton, making it a finding which says little about the network as a whole. There is no evidence at all that set-up help is related to connectivity in the macro-network. The more current (in terms of time) measure of total income is also not statistically significantly correlated with macro-network centrality, though when a four-category version of the variable is used work together is shown to have statistically significant correlation of a similar magnitude to the coefficient shown in the table (r=0.372, p=0.043). Given that groups may well work with local agencies in order to bid for funding in the first place and then to organise using those funds, particularly where it involves larger pots of money, the finding of some relationship here is not surprising.

It is surprising that neither of the participatory POS measures of community partnership attendance or attending other forums produces any statistically significant correlations with macro-network centrality. Weak positive relationships with receiving information are suggested, but fundamentally it seems that the evidence here suggests that Gorton groups have forged ties with agencies independently of any participation in governance structures.

7.3 Summary of results and discussion

Finally this chapter returns to the research questions to consider how the results presented in this chapter respond to them. Research question 9 enquired as to the relationship between the micro, meso and macro-level interactions of residents’ groups. Amongst Beacons groups it was found that the micro-network level was more poorly integrated with the other levels of interaction than Gorton, particularly association which was found to not be related to meso-network connectivity at all, and to macro-network connectivity only on the work together measure. Meanwhile, where the representation measure was related to the other levels, the correlations tended to be smaller than in Gorton. In Beacons meso-network connectivity was, however, strongly correlated with macro-network connectivity on across all measures. In Gorton, in contrast to Beacons, there was generally high correlation overall between the measures of micro, meso and macro interaction, with association tending to be more strongly correlated than representation with the other levels, whereas in Beacons the relationship was principally with representation.

The second research question addressed in this chapter, question 10, asks which attributes of residents’ groups are associated with connectivity at the three different levels,

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including the role of POS, measured by accessing of financial and support resources for groups, and participation in governance.

At the micro-network level only association had any correlates amongst the non-POS variables in either area. Group size, and group type (non-neighbourhood-based groups) were correlated with it in both areas, though in Beacons the correlation with size was weak. Of the POS variables total income was the only correlate in Beacons, showing a strong relationship with association, as was also found to be the case for Gorton. In Gorton attending other forums was correlated with representation. Neither the measures of start-up funding/ help from any source nor the measures of participation in NDC/ NEM governance structures offered much insight at the micro-network level in either area.

At the meso-network level, age and group type were the only non-POS measures found to be related to information-sharing centralities in Beacons: the former displayed a curvilinear relationship with high centrality for the oldest and youngest groups; the latter showed the small number of green space groups to be the most central category of groups on average. In Gorton group size was positively related to meso-network centrality, along with group type, with green spaces groups the most central on average. Of the POS measures, start-up resources and total income showed no relationship with meso-network centrality in Beacons; participation in NDC/ NEM governance did, in such a way as to suggest an important role for the regeneration initiative in fomenting and sustaining meso-network connectivity. In Gorton total income was related to meso- network centrality; likewise participation in both the NDC/NEM CP and attending other forums. Evidence in relation to the CP suggested that it has merely attracted groups with existing high connectivity, rather than being a major catalyst for connection.

At the macro-network level group type is the only non-POS variable correlated with centrality in Beacons, and only weakly; in Gorton both group size and type are correlated with multiple measures of centrality, the former strongly, the latter more moderately. Of the POS attributes, start-up resources appear not to be relevant in either area; there is, however, a weak relationship between total income and work together degree in Gorton. In Beacons involvement in NDC governance is correlated moderately with receiving information, whilst the CP is correlated with all three measures but none of the coefficients are large. In Gorton participation in POS is not shown to be associated with macro- network centrality.

So what is to be made of these findings as indicators of the nature of the enactment of community by residents’ groups in this study? Looking at the relationship between the

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meso and macro levels, this study confirms findings from elsewhere that central actors in inter-organisational networks tend to be more highly connected with powerful actors external to the network such as government agencies and politicians, as both Diani, (2003a: 306) and Lelieveldt et al. (2009: 9) point out. However, the micro-network level seems to be to some extent missing from the overall picture in Beacons. Indeed in a principal components analysis shown in Appendix 564, the process of eliminating poorly loading variables recommended that a final Beacons solution should contain neither of the micro-network indices, though association is retained in the solution shown there. However, both the NDC governance variable and CP variable remain in the final solution, a finding consistent with the evidence from this chapter, of these structures being implicated in the Beacons community infrastructure. By contrast the final Gorton PCA solution contains the measures of all three levels of community infrastructure- micro, meso and macro- but participation in the CP does not feature. In the Gorton data the two components are also correlated (albeit weakly), indicating a relationship between different facets of community infrastructure, whereas in Beacons the two components produced by the analysis are not related. In neither Beacons nor Gorton, do many of the non-POS attribute measures make it to the final PCA solution.

Thus the principal correlates of community infrastructure in Beacons are the measures of participation in the governance structures of the regeneration initiative, but they are not found to be associated with micro-network connectivity. Insofar as it makes sense to interpret this causally, it suggests that the regeneration initiative has been good for fomenting one type of would-be ‘community’ activism, but not another. The collective, self- organising base of Gorton groups is in less evidence overall in Beacons compared to Gorton, and even less so amongst meso-network core actors most associated with the regeneration initiative. Indeed in Chapter 2 it was argued (citing Dargan, 2009 and Chanan, 2003) that a differentiated understanding of civic activism is what was missing from much of the policy approach to neighbourhood under New Labour, and to some degree that case may be supported by the data emerging from this study. What (inter)activity takes place in Beacons, under the guise of community, may be more akin to the “individualised or micro-political participation” which Li and Marsh (2008: 249 citing Pattie, Seyd and Whiteley, 2003) describe as the counterpoint to the more simplistic, Putnam-esque image of a general disengagement of people from public, communal life. In other words, Beacons has residents who care and want to be involved in improving the area, but that involvement expresses itself much more in vertical engagement with the

64 They are not reported in the body of this chapter since the solutions were fairly poor for the data in both case study areas, which was unsurprising given the small number of cases. However they were considered in some way indicative, hence their brief discussion here. 176

state and with collective interaction organised as a response to the actions of the state, rather than in a DIY ethic of horizontal organising within the neighbourhood.

However, that leaves many questions unanswered, particularly in relation to what it is about Gorton’s groups which makes them more inclined to be more genuinely communal in their activity, whilst appearing to have forged a much more independent path to both meso-network and macro-network connectivity. The fact that three quarters of Gorton groups can call on previous experience of involvement in a community or voluntary group may well be significant, despite the fact that no relationship was able to be demonstrated quantitatively. In Chapter 2 the role of cognitive mechanisms, and the personality of individuals as leaders and followers were highlighted, dimensions which have not been captured using the measures contained in the survey for this study. Nevertheless the quantitative analysis in chapter 4 to 7 has guided the way towards deeper questions, which can be given some consideration in the next chapter, and help set the agenda for further research beyond the scope of this study.

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Chapter 8. Discussion

This chapter undertakes the retroductive analysis as described in Chapter 3. This involves reconsidering the findings laid out in chapters 4 to 7 in the round and bringing in insights from the ethnographic dimension of the study, as well as further reflections on theory, to propose “what conditions in reality may have or could have led to these observations” (Olsen and Morgan, 2005: 275). The chapter considers each of the case study areas in turn. It examines the impact on community infrastructure at micro, meso and macro- network levels of environmental mechanisms and cognitive or cultural mechanisms. The environmental mechanisms are principally the political opportunity structures of the NDC/NEM, as well as the material circumstances of the neighbourhoods. The cognitive mechanisms are the attitudes and leadership practices of individual actors within the state and in the community. The discussion provides a narrative account, reflecting the fact that the distinction between mechanisms highlighted above is analytical, whilst the reality reveals itself as a complex interplay and imbrication of contextual, cognitive and relational mechanisms.

8.1 Beacons

8.1.1 Beacons NDC community: for information and service-improvement As discussed in Chapter 2, with so much existing critique of NDC and its ‘bottom-up’ rhetoric, it is difficult to refute the validity of claims that the role of community involvement was an instrumental means to the end of effective programme-delivery, rather than an effort to democratise policy processes (Raco, 2003: 237) and empower residents. Mathers et al. (2008: 603) observe the rhetorical movement over time from describing the scheme as ‘community-led’ to ‘community-centred’ or ‘community at the heart’ and several observers (e.g. Lawless, 2006; Wright et al., 2007; Leunig and Swaffield, 2007) have acknowledged the progressive movement away from locally determined NDC projects towards delivery of centrally-defined outcomes. Reflecting on this in the light of observation in this study, it is difficult to escape the impression that much of the way in which Beacons NDC operated was aimed at maximising the efficiency of the scheme, and minimising conflict and delays, no doubt influenced by spending pressures and emerging horror stories of battles going in other partnerships, sketched out in Chapter 2. Closely aligned with this, there are strong indicators of a focus on Lowndes and Sullivan’s (2008)/ Durose and Richardson’s (2009) social rationale for reform, that is making services citizen-centred, so that they reflect delivery as seen from the standpoint of the citizen who uses them (Atkinson, 1994 in Lowndes and Sullivan, 2008: 58). Evidence of both an economic rationale of effective delivery and spending, and a social rationale of citizen as expert user, are discernible in Beacons practices, as seen in its focus on dissemination of

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information and elicitation of feedback in efforts to involve the community. This is most clearly expressed in Beacons’ framework for community engagement, the ‘Information and Equality Strategy’: “a framework for determining how the local community of East Manchester can be effectively informed about and participate in the regeneration process” (Beacons, 2002: 1). The strategy defined two aims: “to inform, consult and engage” and “to market, brand and publicise” (Beacons, 2002: 1-2).

The ambitions of the strategy manifested themselves in intensive efforts to provide information from across the partner agencies to residents in the ‘joined up’ way characteristic of the social rationale for policy (Lowndes and Sullivan, 2008: 58). The high average degree on macro-network receiving information ties in the Beacons network, reported in Chapter 7, suggests that this was a success. In this vein efforts were made to reach out to the community, way beyond the ‘usual suspects’, but even here the emphasis was on mining the resource of community to measure and adjust the scheme’s performance. Beacons officers, amongst whom could be counted a number of individuals with strong community development experience, understood the barriers to engagement constituted by a deep mistrust of anyone or anything associated with the council, and low literacy and self-esteem; whence the Beacons Arts and Culture Programme of festivals and fun events. However an NEM regeneration officer observed that “at every party in the park we had to consult”, a fact reported with pride, particularly because of the effort and imagination which went into the “whacky ideas” employed to achieve this.65

8.1.2 Building capacity as individual service users In and of themselves, such efforts at openness are creditable, but they become problematic in the context of an apparent lack of deeper engagement. There is little evidence of support for “collective organising”, which Gilchrist (2004: 11) suggests was missing from New Labour’s conceptualisation of community, nor of support to help residents develop the “skills of representation” emphasised as so critical by Gaventa (2004: 26) to meaningfully enacting a role of community (as opposed to individual) representation in governance structures- namely the skills to engage with a wider community constituency and channel this back into one’s governing role. To some extent the neglect of this area of community development is likely to have been a reflection of the influence central government direction, insofar as there was a lack of guidance from the centre on how to involve the wider community beyond the board, noted by Wright et al. (2006: 353), and by a senior officer in the Beacons partnership.66 Indeed the performance targets for measuring community involvement, shown in Chapter 3, in Beacons were

65 Comments from interview with NEM regeneration officer on 16.9.09. 66 Observation made during a presentation as part of Centre for Census and Survey Research lunchtime seminar series on 27.10.09. 179

equally vague. Nevertheless observations in the final evaluation report for Beacons NDC suggest a recognition of the importance of information-sharing by residents amongst residents. The report stated that improved information dissemination by the initiative was part of “the wider objective of empowering local people to access and exchange information for personal and wider neighbourhood benefit”, which included efforts to increase use of ICT through the establishment of a low-cost internet service provider, Eastserve.

However, what evidence is available in this study of the nature of community capacity- building organised by Beacons officers would appear to reflect the emphasis, noted in Chapter 2, on preparing residents for participation in partnership governance (e.g. Wright et al., 2006; Diamond, 2008), and on enactment of individual ‘community champion’ type roles (Gilchrist, 2004: 19). The Beacons NDC final evaluation document defines community capacity as “the skills and opportunity to influence policy and service delivery” (Ekosgen, 2010: 14), and there is no specific mention of the skills for self-organising within the community. And though a considerable amount of work was undertaken in the community through the Beacons Environment Programme to support residents in undertaking environmental projects and in creating community gardens, the lower level of association-type activity found in Beacons compared to Gorton, suggests that this left little legacy of self-organising on the ground.

8.1.3 Channelling funds, not representing community Nevertheless NDC/NEM officers emphasised the requirement for residents participating in resident involvement structures to be members of fully constituted residents’ groups, or in the case of new post-NDC structures of NEM, to be ‘working towards’ this goal, in order to legitimise their role in resident involvement structures. Yet observations in the course of this study, and comments made by residents and officers encountered, suggest that the phenomenon of the one-person residents’ group was neither unusual nor going unrecognised by either side.67 A conversation with one NEM officer68 around this issue suggested that in practice many groups ‘existed’ purely because at some point they had sought a CASH grant69 to undertake a project in their neighbourhood, an award which explicitly required applications as a group, rather than an individual. The group label was

67 For example, when interviewed for the survey in this study the representative of one Beacons Residents’ Group #2 spontaneously contested the very existence of many of the groups named therein, and explicitly bemoaned the labelling of individuals as groups, suggesting that this was something he had questioned many times. Comments regarding non-participation due to apathy were also heard in Gorton, though no-one questioned the actual existence of the groups listed. 68 Conversation with regeneration officer at NEM, 11.11.10. 69 Manchester City Council’s CASH grants scheme provides up to £40,000 per ward within the city boundary to be awarded to groups proposing to undertake small-scale projects making a difference to their local community. 180

therefore a way to legitimise disbursing funds to individuals for improvements in their neighbourhood thus fulfilling service-delivery goals, without necessarily adding any value in terms of community development.70 This again suggests the primacy of the economic and social rationales over the civic. It is also consistent with the tendency for officers to display a shoulder-shrugging attitude to the decline of groups once they’d supposedly solved the problem which had led to them to start up, and which they had been funded to address. Foth and Hearn’s (2007) study, cited in the discussion at the end of Chapter 5, suggested that the fleeting nature of collective action by residents to solve problems about place, may not be unique to East Manchester. However their evidence suggests a need to create opportunities for ongoing sociable, informal contact within place, if an enduring collective identity is to develop at the micro-network level. Evidence that Beacons NDC paid particular attention to this issue was not found in this study. Indeed, there seemed to be no real effort to address the question of how representatives of groups operating at the meso and macro level would practice accountability to the wider community. Another NEM officer spoken to about this issue noted that in practice quite a lot of groups would not be fully constituted nor hold an open annual general meeting, despite this being a constitutional requirement. This person observed that you would nevertheless “hope that a group rep knows what their group likes or dislikes”.71 This appeared to be as far as concern for this issue went.

8.1.4 Cash-fuelled community divisions The fact that money disbursed to groups in Beacons appears not to have targeted, nor indeed spawned, the development of very much collective activity, is just one of the problems identified with this particular element of the scheme. There is also evidence to suggest that it may have caused division amongst residents. Firstly there seems to have been a certain level of scorn amongst the hard core of residents who participated in the governance of NDC, particularly at the highest level, for those who received money from the initiative but then did not sustain their activities. Residents who took part in the Beacons NDC’s final evaluation focus group specifically for those who had been involved in governance expressed the view that initially there were “hundreds” of people from the neighbourhood involved, but once that they “got their little piece, they were off”.72 This claim was substantiated with reference to the small number of groups regularly attending

70 Of course in the case of small-scale funding of community groups the impulse to spend may well have been driven by demands from the bottom up, but nevertheless this reflects a culture of engaging in ‘representative role-play’ demanded by the state to legitimise spending which fulfil service-delivery goals rather than real community development goals. 71 Comment made in exploratory interview, 16.9.09. 72 Comments from participation focus group held in Beswick on 15.3.10. 181

the residents’ forum at the end of its life73, suggesting that for those who were willing to participate in resident involvement structures, this was their prime metric of what it meant to be a community activist, and if you weren’t seen there, then you didn’t count. This suggests a lack of appreciation of the viewpoint of the majority who do not choose to make this particular type and level of commitment, a decision which may be quite understandable in circumstances of hardship or poverty.74

As well as divisions based on these kinds of practices of distinction by participants in NDC governance attempting to differentiate themselves from apparently opportunistic money- seeking, non-governing residents’ groups, there is also some evidence that funding was a source of conflict and paralysis within residents’ groups. Though there were only two instances in Beacons in which disputes over funding were explicitly cited as the reason for the demise of groups (see Table 46 in Appendix 2), it is clear that such situations can become very unpleasant indeed, with one resident describing the grant they received for a community garden causing a “big war” over what to do with it, resulting in the money eventually being sent back and the community garden abandoned.75

Nevertheless, there is a danger here of arguing against funding per se, rather than against the particular way in which it was administered, and the apparent lack of support to manage the conflict or disillusionment which may arise subsequent to its allocation. The view amongst officers that groups tailed off once they had solved the problem they started up to deal with was articulated with a frequency which suggests a sense of inevitability about such trajectories. Yet frustrations articulated during this study of the battles fought to try to keep going by the main representatives of now defunct groups suggest a different view. What may be required is much more, or better, ‘keep-going support’ to follow ‘start- up funding’, rather than a resigned acceptance by officers that that’s just how it goes. After all, though start-up funds from NEM were not found to be related to micro-network activity in this study, income in general was found to be correlated with it (the association measure) in both areas, and particularly strongly in Gorton. In places where people lack disposable time and income, state funding is vital if policymakers are serious about grassroots voluntary activity, and even more so, if they expect it to be sustained by people with no prior experience who did not set out to engage in it, independent of a top-down intervention.

73 Residents observed that there were only seven groups regularly attending by the end of the residents’ forum’s life in 2008. NEM put the figure at eight in their recorded attendance statistics reported in NEM 2009a. 74 As one woman who used to run a now defunct residents’ group in Beacons put it “People couldn’t believe they were getting something for nothing” a point of view which led to residents ignoring letters from NDC offering them the chance to get funding for security lighting in alleyways and so on, until they saw the results of other more active residents doing so. Comments made in telephone conversation on 8.11.10. 75 Telephone conversation with representative of Beacons residents’ group on 8.11.10. 182

8.1.5 Discourse of apathy and further micro-network divisions Beyond the negative views of those who had claimed funding but kept out of the business of governance, highly involved residents also tended to employ a more general discourse of apathy in the explanation of non-participation: “75 percent of the problem is the apathy of residents”.76 Such observations were common in Beacons, but were also heard amongst groups struggling to attract members in Gorton. However, as an explanation for the lack of interest in involvement, these types of comments point towards the possibility that NDC’s strictly bounded definition of what it meant to be an engaged member of the community only served to aggravate existing tensions and divisions within the community itself, rather than helping to build community cohesion. The discourse of apathy suggested perceptions of a free-rider problem, rather than understanding of other explanations, both structural and agentic, which were highlighted in the discussion in Chapter 4.

However, Mathers and colleagues (2008) NDC research, and Blokland and Noordhof’s (2008) study in deprived neighbourhoods in the Netherlands suggest that non- participation in NDC on the one hand, and within the neighbourhood on the other, may be an active choice, albeit as a response to structural constraints. This would place it under the rubric of Evers’ (2003) “defensive privatism”, rather than it being a signal of passivity or ignorance. In Mathers et al.’s (2008) NDC study, they found people choosing not to engage with the scheme in order to avoid the possibility of incurring state sanctions against illegal or illegitimate activities, or simply to avoid enduring harsh judgement, harmful to self-esteem (Mathers et al., 2008). The authors describe such activities as survival strategies in an environment of poor quality, poorly paid employment opportunities. Non-engagement with the scheme also occurred out of fear of compromising relations residents depended on for day-to-day survival, which compelled them to conform to accepted norms of behaviour to protect vital sources of social support, rather than adopt state-mandated ‘superior’ behaviours, which might cause them to be ostracised. This also echoes Purdue’s (2001: 2221-2222) observation that participation in regeneration partnerships may threaten to undermine community leaders’ connections within the community because of low trust in government initiatives with which they would be seen to be associated. This discussion shows that retaining or extending micro- network connectivity can be made more, not less difficult, by participating in the structures of regeneration.

Furthermore, the incentives for avoidance of engagement with the regeneration initiative seem even stronger when considered in light of the possibility that neighbours of active

76 Comment from Beacons NDC final evaluation focus group on 8.3.10. 183

residents may try to rely on them to the extent of treating them as substitute for the support of an absent or distrusted state. Stories reported by representatives of now defunct groups emphasise the potential strain such situations may cause. One resident explained in detail the level of demand which drove her to give up on the group, describing neighbours’ expectations that she be on call to solve their problems, with demands such as “Get down here now, me fucking water pipe’s burst!”77 Accounts of such situations arising on a regular basis underline why people may quite reasonably be driven to apparent ‘apathy’ by the challenges of running a group. However in such difficult day- to-day circumstances, the decision to not to give up, but rather to expand the scope of one’s activities within the neighbourhood, may merely heighten the resentment of other residents, out of fear that someone else is getting more78, a manifestation of the “jealousies” of the council estate mentioned by residents and officers.79

8.1.6 Ethnicity and otherness Micro-network jealousies and versions of the rough/ respectable distinction discussed in Chapter 2 also emerged in this study in both Beacons and Gorton, even from the mouths of residents who were willing to engage with and help ‘problem’ neighbours.80 The phenomenon of increasing ethnic diversity, particularly in areas of low housing demand and concomitant low rents, such as East Manchester, has added another ingredient to this mix- but one which has been overlaid with rough/respectable distinction, as well as encompassing the idea of self-exclusion implied by the discourse of apathy. So, on the one hand residents may show greater tolerance towards neighbours from different ethnic/ national backgrounds if they conform to their standards of cleanliness and decent behaviour, indeed, even deeming them preferable to problem locals81. On the other hand, some residents appeared to struggle with manifestations of successful intra-ethnic community, for example, African churches. This was articulated as concern about unwillingness to integrate into ‘the’ (meaning their) community, and ill-defined jealousy about how they were able to financially resource their activities, which suggested the suspicion of preferential treatment.82 The high turnover of migrant tenants and language barriers also caused some basic practical problems for people attempting to run residents’

77 As reported in telephone conversation on 8.11.10. 78 This observation was made with reference to some of the successful, high profile Gorton activists in an interview with NEM regeneration officer for Gorton on 1.9.09. 79 Comment from telephone conversation on 29.10.10: “They’re funny, estates- a lot of jealousies going on.” 80 For example one representative of a residents’ group in Gorton, interviewed on 24.7.11 characterised a particular problem neighbour as “what my nana would’ve called ‘dead common’”. 81 This came out of interview with residents’ group representatives in Gorton, on 24.7.11 and in another interview in Gorton on 28.11.11. During the latter, the interviewee noted that as a neighbour she “would rather have a decent coloured family than a crowd of Irish tinkers. They’re all church-goers- fantastic people.” However she also saw these groups as having their own, separate community or “clique”. 82 Comments made in focus group in Beswick on 2.7.11. 184

groups.83 However, the fact remains that residents’ groups themselves did not become demographically representative in this environment, making them highly problematic channels for representation of many residents living in the area and affected by the NDC initiative.

8.1.7 NDC’s East Manchester identity: self-abnegation as citizenship However, in the case of NDC, the dividing lines between community leader and ordinary resident outlined above may have been sharpened in more active ways by the specific modus operandi of the initiative. Both Dargan’s (2009) study and Dinham’s (2005) found residents wanting to be able to engage with the initiative “as themselves” (Dinham, 2005: 308) but feeling unable to do so. In specific case of Beacons NDC the rhetoric associated with being on the board and the skills required implied that there was a process to be gone through, and indeed that any ordinary resident could not just walk in from the street and participate. For example, when asked what measure one might use to capture the extent of resident empowerment through NDC, a senior officer suggested “Maturity of belief- that you don’t always get what you want, but it’s still worth getting involved. That participating is not the right to demand.”84 Underpinning this was the idea that residents enter into participation with a concern purely for their own needs which then evolves over time into an appreciation of the wider good, beyond their home or street. This was often evoked in identical or subtly different ways by officers and residents’ group representatives alike. Indeed it might be interpreted as exemplifying Morgan-Trimmer’s (2009a: 8) observation that the coveted ‘influence’ asked about in survey questions may work in both directions- including officers influencing the decisions and perceptions of residents. Blakeley and Evans (2009:20) also encountered this discourse of maturation, reporting that local officials they interviewed in East Manchester saw the shift from concern for personal property or street to concern for the wider area as process of transformation “from consumer to fully fledged citizen”. Whether it is reasonable to expect residents to easily put aside their own immediate concerns in this way is questionable, particularly in places where people’s personal lives and the conditions of their environment are most likely to be challenging- indeed linking such issues to notions of citizenship seems a deeply problematic stance.

The employment of such a discourse by officers may have been partly prompted by the fact that Beacons was not a real place, reflected in the cognitive maps of neighbourhood held in the heads of residents, but a technocratically constructed enclave. Therefore a key task for officers was to try to build a unified, workable whole-area identity, so that

83 Examples cited in interview with representative of defunct residents’ group on 1.11.10, and in Beacons NDC final evaluation focus group on 4.3.10. 84 Comment from interview with senior NDC officer on 25.8.10. 185

residents would metaphorically buy in to the scheme, and to minimise the risk of conflictual partnership relations. Officers in Beacons NDC seemed to feel that they had been relatively successful in this endeavour, with one senior officer observing that whilst the distinct identities of the area’s constituent neighbourhoods of Beswick, Clayton and Openshaw had been a barrier at the outset, an East Manchester identity had grown over time.85 However the fact that so many residents’ groups identified geographical separation (being in a different neighbourhood) as a reason for not having contact with other groups (Table 24 in Chapter 5) suggests that, whatever area identity was created, it was not sufficient to substantially compensate for the practical limitations of physical dislocation.

8.1.8 Divisions over territory and strategies of macro-network engagement Deeper analysis of the effect of territorial division is provided by the ethnographic dimension here. For residents it was always going to be more difficult to let go of a sense of competition with each other, since it relied on their willingness to trust an agent of the state to treat them fairly and equally, when much of their previous experience indicated that such trust would be misguided. Purdue (2001: 2219) makes a similar point in relation to community involvement in SRB partnerships; namely that the community was obliged to trust the council but that the council did not trust the community. However, complaints made by residents in the NDC final evaluation focus group held in Openshaw in early 2010 reveal that any expectations of unequal treatment were well-founded from their perspective, having become unfortunate casualties of market-led regeneration. Redevelopment promised and delivered early on in other neighbourhoods, most notably those closest to the city centre and around the site of the 2002 Commonwealth Games (now Manchester City Football Club’s) stadium, was still pending in Openshaw when the credit crunch hit in 2008 and developers everywhere indefinitely mothballed or cancelled projects. This resulted in residents feeling that NDC hadn’t “shared the money around”.86 Meanwhile a representative of a prominent Beacons residents’ group who participated in this study suggested that even amongst the few active groups remaining at the end of the scheme, the divisions along territorial lines were never entirely overcome; that there was even opposition to cooperation between residents’ groups within the same neighbourhood.87 In this person’s view, the situation stemmed in part from contrasting ideas about how groups should engage with regeneration agencies and the programmes they were undertaking in the area. The complaint, made in the light of a successful protest against Housing Market Renewal plans for demolition of terraced housing in another neighbourhood, was that some groups in this individual’s own neighbourhood were

85 Interview with senior regeneration officer on 30.4.09. 86 Comments from NDC final evaluation focus group in Openshaw on 4.3.10. 87 Interview with respresentative of Beacons Residents’ Group #2. 186

effectively “capitulating”88 and undermining others, in situations where they ought to be uniting in battle. This echoes Dargan’s (2009: 313) finding of competing discourses of collaboration and confrontation amongst resident board members in Newcastle’s NDC. Equally this person observed that, despite apparent efforts to the contrary, NDC “weren't unhappy that we [the groups] weren't all in close harmony”.

8.1.9 The closed shop of participation in governance The failure amongst residents who participated in Beacons’ governance to appreciate the viewpoint of those who did not do so may in part reflect the way in which the scheme established what became a ‘closed shop’ of participation. The principal setting in which residents interested in the regeneration of the area were able to come together as a collective was the Residents’ Forum. However, this too required participation as membership of a formally constituted group, and though the timing of this study precluded direct insight into its operations, Beacons’ documentation emphasises its instrumental focus on programme delivery and vertical engagement with the scheme.89 However the progressively falling average attendance by residents’ groups at the Forum from 2002 onwards (from 23, to just 8 from the Beacons area in 2008) suggests that this format was not a compelling space in any sense for the vast majority of residents involved in groups within the area, never mind as an inspiring space for developing collective identity across the wider area. It certainly cannot be characterised as what Gaventa (2006) terms a “claimed” or “created” space, started up and controlled by citizens and communities for themselves (Taylor, 2011: 155); it was very much an “invited” space for an extended consultation/ legitimatisation exercise. As such it is not surprising to find interest in it decline as the programme it was directed towards wound down.

However this apparently uninviting invited space was the sole basis for election of resident representatives to the NDC board (as well as the NEM board), in contrast to most other NDCs, where open population-wide elections were held. And only groups which attended the Residents’ Forum with sufficient frequency to make them eligible were permitted to put forward candidates and vote. The result was that, according to NEM’s own documentation reviewing election of NEM board members in 2009, there had been few contested elections in the preceding three years, and that, of 105 recognised NEM residents’ groups, only six were eligible to participate in the NEM board election by 2009 (NEM, 2009b). No surprise, then, that the lack of open elections to the board was noted as

88 This resident, representative of Beacons Residents’ Group #2 commented “…a lot of the groups, not saying in a nasty way, were capitulating. And weren't, and they were doing us no favours…” 89 The Information and Equality Strategy defines its role in terms of programme monitoring, raising concerns with officers, and challenging on service-standards (Beacons, 2002: 4), meanwhile the Beacons final evaluation report states that it was “a vehicle for communication and accountability” (Ekosgen, 2010:86) regarding the delivery of the Beacons programme, consistent with the instrumental, service-delivery focus of the scheme noted earlier 187

Beacons “failure” in the final Beacons board meeting presentation (NEM, 2009c). One explanation given by NDC’s chief officer, Sean McGonigle, was that the Beacons area was considerably larger than other NDCs making a one person, one vote system less practical. However he also suggested that with hindsight he would have changed the system, without specifying in what way90.

Unfortunately Beacons own final evaluation report provides little clarity in this regard and makes contradictory statements on the subject. On the one hand it concedes that the programme relied on a small core of individuals and “found it challenging to secure a broader range of resident involvement”, and on the other it argues that it had “achieved a good balance between resident involvement in the decision making structures and developing the community infrastructure in the wider Beacons area” (Ekosgen, 2010: 14).91 This study would appear to contradict the latter point. The report also suggests that an advantage of having a small stable core of resident activists was that it “enabled experience to be built up and continuity achieved” (Ekosgen, 2010:14).

This echoes Purdue’s (2001, 2007) observations in relation to the community leadership cycle and problems of succession in the nine SRB areas he studied. Evidence from this study does seem to support Purdue’s (2007) findings in relation to the lack of, and/or difficulty with succession within the community leadership. Firstly the core of the Beacons meso-network is older than the periphery, and secondly, members of this old guard actually complained themselves about the lack of new blood: “Unfortunately it’s always been the case that it’s a few people doing it all. Isn’t it? You know, over ten years you’ve just seen the same faces at the meetings.”92 Another residents’ group representative involved from the outset of NDC observed that the same groups which were the hard core of the Residents’ Forum were now also the core of the Community Partnership93; yet another is quoted in a book put together to celebrate the achievements of NDC (Grant, 2010) expressing concern about “who’s going to take it forward”94, hinting at the kind of burn-out which is well-recognised as getting the better of many overworked and under- supported community activists.

90 Observations made in the opening section of the book (Grant, 2010) written to celebrate the end of Beacons NDC, published in 2010. 91 The full sentence ends with the words “to feed into the programme”, which emphasises the fact that Beacons had a vertically orientated conception of what community infrastructure is. 92 Comment from representative of Beacons Residents’ Group #20 in focus group in Beswick on 2.7.11. Another residents’ group representative who 93 Comment in Beacons NDC evaluation focus group in Clayton on 8.3.10. 94 Quote in Grant (2010: 178). 188

8.1.10 NDC as meso-network ‘glue’ and the primacy of macro-network relations Unfortunately it seems that those groups still left standing at the end of the NDC are those whose meso-network connectivity is closely associated with participation in the scheme. There is more than a hint here that a situation of dependency was created, which threatens to leave the community infrastructure without common purpose to sustain it in its absence. One key residents’ group representative, who was involved with the scheme from when the initial bid was assembled, observed that “NDC was the cement- they gelled us all and now no-one’s pulling you together”.95 When asked about reasons for lack of contact with other groups in this study, this person expanded her point, lamenting that groups no longer had the same contact as before because NDC had ceased to organise meetings and send out information in the way it used to.96 If Beacons NDC acted as the actual glue between groups right to the end, rather than merely as a temporary framework to support cohering processes, this suggests that the construction effort itself was flawed, notwithstanding the articulated ambitions of legacy and sustainability.

In reality it seems that the information-sharing, service-improvement focus of NDC may have been successful in producing a body of citizen-partners orientated to fulfilment of the economic and social rationales of the scheme: demanding better services and providing the intelligence to make them more citizen-centred. However, it may have been at a cost to developing horizontal partnership within the community itself. Indeed, it is difficult to criticise residents for valuing their new relationships as highly as they do having felt ignored by the council for so many years. Beacons NDC operated a one-stop-shop for residents during its high days, with an open door policy which meant residents could just walk in off the street to sort out problems, a situation which allowed them to have “an officer on tap”.97 Officers also became “brokers of information and contact”98 with other mainstream agencies, so that residents were able to build a personal directory of contacts with other agencies and departments in the council whom they could then access themselves to address problems. Describing this situation, one residents’ group representative stated that having “the top numbers” gave groups “privilege”; “it empowered us”99, whilst another stated quite plainly that these vertical ties “would be the worst thing we could lose”.100 In light of such sentiments it seems painful to observe, with hindsight, that many familiar faces were indeed destined to disappear, amid the mix of the NDC scheme ending and the city council’s substantial restructuring in the face of central government budget cuts in 2010/11.

95 Interview with residents’ group representative 9.2.10 96 Interview with Beacons Residents’ Group #14. 97 Interview with NDC officer on 16.9.09. 98 Interview with NDC officer on 16.9.09. 99 Comments from interview with residents’ group representative on 9.2.10. 100 Interview with Beacons Residents’ Group #31. 189

It hardly seems surprising, then, to have found a lot of negativity and anxiety about the future amongst those residents’ group representatives still willing to be involved in local structures at the end of NDC. There was a palpable anger conveyed by residents who had been involved in NDC governance, resulting in the perception that the area faced a return to the previous era of poor services and no influence, expressed in statements such as “It’s back to council dictatorship”.101 The writing seemed to already have been on the wall for these residents with the termination of the open-door policy at NDC headquarters towards the end of the scheme. This was attributed by officers partly to particular board members abusing the privilege of open access, though it also reflected the fundamentally different practices of NDC successor body, NEM. Thus whilst Morgan-Trimmer cites a resident who described NDC offices in a positive way as “like a mini town hall” (Morgan- Trimmer, 2009b: 6), insofar as it allowed access to all core services under one roof, one resident used the same term at the end of the scheme to imply that the officers occupying the building had become as inaccessible as the council was before; indeed that they had “stolen the building from the community.”102

8.1.11 Succession structures without widespread buy-in It is easy to see how such feelings were aroused. CLG documentation produced to guide the succession planning process in NDC partnerships talked of very different succession plans emerging from other NDCs. These included selling off the asset of NDC offices to reinvest in the community (see CLG, 2008d), as well as the establishment of resident-led community development trusts as succession vehicles, instead of the handover to the council-led economic development vehicle of NEM which took place in Beacons. In fact the suggestion was made by Beacons resident board members that they too should set up a Community Development Trust, but in the opinion of a senior NDC officer the purpose of this was simply to provide those individuals with a role.103 However, officers got their way104, with NEM succeeding NDC, and resident involvement transferred to the community partnerships. In light of the rapid demise of the Beacons CP, it is telling to note that the CPs principally drew in the same old faces from NDC, including some of the oldest who had previously fallen away, despite it being formally opened up to include additional groups based on identity and interests, as well as the voluntary sector. The only representative from a third sector organisation ceased to attend after the first couple of meetings, and the supporting resources from RSLs and other voluntary organisations which NEM suggested might be leveraged (NEM, 2009a) never materialised. And indeed

101 NDC final evaluation with residents who were involved in governance on 15.3.10. 102 NDC final evaluation with residents who were involved in governance on 15.3.10. 103 Interview with senior NDC officer on 30.4.09. 104 A consultation exercise on this was undertaken, as reported in Chapter 3. It is not known how many residents particapted, however the document itself (NEM, 2009a) presented three options but explained why only one, the community partnership model, was feasible, thus effectively providing no options at all. 190

it is difficult to see on what basis such resources were expected to be forthcoming to support a body with no obvious target or feed-in to permanent governance structures, and no other funding.

8.1.12 Depoliticisation and sustainability This lack of feed-in to pre-existing structures was partly the result of another conscious decision made by Beacons NDC, namely the exclusion of local elected members from the initiative. This decision was taken, according to the chief officer, Sean McGonigle, so that politics would “not get in the way”105 of the scheme’s progress, despite the fact that in most NDCs they were involved in some way (Wainwright, 2003: 80). Like the election procedure for resident board members, this seems to be another example of local rules- in-use designed to ensure the smooth-running of the scheme. However it was arguably a missed opportunity to address the very mistrust of local politics which it responded to. One of the difficulties facing Manchester residents was the lack of electoral competition within the one-party state of its Labour council, a situation not improved by the decline of the Liberal Democrats at a local level since the party entered the national coalition government in 2010. However, observations to the effect that residents made less or no use of local councillors once they’d built direct relations with officers through NDC106 suggested they might be left in a vulnerable position once the scheme ended. Indeed Durose and Lowndes (2010) paint a fairly bleak picture of the level of commitment to a genuinely civic rationale for community engagement within Manchester City Council. They contrast the enthusiasm of frontline officers and community workers at the neighbourhood-level with a reluctance and cynicism amongst both councillors and strategic-level decision-makers about the value or practicality of involving the community (Durose and Lowndes, 2010: 353).

This reflects one of the wider difficulties with New Labour’s local governance reforms insofar as it created backbench councillors with a community advocacy mandate at the same time as expanding participatory governance roles for citizens (Evans, 2007: 208) without establishing a clear or formal link between the two (Prendergast, 2008: 16). The evidence suggests that at a national level some councillors embraced the role and have worked more closely with the community (e.g. Rao, 2005 in Durose and Richardson, 2009: 45) whilst others have behaved like “wounded lions” (Taylor, 2005 in Durose and Richardson, 2009: 45). The depoliticisation of NDC along with the ongoing lack of buy-in from councillors and more senior officers in Manchester, cited by Durose and Lowndes

105 Observations made in the opening section of the book (Grant, 2010) written to celebrate the end of Beacons NDC. 106 Comment to this effect made in interview with head of local third sector organisation on 2.9.09, with in interview with NDC regeneration officer on 16.9.09, and in interview with representative of residents’ group on 9.2.10. 191

(2010) suggests that Beacons residents may face serious obstacles in the future. Indeed the authors report that a Beacons officer described the scheme as being “a ball pushed halfway up a hill”, and that without keeping the community involved and pushing after it ended, there was a real risk it would simply roll back down again (Durose and Lowndes, 2010: 354).

8.1.13 Influencing decisions: money, dialogue, protest This raises important questions about the nature of macro-network ties between residents’ groups and state actors captured in this study, and the extent to which the access permitted by the involvement of residents truly amounted to political opportunity structures or whether they were principally a mechanism for temporary co-optation and a strategy of divide et impera. A senior NDC officer spoke strongly against the idea of power of veto over spending as a route to influence for resident activists, arguing that consensus and dialogue were better options. The key question, in this person’s view, was how officers respond to people’s influence delivered in this format.107 Indeed this individual asserted that decision-making powers tend to attract the participation of residents who aren’t inclusive. However, having had a taste of some kind of input into the spending of the NDC budget, one former board member stated during the final evaluation that it was precisely the £75 million budget which gave the Residents’ Forum influence.108 Another senior NEM officer was willing to concede this point, observing that in the post-NDC era residents faced a problem insofar as “the glue that holds a lot of organisations together is being able to influence how money is spent”.109

Nevertheless, views were mixed about the extent to which participation in the governance structures of NDC had afforded residents real influence. Some ex-board and Residents’ Forum members felt it had provided the opportunity for actual input into plans, whilst others felt that board members were only allowed to appraise pre-made plans, rather than participating in the process of planning themselves.110 This provides another example of different views of the opportunities which the structures of NDC governance afforded residents. Blakeley and Evans (2009: 18) report the same mix of views amongst the residents they interviewed in East Manchester. However they suggest that the protests which took place around planning decisions provided the clearest evidence of influence on policymaking, and that these reflect a breakdown of formally constituted channels of engagement (Blakeley and Evans, 2009:18), rather than providing evidence that they

107 Interview with senior regeneration officer on 25.8.09 108 Comment in NDC final evaluation focus group with residents who had been involved in governance on 15.3.10. 109 Comment made at meeting of Beacons Community Partnership on 31.5.11. 110 Contrasting comments made in NDC final evaluation focus group with residents who had been involved in governance on 15.3.10. 192

actually function as political opportunity structures for residents. Indeed they report the opinion of one local official who suggested that Manchester City Council is responsive, but only to political pressure, rather than to abstract consultation (Blakeley and Evans, 2009: 19). Whether such protest action was beneficial for relations between Beacons residents and the council in the long-term is a more difficult point to address, though comments by a number of active residents suggest quite the opposite. One described the view that the council “think we’re just nuisances, actually. They’d like to take a contract out on some of us.”111 Another felt that “giving residents the courage to confront bad service delivery made some of our elected body very angry”.112 These remarks suggest a legacy of feelings of vulnerability and mistrust amongst community activists at the end of the scheme.

8.1.14 Beacons’ leadership skills and lack of post-NDC purpose There is a limit to the extent of analysis which can be made of leadership capacity in this study because of a lack of insight into biography which Ganz (2000, cited in Campbell 2005: 63) posits as a key driver of leadership practices. However it is possible to make some observations about the outward manifestation of leadership, resulting from the bricolage113 of the existing skills and experience of individuals which they use to respond to the network and POS context in which they find themselves (Campbell, 2005: 60). Typologies of leadership and citizen activism in the literature provide some framework against which to consider the evidence available. Purdue’s (2001) distinction between transformational and transactional leaders was outlined in Chapter 2. Li and Marsh’s (2008) extension of Bang’s (2005) model of ‘everyday makers’ and ‘expert citizens’ to include the categories of ‘political activist’ and ‘non-participant’, is also relevant to this. Blakeley and Evans (2009: 27-28) suggested that there was evidence of Bang’s typology amongst East Manchester activists, though they observe that many fluctuated between the two roles. To this analysis of roles can be added observations arising from reflection on Mische’s (2008a) paper on modes of communication for skilled political leadership.

Nearly two-thirds of groups in the core of the Beacons meso-network were regular attenders of the community partnership. Observations of these meetings therefore provide some important insights, in addition to what is known about the others from interview contact. What the Beacons core has in common with Gorton’s, as will be shown later, is that it may be divided into two broad categories of orientation towards action, though it is

111 Focus group in Beswick on 2.7.11. 112 From handwritten note on the back of self-completion questionnaire returned by post from Beacons Residents’ Group #1. 113 McAdam and Scott (2005: 27, citing Clemens,1996; Haveman and Rao, forthcoming; Stark, 1996) describe bricolage as “the cobbling together of pieces of familiar forms and routines to embody new logics and support new modes of actions”. 193

difficult to describe either of these as manifestations of leadership. On one side there are those most closely associated with Beacons NDC largely made up of the most vocal members of the first generation of residents directly involved in its governance. These are varying shades of expert citizen and political activist types, to use Li and Marsh’s (2008) typology, and include a key figure in the HMR protest. Expert citizens (originally Bang’s 2005 innovation) fuse aspects of representation and participation and develop expertise which they use to cooperate with politicians, administrators, interest groups, and the media through their “network consciousness” (Li and Marsh, 2008: 250). Political activists are people who participate in organisations characterised by political or trade union activities. On the other side are groups which appear to have emerged during the middle phase of Beacons NDC as a second generation of community involvement around parks, environment, as well as the neighbourhood planning process for HMR. Just like the second wave of partnership participants in Purdue’s SRB case studies (2001: 2220) they have smaller, more immediate concerns than the NDC governors. This is reminiscent of everyday makers, insofar as they are interested less in involvement with the state and in having influence, than in getting involved in concrete tasks on the ground in a fun, developmental, DIY fashion (Li and Marsh, 2008: 250-251). In the Beacons case some of the green spaces/ parks group activists exemplify this.

If it is possible to pin-point a defining feature of leadership failure in Beacons, as manifested by the early demise of the Beacons Community Partnership, it lies in the inability of these two parties to make common cause. This was made painfully plain in the community partnership’s final meeting,114 and was quite conceivably compounded by the fact that, as a collective operating independently of NDC, they lacked any historical track record which might attract new blood. Whilst they seemed to share a sense of being ignored and abandoned by NEM and the council, they had different ideas about what to do about this or how to proceed as a collective. One park group representative complained that they were not a meetings person; that they would rather roll their sleeves up and do something. In this person’s view “If you want people to sit up and take notice, you’ve got to show them you’re doing something, not just sitting around the table talking about doing something.” However, the expert citizen/ political camp115 were very much focussed on what the powers that be were and were not doing, such that the parks groups’ pleas for self-organisation met with the following remark: “They’ve got a duty to involve, but who can enforce it?” Furthermore the repeated pursuit by a member of the expert/ political camp, of personal, though quite conceivably legitimate, grievances with

114 Observations here recorded in field notes for meeting of Beacons Community Partnership on 20.9.11. 115 There is no evidence to indicate that any of these people are actually political activists, but their confrontational, somewhat ideological style is more reminiscent of a traditional trade unionist approach and does not fit with the idea of the consensual, collaborative expert citizen role so well. 194

NEM in CP meetings was cited by both residents and officers as undermining collective support for the community partnership amongst other residents. The image this portrays is at best one of people at cross-purposes with one another, and at worst one of a lack of motivation for any kind of participation driven by the idea of collective, rather than merely individual, needs.

However in this final meeting of the community partnership, both sides seemed united in their feelings of state abandonment, proceeding to make observations about the apparent disappearance of the councillors in both wards, and the retreat of officers who were supposed to be supporting the CP, with part of the problem attributed to the rapid turnover of staff under the council restructure. This culminated in the observation that “We haven’t got anyone in power fighting our corner for us. Before we could demand and we got it. We were spoiled in a way. If we’re honest, we were.” This statement painfully portrays a state of dependency and lack of personal or communal empowerment embodied by these would-be community leaders.

It is difficult not to feel some real sympathy for the Beacons residents. Having largely cooperated with NDC throughout the scheme, they appear to have come out of it feeling disempowered and demoralised. This situation was arguably not helped by the departure from NEM in late 2010 of the long-standing officers tasked with getting the CP going, who were in any case pessimistic about the likelihood of the partnership being a success.116 For, though the closed shop of NDC participation might have seemed appealing in the short term, insofar as it gave residents an ongoing role, the reality was that the lack of open elections is likely to have limited their visibility in a way which precluded the development of any wider micro-or meso-network level following. Coming from one of Beacons’ most prominent board members at the end of the scheme, remarks such as “Eight out of 10 people wouldn’t know about residents being on the board”117 is eyebrow- raising in this regard. It suggest a real lack of transactional leadership, in terms of engagement with, and accountability to, the grassroots, as well as a lack of any visionary, mission-making transformational leadership capacity (Purdue, 2001). However, if that is the case, it would appear to provide some explanation for the finding that on average core Beacons groups gave more nominations of future collaborative partners to actors in the periphery of the meso-network than they received from it, as reported in Chapter 5. No doubt these committed and intelligent people made a difference to the decisions taken by the partnership in ways which produced better outcomes for local people than would have been possible without their contribution of local knowledge and experience. However,

116 In an officer-only meeting on 23.2.10 a senior officer articulated the view that the CPs “aren’t going to work”. 117 Beacons NDC final evaluation focus groups in Clayton on 8.3.10. 195

when it comes to leadership, it is worth asking whether it really counts as leadership at all if the activities it embodies remain invisible to anyone beyond the leaders themselves. The retrospective viewpoint of this study has been able to provide little concrete evidence in relation to the direct influence of Beacons board members on programme decisions, and there are no details in the final evaluation. It is therefore difficult to make any conclusive statements in this regard. However Richardson et al. (2012: 16) find that hearing about successful examples of citizens influencing decisions in the media encourages people to feel more able to influence themselves. This would seem to suggest that if it is indeed the case that the influence of core Beacons residents on the NDC programme was not easily visible within the wider area, this might be quite an important reason for the apparent lack of interest in participation in the post-NDC community partnership.

Given what evidence is available of the nature of engagement with NDC and the capacity- building they provided, it is perhaps not surprising to find that these people struggled to make the CP work. NDC did not require them to negotiate or innovate amongst themselves in defining their involvement in the scheme or its purpose. Indeed in the final evaluation exercise using Hart’s (1992) ladder of participation to assess the extent of empowerment through the scheme, the residents who participated concluded that at best (during the early years) involvement reached rung six of eight, whereby “staff generate initial ideas for action but residents are involved in implementation”, whilst the latter years of the scheme were rated between rungs one and three, a serious indictment of tokenism (Ekosgen, 2010: 88).118 This adds to the picture of a lack of opportunity for development of self-organising skills. Skilled leadership, as theorised by Mische (2008a), requires mastery of communication skills to suit multiple situations, and the ability to “switch” (Mische, 2008a; Mische and White, 1998) between more or less collaborative or competitive modes, and ideas-focussed or action-focussed modes, appropriate to the setting in question. Beacons residents seem, to some degree at least, to be hampered by both the inability to define a new purpose, and a lack of the necessary skills to redefine macro- network communication with New East Manchester and other structures of the state left behind post-NDC. Sentiments such as those quoted above in relation to the council’s view of residents suggest a situation akin to that which Taylor (2011) characterises as being “stuck in opposition”, without the skills to unite or negotiate to get beyond it. Indeed Purdue (2001: 2217) reports that the white women in his case studies identified confidence in the face of authority, rather than strategy or innovation, as their key leadership characteristic. It is a description which seems to fit both the women and men in the political activist camp in Beacons, one of whom is quoted using just such terms in the

118 This assessment was based on an exercise conducted with a total of 19 residents across four focus groups in Spring 2010. 196

book produced to celebrate NDC in 2010.119 This suggests that core Beacons residents may have been coming from a low base in terms of what Bourdieu would term ‘cultural capital’. In this respect confidence and the simple ability to hold one’s nerve may therefore be considered a significant personal development. However, it once again raises serious questions about the extent to which participation in NDC could ever be a process sufficiently empowering to allow residents to take on what appears to be an indifferent or even hostile local authority once their allies within NDC departed.

8.2 Gorton

This section presents the evidence and argument in relation to the Gorton case. In the fuzzy institutional context of no major intervention, but with changes emerging from the nationally-driven reform of local governance, and spillover from the neighbouring intervention area, it is difficult to identify precisely which aspects of POS are the most salient to explaining community activity captured by the quantitative data. However a number of potentially relevant activities and events in the years preceding the initiation of the community partnership in 2008 are considered.

8.2.1 Gorton Monastery, Festival and Forum As far as it is possible to identify an initial source for the momentum for community- building in Gorton prior to 2008, the restoration of Gorton Monastery appears to be a prime candidate. A grand re-opening took place in 2007, though the preservation trust set up by volunteers to generate and secure funding and develop plans was established in 1996. A residents’ group representative interviewed in this study described the restoration as something which “brought an energy into the area” and “did a lot to get the area working together”.120 The key architect of the project was a marketing professional from Knutsford, married to a man who grew up in Gorton, (Taylor, 2007), though the original trust and advisory group were local residents who are reported to have rallied around the project and helped shape the vision.121

Another important milestone was the Gorton Festival, now a key event in Gorton’s annual community calendar, which the representative of a group in this study first organised in 2002/2003. She described the festival as a catalyst for the community coming together at a time when “Gorton didn’t have a very nice spirit”.122 The Gorton Forum is another potentially important piece in the puzzle. Multiple residents and a former NEM officer

119 In Grant (2010: 178): “We’ve learnt an awful lot. A lot of us were ‘gobby’ to start with but I think working with the establishment- whatever or whoever that is- has made us more confident. We’ve met a lot of people and we’ve had a lot of attention. I have no fear of talking to anyone, ministers or whoever…” 120 Interview with representative of Gorton Residents’ Group #15 121 Interview with chief executive of the Monastery on 13.10.09. 122 Interview with representative of Gorton Residents’ Group #15. 197

recount its establishment, predating the community partnership, though it is not clear precisely when this was. This is said to have involved current local councillors and community activists, and met at Gorton Community Centre, a longstanding community space run by local residents with council funding. The Forum liaised with the council to try to get things done in Gorton and disbanded prior to the establishment of the community partnership. According to one account123, this was because it was too political, and according to another because there were money problems and it “got very dirty at the end”.124 A former officer reported, albeit from secondhand accounts, that there was infighting and disenchantment revolving around the nature of engagement with residents in relation to the building of large Tesco store, plans for which initially appeared to residents as an imposition after years of council neglect of the area.125 Despite the demise of the Gorton Forum, the need for an umbrella organisation for Gorton residents was perceived by officers to be greater in Gorton than in the Beacons wards, as residents had not been allowed to attend meetings of the multi-agency ward coordination, so they had no direct route to involvement in local service-delivery decisions. Whilst the impact of the earlier Forum can only be speculated upon, it is reasonable to suggest that this earlier exercise in collective organisation may have helped key Gorton actors to cut their teeth in preparation for establishing the more successful community partnership with initial input from NEM in 2008.

8.2.2 Housing stock transfer to Eastland Homes Another key milestone was the transfer of council housing stock in Gorton to Eastlands Homes in 2008. Eastlands Homes was the RSL which had first been established in the Beacons area under NDC, with NDC monies. One Gorton resident activist of many years observed that relations with the council were much better now, as it had not previously consulted tenants at all, a reminder that like Beacons, Gorton had suffered dark days of neglect in the 1980s and 1990s. However the opening up of channels for tenant participation in Eastlands Homes, including numerous service panels, social groups, and the board of the company itself, had changed this dramatically in her opinion.126 Another residents’ group representative and one of the key players in the core of Gorton’s meso- network, and in GAT, reported that it was participation in the stock transfer to Eastlands Homes, which had helped him to first become involved in community action in the area.127 This person recounted that he spread word about GAT’s existence to groups he had got to know at Eastlands, in order to encourage people to come along when it was first

123 By the same representative of Beacons Residents’ Group #15. 124 Interview with Gorton Residents’ Group #26. It was also mentioned in an interview with a Gorton residents’ group representative on 9.2.10. 125 Email exchange with former NEM officer on 29.8.12. 126 Interview with representative of Gorton Residents’ Group #26. 127 Interview with residents’ group representative on 9.2.10. 198

established in 2008.128 This shows the effects of national policy of greater tenant participation in social housing being felt at a local level, after Eastland Homes was first established in the neighbouring NDC area. In this respect it may be considered a result both of the wider policy context and a spillover effect resulting from proximity to Beacons NDC.

8.2.3 Community policing As the high ranking of Neighbourhood Policing in the top ten of most central agencies in both the Beacons and Gorton macro-networks (shown in Table 30 in Chapter 6) shows, one local service likely to unite residents and residents’ groups across the many dividing lines within East Manchester communities was the local police. Like Beacons residents, Gortonians had endured the combined consequences of slum clearance, industrial decline and poorly planned attempts at regeneration, which saw the building of the Gorton estate in the 1970s: “a muggers paradise”, according to one core residents’ group representative; “No-one’s facing anyone- there’s no sense of community”.129 The Beacons final evaluation report notes the negative impact of crime and fear of crime on community, which is substantiated by accounts of residents in Gorton, for example of neighbours being afraid to talk to each other.130 Beacons dedicated much effort to developing new ways of tackling safety in partnership with the police, including neighbourhood wardens and police community support officers, who seemed universally highly regarded by residents’ group representatives.

The introduction of community policing was another important area of intervention leakage from Beacons into Gorton, which also coincided with policy movements at a national level. Greater Manchester Police adopted Beacons’ neighbourhood policing practices as standard from 2007. Crime and ‘ community safety’, as it became termed, were issues which galvanised what are now two of the most active and, in network terms, central Gorton residents’ groups into action. One of these was the result of two smaller groups uniting across the boundary of the busy Hyde Road to form a single larger group in order to “shout louder”.131 And where residents were scared to contact the police themselves, for fear of retribution, these groups began to take up neighbours’ causes with the police on their behalf. The representative of a core Gorton residents’ group, and high scorer on measures of both association and representation, claimed that the group, which had been going for some years previously, properly established itself after its leaders successfully lobbied for the closure of a crack-house on the estate: “After that, people felt they could

128 Telephone conversation with residents’ group representative on 24.11.11. 129 Interview with residents’ group representative on 9.2.10. 130 This particular example is from a residents’ group in Gorton interviewed on 13.2.10 however such views were commonly heard. 131 Interview with Gorton residents’ group representative son 13.2.10. 199

achieve something.132 Similar sentiments about the mobilising force of service responsiveness and visible results were made in Beacons133, which show that effective macro-network level engagement can be a draw to help build micro-networks, if used inclusively by residents’ group leaders.

8.2.4 Sharing of skills and activist succession The two key people running the two groups mentioned above were hailed as a “new breed of fighters”134 by a longstanding Gorton activist, who had been involved in the earlier Gorton Forum and then the stock transfer to Eastlands Homes. This same individual was praised by one of these fighters as having taught him the skills of his activism through their contact at Eastlands Homes: “I was her disciple.”135 Thus in Gorton there were signs, not just of greater individual experience, but of a willingness for individuals to pass that experience on. Indeed this issue of succession, which was highlighted as problematic in the Beacons area, as in Purdue’s (2001, 2007) SRB studies, is something which NEM’s Gorton regeneration officer felt tended to be missing from conventional community engagement practices. In his eyes the key to this lay in the “wider sense of community stuff and the transfer to the whole community”136 which is so vital because the best of activists can suffer burn-out over time. This underlines the value of building micro- networks to underpin activity at the meso-level in terms of providing a pool of individuals from which future leaders may emerge.

8.2.5 Unifying history of ‘village’ identity If Gorton appears to have more autonomously-generated and autonomously-sustained levels of community activity on the ground than Beacons did, some acknowledgement must be paid here to Gorton’s more free-standing geographical identity. Where the Beacons identity, as a single area, depended entirely on its construction by the NDC/SRB partnership, the ‘village’137 of Gorton had an historical boundary, which had only been absorbed into the City of Manchester in 1909. Indeed, speaking of Gorton residents a senior NEM officer observed that they consider themselves to be different, and are proud of their distinction: “They see themselves as Gortonians, not East Mancunians”.138 None of which is to say that Gorton is a perfect unified whole, entirely free from the

132 Interview with representative of residents’ group in Gorton on 9.2.10. 133 In the interview with Beacons Residents’ Group #31, when asked about the benefits of relationships with local services the respondent stated: “It's put the faith back- people are more apt to want to join in for this reason,” a statement which underlines the draw of macro-network connections at the micro-network level. 134 Interview with representative of Gorton Residents’ Group #26. 135 Telephone conversation with representative of Gorton residents’ group on 24.11.11. 136 Interview with NEM regeneration officer on 1.9.09. 137 Gorton is referred to as “the ‘village’, now regenerating itself and regrouping forcefully” in Gorton 100: best viewed from within the book commissioned by the Gorton 100 Committee to celebrate the centenary of Gorton becoming part of Manchester. 138 Interview with senior NEM regeneration officer on 26.8.09. Whether there are very many people in either case study are who would consider themselves specifically East Mancunian is a moot point. 200

neighbourhood and street-level divisions reported in Beacons. These too were found in Gorton, as expressed in suspicions and jealousies about perceived inequality of funding decisions, as well as more practical factors, like being located in a different ward, and having a different social landlord, in the case of West Gorton, which meant groups there could see no point in attending meetings of GAT. The regeneration officer for Gorton observed that the impression, amongst some residents in one peripheral Gorton neighbourhood, was that the central area of Gorton around the main arterial route, where Tesco and Gorton Market were built, was getting investment that they were missing out on.139 Indeed it should be recalled that geographical separation was the modal response category selected by Gorton groups in response to the question asking about reasons for non-contact with other groups (Table 24 in Chapter 5).

8.2.6 Gorton 100: resident-initiated ideas and organisation in action Nevertheless it is impossible to deny the importance of the fact that the core actors in Gorton were great publicists of Gorton as an historic township. It was in this spirit that two key Gorton activists decided amongst themselves one day in 2008 to organise a year-long celebration of the 2009 centenary of Gorton’s absorption into the Manchester City boundary, establishing the Gorton 100 Committee for the purpose.140 What followed was extensive collaboration with the New East Manchester regeneration officer for Gorton to find funding -state funding, third sector funding, and support from private businesses in the area- to run historical, cultural and sporting events throughout 2009. A glossy celebration book was subsequently produced by the 100 Committee, the cost of which was covered entirely by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. An unattributed quotation appears in the back cover of the book, praising the singular nature of the celebrations and remarking “Some areas would have done nothing. Others would have expected officialdom to do it. Gorton got on with it.” This very much characterises the discourse of self-organising and community strength which punctuates the language of the core Gorton residents’ groups.

8.2.7 Macro-network relations with politicians The centenary celebrations drew in the active support and participation of local politicians, both councillors and the MP, Gerald Kaufman, who has represented Gorton since 1970. Indeed the general impression given by Gorton groups and the way they operate suggests that both councillors and the MP participate more extensively and directly in their activities than is the case in Beacons. Two of the Liberal Democrat councillors at the time of fieldwork were residents with longstanding roots in Gorton, including the leader of the Liberal Democrat group in the council, whose father was once Lord Mayor of Manchester

139 Discussed in a multi-agency meeting of officers on 9.11.10 to review a participatory budgeting exercise. 140 Telephone conversation of NEM regeneration officer for Gorton on 25.3.10. 201

and was responsible for establishing the Gorton Heritage Trail Action Group (a group included in this study). Meanwhile the MP himself is cited as a committee member of another of the groups. Furthermore two Abbey Hey groups have active, personal links to Manchester Labour, as does one of the architects of the Gorton 100 events, who is chair of GAT, and is involved in four of the most central groups in this study. In addition to this, one key Gorton activist reported that the councillors attend “virtually every TRA meeting in Gorton”.141 Whilst this is a strong claim, and one that cannot be substantiated, if it is a commonly held view, it says a great deal about the extent which elected members are imagined to be embedded in the local community infrastructure. What this situation suggests is that, despite the lack of access to ward coordination meetings in Gorton, its community infrastructure may in fact be better embedded in the enduring political structures of the local state than whatever infrastructure was left behind in Beacons at the end of NDC. Indeed, it indicates that they did not just have allies on the frontline, but also the potential to exert influence further up the chain of command, within the ruling local Labour Party.

8.2.8 Comparing Gorton and Beacons structures for resident access to ward coordination Despite this embedding it should be highlighted that, like Beacons,residents on the community partnership, Gortonians were also concerned about the possibility of being excluded from real decision-making and abandoned in the wake of council budget cuts. At a GAT meeting in 2012 news that the popular participatory forum of the police Neighbourhood Partnership was to be terminated and merged with ward coordination meetings prompted a GAT meeting attendee to express the view that “the people of Gorton are getting pushed further and further away from the argument”.142 Lengthy debate then led to the agreement that ward coordination should be a standing item on all future GAT agendas in order to allow a channel from policing business to the community. Such a decision was made meaningful by the fact that the ward coordinators for Gorton North and South routinely attend GAT meetings, in a way which ceased to occur in the case of Beacons Community Partnership. The result of this was the provision of a transparent and ongoing link between GAT and ward coordination, thus ensuring that GAT remained connected to ward-level governance.

Despite resident concerns about being excluded from ward coordination, it might be argued that the hybrid model of linking a resident-led community partnership to an agency-led ward coordination process encouraged greater engagement with the CP by residents in Gorton, and offered greater opportunity for community-building, than the

141 Interview with residents’ group representative on 9.2.10. 142 Observations here based on field notes from Gorton All Together meeting on 9.2.12. 202

Beacons CP. For, although one or two of the core activists in Beacons continued to make regular appearances at ward coordination in their wards, overall resident attendance at these meetings tended to be ad hoc and small-scale to address specific problems.143 Indeed when one Beacons resident, who regularly attended alone, asked for others to join her at the final community partnership meeting, another resident reported having heard that people were deterred from attending because it was agency-dominated.144 This is undoubtedly the case, since they were never designed as to be a forum for residents. Their openness to residents in the Beacons wards thus serves very limited instrumental service delivery-related purposes for residents. This makes them unsuitable bodies through which to bring residents together in numbers, and individuals lacking in confidence may struggle to make their voice heard in a situation where they face agencies alone. In this respect, the advertisement by NEM of ward coordination as a post-NDC structure for resident involvement145 is at best consistent with the social rationale of new governance structures, but not the civic (Lowndes and Sullivan, 2008): it encourages individual residents to participate as service-users, not as a collective or as co-governors. The fact that the Beacons Community Partnership did not have the tie-in to ward coordination which Gorton’s has would be another logical source of explanation for its lack of clear purpose and a lack of incentive for wider participation in it beyond the same old faces of the NDC years.

8.2.9 The role of individual front-line officers Although residents were not able to attend ward coordination in the Gorton North and South wards, Gorton had a ward coordination officer from 2002 when Manchester City Council began running ward level multi-agency coordination of services, who offered support to active residents in the administration of CASH grants. Several residents spoke highly of the individual officer in question, and there seemed to be some dismay at her departure in 2010, though this reflected a common resident complaint about staff turnover and the effort required to build new relationships. However, the new NEM officer with responsibility for liaising with groups once resident involvement support was rolled out in 2008 happened to be an individual with a particular personal commitment to community development and resident empowerment. He reports that a monthly mail-out to residents which took place in Beacons was extended to Gorton in 2007/08, and that once he was in post he set up an email list which he used more regularly to “inundate residents with, so that they were not just relying on a once a month paper info bundle”. This would explain the top ranking centrality of NEM in the macro-network of receiving information ties shown

143 Interview with NDC officer on 16.9.09. 144 Meeting of Beacons Community Partnership on 20.9.11. 145 In contents of review of community engagement used as basis for consultation on post-NDC resident involvement structures, NEM, 2009a. 203

in Table 30 in Chapter 6, with 97 percent of groups reporting a receiving-information tie. This officer also reported undertaking an audit of groups, attempting to establish which were still active and interested in NEM. Much of this practice emulates the communication efforts made by Beacons officers during the NDC days. However, this individual very much saw his role as one of helping residents to develop skills to self-organise and reported that, having worked together with key groups to write funding bids for the Gorton 100 celebrations, he was delighted to hear news of subsequent successes from applications for funding made without his support. This reflected an emphasis on learning and independence that he felt may have been missing from NDC practice in the Beacons area.146

8.2.10 Community leadership capacity and purpose-building This apparent greater capacity amongst Gorton residents to dedicate efforts toward micro- network level activity, compared to those in Beacons, may in part reflect the advantages of the age and employment status of Gorton residents’ group representatives. However, in contrast to the Beacons case, in Gorton there is also evidence of a higher level of organising and leadership skills, suggestive of both the transformational and transactional leadership capacities discussed by Purdue (2001), working in impressive combination with one another. What singles out the most obvious candidate for the category of transformational leader is the extent to which he displays what Purdue (2001) characterises as a sense of mission or vision. On the one hand this manifested itself in his public repertoire within GAT meetings, however one-to-one conversation in interview revealed that this mission was consciously pursued. Referring to the early days of GAT he observed: “The biggest thing to build up was a sense of ownership”.147 And in relation to running a residents’ group: “Turnout in a TRA is down to organisation- giving people a sense of collective identity”. Gorton-born, and university-educated, he returned to the area in retirement after many years away, and sought out and was successfully recruited into several governance positions in agencies across the city. He was the only Gorton resident who suggested that Gorton’s groups ought to plug into representative bodies at a city- and even a national-level, in order to influence policy.148 He also observed that “very few groups are organised or can organise”, such that “the role of public bodies is very important”149. He emphasised the critical need for activists to learn the policies and rules of operation of the agencies they dealt with, and reported that he deliberately made himself available to residents to be “used as a local surgery150” for information and advocacy, “as I’ve got time on my hands”. In this respect he very much falls into Bang’s

146 Observation made in conversation with former NEM officer on 24.8.12. 147 Telephone conversation on 24.11.11. 148 Interview on 9.2.10. 149 Interview on 9.2.10. 150 Comment made in focus group in Beswick on 2.7.11. 204

(2005) category of “expert citizen”. His contribution to GAT meetings consistently included at some point in proceedings rallying calls to collective identity, or “catch-phrases” as he referred to them151, including “We are the voice of Gorton”. His expert knowledge and publicly visible senior governance positions no doubt gave such claims some credibility, particularly since he was always keen to openly share any information obtained individually in some meeting or other, which might be of value to the wider GAT community.

This individual’s repertoire seemed to catch on with another strong operator involved in GAT, with a longer history of involvement in Gorton, including in the failed Gorton Forum. This individual was a Gortonian by birth and life-long resident, a key figure in a number of Gorton groups, an architect of the centenary celebrations, and someone with Labour Party connections. Though less of an overt salesman than the aforementioned transformational leader, over the course of GAT meetings he began to support the other’s rallying calls for Gorton “to stay together” by following them up with supporting remarks such as “That’s why we’re called Gorton All Together”152 and “We’re getting plaudits for Gorton All Together from councillors and everywhere we go”.153

However, the other side of this heady discourse of collective strength was a pragmatic and unromantic view of the council and the powers that be. This saw the first of these two leaders, according to his own report154, thrown out of a council consultation meeting, because he had complained that the plans presented for consultation appeared already to have been agreed. He nevertheless articulated great belief in the value of showing the council “strength in numbers”, suggesting that “…even if they don’t have the resources to give you everything you want, they will compromise to the point you’re almost there anyway.”155 He reported a similar hard-headedness on the part of the aforementioned fellow leader, asserting that this person had told councillors at a recent meeting regarding leisure-related development plans for Gorton “We are the community. You deliver to us and we’ll deliver them to you”.156

Of course, such reports in themselves may not be accurate to the very letter, but they are consistent with the level at which these individuals are known to operate. The range of approaches and language used is suggestive of Mische’s (2008a, and Mische and White, 1998) skills of communicative “switching”. Gorton’s transformational leaders seem able to

151 Telephone conversation 24.11.11. 152 Meeting of Gorton All Together on 17.2.12. 153 Meeting of Gorton All Together on 1.11.10. 154 Focus group in Beswick on 2.7.11. 155 Telephone conversation 24.11.11. 156 Telephone conversation 24.11.11. 205

switch from a Habermasian-style dialogue around ideas and building of collective identity to a somewhat more Machiavellian tactical manoeuvring with the council in order to generate action (see Mische, 2008a: 5). What this highlights is that they have found a way to employ an image of Gorton’s community infrastructure as a substantial, representative entity, to generate potential “bargaining power” (Wainwright, 2003: 186) with the council. Wainwright sees this capacity to exert meaningful pressure as critical to a fully articulated form of participatory democracy.

8.2.11 Uniting the functional and the fun, keeping infrastructure open at the base In Gorton this bargaining position is strengthened by being flanked and underpinned by a broader network of transactional leaders and everyday makers, less concerned with influence, and busier with cleaning, greening, and celebrating Gorton. These appear to make up most of the rest of the core groups in Gorton; they activate and keep in touch with micro-networks within the neighbourhood, and gain goodwill by demonstrating their competence through the delivery of commitments and activities (see Purdue, 2001 on transactional leadership). In Gorton the centenary celebrations made a significant contribution in this regard. Firstly it created something open to everyone- simple and joyous- and secondly it thereby gave its organisers, both the transformational and transactional leaders, visibility and credibility. Offering informal, low-commitment, fun opportunities for association amongst residents and residents’ groups is a powerful way to be inclusive, and to potentially help build peer-to-peer relations (of a networked individualist type, a la Wellman, 2001) which might later be mobilised more collectively, as suggested by Foth and Hearn (2007) and more indirectly by Gilchrist (2004).

This overlapping of the transformational and the transactional, and of association and representation activities suggests a highly sophisticated and insightful bricolage. Gorton’s community leaders seem, consciously or not, to have understood the dangers of oligarchy and bureaucratisation. Tarrow highlighted these dangers, with respect to social movements, whereby leaders attempt to internalise and bind participation at the base, and thereby stifle the capacity for innovation and undermine incentives for wide-scale involvement (see Tarrow, 1994: 149-150). The recognition of the wisdom of avoiding such excessive formalisation in the Gorton case was suggested by proceedings at the meeting of GAT in November 2011. One resident asked if Gorton Events, the new name given to the Gorton 100 Committee under which it continued to organise events and activities after 2009, could be brought together with GAT to create a single entity. The chair argued against this on the basis that the two are different, though “on a complementary track”.

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Instead it was agreed that Gorton Events-related business should be made a standing item on the GAT agenda.157

In this study Gorton Events was treated a single residents’ group, since it does have a single entity status, however in many ways it is more of a participatory umbrella and may quite reasonably be viewed as the cultural counterpart to the regeneration and welfare- orientated GAT. Collaborative ties were reported between Gorton Events and 45 percent of all the groups in this study, and of the three core groups which did not attend GAT meetings three or more times during the fieldwork period, all had work together ties to Gorton Events. It therefore seems quite plausible to see Gorton Events as a network actor which may connect the community infrastructure of groups interested in regeneration- those included in this study- to a wider, or adjacent network of more culturally and socially-orientated groups. Participants in this study were asked to name any additional groups not in the networks list with whom they had had contact, and six were mentioned in Gorton, including an allotment, a horticultural society, an arts group and a choir. Indeed a slightly more elusive, but also entrepreneurial core actor within Gorton, who worked closely with the Monastery, has connections to a much wider network still, ranging out across Manchester through his involvement in faith-based participation. In response to asking this question of Beacons groups, only one tenuous mention was made of the possibility of an additional group, which the interviewee did not have a direct connection to.158

This bricolage of regeneration-orientated and culturally-orientated participation thus appears to respect the reality of most people’s lives, in that they are likely only to be interested in small-scale, convivial participation, as observed by Coote in NEF (2010: 3). Conn (2011) similarly points out that amongst those groups which are active within any community, some will have no intention or wish ever to formalise their participation beyond small-scale informal organising.

What Gorton’s leaders appear to have decided is that it is possible to link the everyday maker at the micro- and meso-network level to a more political cause through weak ties united by a strong collaborative, rather than conflictual, discourse. Indeed, the fact that Gorton’s leaders are able to visibly unite in getting people out in larger numbers for social and cultural activities may give those community leaders involved in macro-network interactions with the state more symbolic clout: decision-makers get to see that GAT leaders are able to reach out in to a wider community, even if, in reality, a fair proportion

157 From field notes from Gorton All Together meeting on 17.11.11. 158 Interview with Beacons Residents’ Group #32. 207

of that community’s members doesn’t necessarily want to reach directly into the messy, time-consuming business of lobbying and cajoling the council into action. In a sense then, Gorton’s community infrastructure is outwardly depoliticised159 in its practices and discourse, but behind the scenes work to exert influence on decisions is nevertheless taking place.

8.3 Summary

This chapter has laid out a discussion of ethnographic evidence from this study, along with insights from the literature, which were identified in a retroductive process as potential explanations for the quantitative findings. In the Beacons case, the evidence suggests that the limited articulation of community infrastructure at the micro-network level, and loss of faith at the meso and macro levels brought into relief by the demise of the community partnership, were in large part a function of three overarching factors: firstly, the design of the NDC initiative itself; secondly the specific ways in which it was delivered in Manchester; and thirdly the background context of the divisions and sensibilities of deprived post-industrial neighbourhoods. It seems that in seeking to manage these divisions and sensibilities at the meso-and macro-levels, on the one hand, and merely letting them run their course at the micro-level, Beacons NDC was unable to make any progress towards reducing them. Focussing on residents as individual service- users, and excluding councillors and the majority of residents from participation, served to limit the possibility for integrating the community infrastructure enacted by core resident activists into the permanent POS of local governance, and into the enduring micro- networks of neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, failure to build resident capacity to self-organise and innovate beyond the scheme appears to have exacerbated these issues, since residents were unable to compensate for this disconnect using their own energies and skills once the scheme had ended.

In Gorton, many of the things which went wrong in Beacons may have been avoided simply because of the absence of the scheme. However a positive impetus seems to have been provided by intervention leakage from NDC, and the wider opening up of the political opportunity structures through other New Labour reforms. Residents who were independently motivated to be active within their communities were able to take advantage of these new circumstances to demonstrate they could achieve something and build from there. The dress rehearsal of the failed Gorton Forum may have been part of a learning curve which helped to hone individual leadership skills, though it is also possible that these already existed to some extent at a higher level in Gorton than was the case in the Beacons area. It seems that the combination of these leadership skills and the

159 The former NEM regeneration officer for Gorton observed. 208

commitment of an individual officer ally within the political opportunity structures of NEM helped to get the community partnership off the ground, lifted by the momentum of the Gorton centenary celebrations, and better relationships with local politicians than appear to exist in the Beacons area. This has proved a sufficient basis to keep GAT going whilst the Beacons community partnership ground to a terminal halt in 2011.

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Chapter 9. Conclusion

This chapter brings together the thesis. It begins by summarising the research findings in relation to each of the detailed empirical questions considered in chapters 4 to 7, before reflecting on how they collectively respond to the overarching research questions, considered in the light of ethnographic insights. The chapter then moves on to examine the implications of findings in relation to three key debates with implications for policy and practice, before concluding with critical reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the study, and a brief look ahead to future research possibilities.

9.1 Community infrastructure in East Manchester- results in relation to research questions

9.1.1 Results for ten detailed empirical questions

Question 1: What is the scale and composition of the micro-networks of residents’ groups within the neighbourhood, and what does this say about their capacity to represent the neighbourhood?

Groups in both areas are all fairly small in size, though Gorton groups have slightly larger committees on average and attract more residents to open meetings. Demographically groups are fairly typical in gender, age and ethnicity bias towards women, and older white people, though in Beacons more younger employed people are represented. Overall groups cannot be said to be strongly representative of the local population as a whole, either descriptively or through having regular contact with substantial numbers of local residents.

Question 2: What functions do residents’ groups serve as community actors, and what does this say about the type of community infrastructure their activity gives expression to?

The functions which groups fulfil tend to be mostly associated with cleaning, greening, crime-monitoring, and celebrating activities. Few groups have substantially influenced service delivery practices or policy. Groups in Gorton are found to be somewhat more active on average within the neighbourhood in both associational and representational activity than Beacons groups. Groups in both areas connect with each other to share local intelligence and expertise and to work together to monitor service-provider activities, as well as supporting each other’s activities and events, though in Beacons there is a slightly greater emphasis on monitoring, and in Gorton on collective organising. Overall the type of community infrastructure these data indicate groups embody is low-level in terms of its sophistication or independence from the local state. Whilst there are doubtlessly groups

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which make an important contribution to the well-being of their neighbourhood, overall these activities tend to add value to the operation of existing state services in their current form, rather than radically altering, or offering an alternative to, existing provision.

Question 3: What is the structure of relations between residents’ groups and what does this say about the solidarity of the network and the capacity to mobilise collectively?

The meso-networks in both areas display a core/ periphery structure. In Beacons the networks are denser and more multiplex; in Gorton the core is smaller and more cohesive, and the periphery is better-connected than in Beacons. These centralised structures lend themselves well to collective mobilisation, and the smaller, denser Gorton core may be better equipped to develop a unified common purpose (ideational solidarity) required to translate pairwise connectivity into collective action. Indeed there are signs that the larger Beacons network may lack the visibility necessary to attract peripheral groups to collaborate with it in the future. Responses to the question regarding reasons for lack of contact between groups suggest that residents may view such contact as a potential burden as well as a benefit.

Question 4: What do the data indicate about the future structure of relations between groups in terms of durability, growth or decline?

In Beacons the evidence with regard to the future trajectory of connectivity is more negative than in Gorton, with greater expectation of new contact in Gorton and less evidence of future tie loss than in Beacons. However, some tie loss is apparent in both areas, and Gorton may be better disposed to network growth because of its existing state of lesser connectivity, weaker tie strength and less multiplexity compared to Beacons.

Question 5: To what extent have residents’ groups engaged with the political opportunity structures of the regeneration initiative and other agencies of the local state through participation in governance structures?

Over two-thirds of responding residents’ groups in Beacons reported participation in NDC governance structures at some level. Participation in the community partnership and in forums run by other agencies was less common or frequent amongst Beacons groups compared to Gorton at the time of data collection. The vast majority of Gorton groups reported participation in some kind of governance structure, and though levels of electoral participation are high compared to ward level turn-outs in both areas, they are slightly higher in Gorton.

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Question 6: To what extent have residents’ groups accessed the political opportunity structures of the regeneration initiative and other local state actors, in the form of funding or support for their activity?

The majority of groups in both areas accessed start-up funding and help or advice from a state source, though the proportions were higher in Beacons, where the principal source was NDC, whereas in Gorton it was the city council. The majority of groups in both areas report an income over the preceding two years, however in Beacons a quarter do not, compared to only a single group in Gorton. The majority report incomes below £5,000 with a similar distribution of groups above that level in both areas.

Question 7: What is the profile of network connectivity between residents’ groups and local state actors, and what does this say about the porosity of the interface between the community and institutions of the local state?

Connectivity across the macro-network interface between residents’ groups and local agencies is well developed in both areas, with groups averaging contact ties with over 20 percent of 128 agencies in each area. Beacons groups are more highly connected overall though in Gorton information ties are enacted more frequently and there is greater growth indicated by future work ties. The two areas are highly comparable on formal ties to agencies, and on the profile of the most central actors they connect with. The evidence suggests Gorton groups have a higher propensity toward engagement with councillors and their MP. Structurally this suggests potentially high macro-network porosity.

Question 8: What are residents’ perceptions of the nature and porosity of the community/ state interface?

Indicators of ideational porosity suggest the experience of some kind of conflict or challenge with officers is common, but that these personal relationships are deemed extremely valuable, and offer the potential for learning and more successful neighbourhood working by groups and officers. Quantitative measures of perceptions of empowerment and the contribution of regeneration actors to community infrastructure suggest plenty of positivity in both areas, but greater negativity in Beacons, ironically where greater intervention in this regard has taken place.

Question 9: What is the relationship between the micro, meso and macro-level measures of residents’ groups networks?

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In Beacons meso and macro-network connectivity are highly (positively) correlated, but of the micro-network measures, only representation is associated with meso-network connectivity, and the relationship between micro-network and macro-network is also principally with representation; association produced only one weak positive correlation with the macro-level.

In Gorton by contrast, all three levels of residents’ group connectivity are positively correlated, including relations between the micro-level and both the meso and macro- levels. Whereas in Beacons the relationship between the micro level and the other levels is principally with representation, in Gorton it is the correlations between association and meso and macro level interaction which are strongest, though both measures are positively correlated with the two higher network levels.

Question 10: What individual attributes of residents’ groups are associated with their micro, meso and macro-level interaction, including accessing and participation in political opportunity structures?

Micro-network connectivity as measured by association is positively related to group size , group type (being a non-neighbourhood-based group) and total income over the preceding two years in both Beacons and Gorton. The micro-network measure of representation is not correlated with any attribute in Beacons, and in Gorton only with the attending forums run by providers other than NDC/NEM.

Meso-network connectivity shows positive relationships with group age and group type in Beacons and with group size and type in Gorton. In Beacons it is related to participation in both NDC governance structures and the CP, in a way which suggests participation in NDC was instrumental in fomenting meso-network ties, whilst start-up resources are not related to current meso-network connectivity. In Gorton there is a positive association with participation in the CP, but the evidence suggests the CP attracted already well- networked groups, rather than generating new connectivity. Attending other forums and total income are also positively related to meso-network connection in Gorton, though start-up resources are effectively not.

Macro-network connectivity is found to be weakly correlated on one measure with group type in Beacons and more strongly with group size and group type across multiple measures in Gorton. Involvement in NDC governance is moderately related only to the macro-network receiving of information in Beacons whilst participation in the CP is

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moderately related to all three measures. In Gorton neither of the participatory measures of POS is correlated with macro-network connectivity.

9.1.2 Responding to overarching research questions This section lays out findings as answers to the overarching research questions. The first question asks about the scale and scope of community infrastructure. At the micro- network level both the scale of interaction around residents’ groups and the scope of their activities tends to be small, and the two areas do not differ dramatically in either regard. Overall Gorton groups have somewhat more interaction at the micro level, whilst the Beacons infrastructure is more developed at the meso and macro levels. The lack of dramatic difference between the two areas in terms of both the extent of connectivity and the configuration of network structure suggests that this may reflect some kind of natural carrying capacity and social architecture for these types of groups in this context. Indeed Gilchrist (2000: 264-265) suggests, based on her own community development experience, that community volunteer networks tend towards a membership of 35 to 40 actors, proposing that this may reflect a trade-off between “the benefits of engaging with a range of people…and the costs of maintaining a complex web of relationships” (Gilchrist, 2000: 265).

The scope of meso and macro-network interaction as reflected in outcomes of interaction is also similar in both areas, particularly on measures of influencing service design and policy, though that is not to say that what groups achieve is not valuable in context. Local intelligence, service-monitoring, sharing of expertise and know-how regarding funding, pooling resources and supporting each other’s events are all important contributions to community life. And the personal relationships which groups have across the macro- network interface, however instrumental and operationally (as opposed to strategically) focussed, are considered a highly valuable local resource in both areas. However, the sum of the quantitative and ethnographic evidence suggests that the scope of Gorton’s community infrastructure is greater than that of Beacons despite its smaller scale at the meso and macro levels. Gorton appears to benefit from a skilled leadership which maximally exploits the infrastructure of community relations, from the micro to macro level, and the political opportunity structures of local governance, in order to punch above the apparent constraints of its weight. Overall Gorton seems to come closer to CLG’s vision of NDC succession than Beacons, insofar as it emphasised “the capacity of community groups to act for, and on behalf of, their communities” (CGL, 2010: 45), notwithstanding the limits of representational capacity in both areas evidenced in Chapter 4.

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The second overarching research question asks about the extent to which the political opportunity structures of NDC/NEM explain the scale and scope of the community infrastructure. The impact of NDC/NEM start-up funding and help or advice on community infrastructure is unclear in terms of any association with group activity or connectivity in either area; indeed the ethnographic evidence suggests it may even have been somewhat divisive. Nevertheless state support through ongoing funding (total income) does appear to be implicated in the recent neighbourhood-level activity of groups at the micro-level in both areas, as well being associated with meso-level connectivity in Gorton. This finding suggests that the state may be capable of producing a positive impact on community infrastructure where it facilitates access to funding for community action. Indeed for this reason the evidence of limited or negative impact of NDC-initiated provision for starting up residents’ groups should not serve as a case against top-down resourcing per se. It may simply be that in the demanding resource-poor conditions of neighbourhoods such as Beacons and Gorton greater ‘follow-on’ support is needed to help residents translate provision at the point of start-up into enduring community capacity- including the ability for groups to independently source and manage funding and any conflict or contestation arising in relation to it in the longer term.

The impact of the participatory structures of NDC/NEM on community infrastructure is shown to differ in the two areas in both the survey and ethnographic data. In the Beacons area NDC’s approach to community involvement appears to play an important explanatory role in the scale and scope of community infrastructure, but in a contradictory way. It seems that it was very much implicated in the cultivation of relations, but that the approach taken was driven by the need to minimise disruption to the delivery of the initiative rather than by the pursuit of durable organising and influencing capacity of residents’ groups. This meant that there was little serious attention given to development of the micro-network level, and meso-network relationality seems to have depended in large part on the collective purpose created by the initiative itself. This casts doubt on the capacity for future mobilisation of the network, despite its apparently high level of structural solidarity.

To echo the title of this study, there is therefore plenty of evidence that Beacons NDC was responsible for connective action in the Beacons area, to meet the needs of regeneration agencies; however evidence that it helped build connectivity for the benefit of the community, enhancing its enduring collective capacity is thin on the ground. This would require groups to have the skills and insight to generate their own ideas and vision for the meso-network left behind after the end of NDC, as well as having visibility amongst the wider population, which the lack of open elections to the board severely limited. But

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having learnt to conform to NDC’s vision behind closed doors, without going through the push and pull of working such things out for themselves, the core Beacons groups seem ill-equipped to mobilise collectively on any scale. Indeed the very nature of NDC governance structures may have attracted the participation of precisely the type of residents who are keen to take on the challenges of vertical engagement, whilst deterring those of a more self-organising, informal volunteering bent. Of course, the possibility that some valuable individualised community-champion activity will continue in the future cannot be ruled out. It is also possible that previous interaction amongst groups has created some latent capacity which could be re-activated by new community leadership in the future. However, at the end of NDC the Beacons area cannot be said to have been left with a legacy of communal infrastructure providing collective bargaining power vis-a-vis the council and other mainstream agencies sufficient to allow residents to meaningfully influence the shape of services and regeneration activity in the area in the future.

In the Gorton case NEM also appears to have had an impact on the community infrastructure, but in a more positive and consolidatory fashion, consistent with the later arrival and much more limited extent of its intervention. The evidence suggests that it attracted an already well-integrated community infrastructure to it- the age of groups in Gorton and the level of previous experience of involvement in community groups is indicative of an infrastructure which emerged prior to NEM opening its doors to Gorton residents. The ethnographic evidence in Chapter 8 offered some account of a prior history of activism which NEM may have helped to consolidate through the community partnership and through its support for the Gorton 100 celebrations. In this environment, stronger leadership skills amongst core groups in Gorton, as well the strong historical identity of the area and productive personal relationships between groups and local politicians, may be factors which are at least as important as the late arrival of NEM. They also seem to have helped Gortonians to make the most of the POS of the community partnership model, in a way which Beacons groups were unable to do. Taking into account the ethnographic evidence presented in the previous chapter, it may be argued that only Gorton has demonstrated any independent capacity for truly collective (as opposed to networked individualist) mobilisation in the form of the centenary celebrations160, as well as in more passive way by the continued high attendances at the meetings of Gorton’s community partnership since residents took formal control of it.

160 The NEM regeneration officer for Gorton estimated that about a third of the Gorton groups were involved in the 100 celebrations in some way- from telephone conversation on 25.3.10. 216

9.2 Implications of findings for policy and practice

The findings from this study would appear to confirm Lorna Dargan’s assertion that a “naïve sociology of community” and “simplistic conception of participation” underpinned NDC (Dargan, 2009: 315), having brought a reality of complexity and contradictions in policy outcomes into sharp relief. This section considers the implications of the findings in relation to three key areas of debate requiring attention in order to learn lessons from NDC: i) the competing philosophies of top down and bottom up policy in the community; ii) the choice between strategies of collaboration or resistance to the state on the part of community; and ii) the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within communities, requiring require long- term, sophisticated policy responses.

9.2.1 Top down versus bottom up: community in regeneration Labour’s “turn to community” (Duffy and Hutchinson, 1997) in the context of neighbourhood renewal was explicitly couched as a response to the criticism that “too much ha[d] been imposed from above” (SEU, 1998: 2) by previous governments, without regard for the needs or capacities of residents in deprived neighbourhoods. This established the tone for the ongoing evocation of ‘bottom upness’ and the ideal of devolution to the lowest practicable level. However, in chapters 2 and 8 it was argued that the principle drivers for employing community within NDC policy were Lowndes and Sullivan’s (2008) economic and social rationales for policy, rather than to promote the civic per se. Leaving aside questions about the extent to which efficiency and equity really are compatible objectives for public policy 161, it becomes apparent that the pursuit of service-improvement and wider redevelopment goals in deprived neighbourhoods under the guise of ‘community’ may have been unhelpful- at least insofar as it built expectations of community power which appear to have been seldom fulfilled from the perspective of community members. The extent of conflict and delay reported in NDC partnerships underline the ongoing reality that community work, especially in deprived places where it is most commonly practised, is slow and painful and may produce results which, even when positive, are not easily measured in the ways preferred by civil servants (Craig, 2007).

161 This relates to the classic equality/ efficiency trade-off which Aberbach and Christensen (2005: 235) cite with reference to Okun (1975), observing that it de-emphasises equality “in favour of individual freedom and a stipulated overall efficiency that markets produce from the actions of self-interested individuals”. Of course, as the authors point out, some people have needs, the support of which is simply not cost-efficient (Aberbach and Christensen, 2005: 234). 217

Given that Beacons NDC was staffed at a senior level by a number of people with a community development background, it seems reasonable to suggest that the closed shop practices of community involvement were a conscious device to avoid such conflict and delay and maximise capacity to deliver the initiative. None of which is to say that evidence was found which indicated anything other than a deep commitment to making life better for local residents amongst NDC officers; but rather that it seems a more pragmatic logic may have driven activity towards the pursuit of concrete goals of improving services, making them as ‘citizen-centred’ and ‘joined-up’ as possible, in line with the social rationale of New Labour reforms, instead of chasing more nebulous visions of ‘community’ and ‘ community development’. The fact that active residents in Beacons had an “officer on tap”, also meant that officers had a resident on tap, and received an early warning of problems which they were able to get on and respond to. However the perception amongst residents of being “spoiled” suggests that they became accustomed to a level of service that wasn’t sustainable (at least not from the perspective of public purse-holders). The result was that their supposed ‘community’ action was rendered equally unsustainable without an officer there to respond. This feels a little like community members being used, as much as spoiled, for as long as the scheme needed to demonstrate results.

If this is not bottom up community-building in a regeneration context, then the question then arises, of just what is, and how it would emerge. Ostrom’s recent work on collective action to manage environmental resources (e.g Ostrom, 2009; Basurto and Ostrom, 2009; Poteete, Janson and Ostrom, 2009 inter alia), speaks to this issue, even in the very different circumstances of this study. Ostrom applies an ontological framework for studying multiple variables which impact upon collective action capacity and propensity, operating and interacting at different levels within the overall system (Basurto and Ostrom, 2009: 9). Two attributes, amongst the full suite which she considers, may help to elucidate the implications of findings from this study: firstly the size of the system requiring management, referring usually to geographical scale; and secondly the productivity level of the system, that is, is the system so exhausted as to be beyond rescue, or is the resource so abundant that it appears not to require management (Basurto and Ostrom, 2009: 420). A curvilinear relationship between these two variables and the likelihood of collective action is argued to operate (Ostrom, 2009: 420); in other words, a Goldilocks principle: the territory must be neither too big nor too small; the problem to be addressed neither beyond redress, nor existing only as a future risk such that it appears not to be urgent. This recalls Stone’s (1993) argument about the tractability of issues as a factor impacting on people’s willingness to mobilise. It is one reason why at the most basic level NDC’s work to improve services and the conditions of the neighbourhood were critical as

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a basis for community-building; as the oft-evoked ‘broken windows thesis’ (Wilson and Kelling, 1982) suggests, in places of far-gone neglect and dilapidation, it is difficult to generate the will or belief to even begin engaging with others in the same situation to try and turn things around. Indeed, Dekker (2009: 233) reports recent research from the Netherlands indicating that “pure citizen initiatives are the exception rather than the rule” and indeed that “institutions are normally involved from the start” in terms of financial support and facilities, as well as responsiveness on the part of officers and policymakers. On similar lines, even in Gorton it must be recalled that one of its community leaders emphasised the importance of public bodies in supporting community action because of the limitations of the self-organising capacities of residents’ groups (as reported in Chapter 8). Ultimately, then, the simple juxtaposition of top-down and bottom-up appears to be of limited value, as Taylor, (2011: 287) suggests. But the easy lapse into an argument for finding the ‘middle ground’ also risks being over-simplistic without closer scrutiny in context.

Thus the issue of Beacons residents being “spoiled” comes around again. It is possible that this contributed to the failure of Beacons residents to engage in more substantial DIY community action. In Gorton, residents did not have officers on tap, nor money lavished on groups, or would-be groups, and it did not enjoy the many and various visible improvements undertaken by officers of the state and their partners in the Beacons area. However, political opportunity structures opened up in Gorton under New Labour, sufficient to extend a hand to those willing to take it, and sufficient to make the addressing of problems a more tractable proposition, if residents were willing to initiate contact with officers. Gorton activists were also advantaged by being able to call on their ‘imagined community’ (Burns et al., 1994 in Blakeley and Evans, 2009) – that is, the fact that it existed in people’s minds as a familiar place which they were more likely to feel they had sufficient knowledge of to impact upon, another key contextual variable in Ostrom’s framework which is of relevance here. This then allows residents to be active, to a much greater extent, on their own terms, rather than under the imposition of anyone else’s timetable or practices. Indeed one of the problems with the experience for residents in the NDC intervention area was the lack of space for the kind of social innovation which the scheme was supposed to stimulate (Coaffee, 2010: 152), because it ended up so heavily meta-governed, both by central government, and to varying degrees by the local authority, as Coaffee (2010) observes in the Newcastle case, and Evans (2007) likewise evidences in Manchester.

However, the desire to self-organise within the community cannot be assumed to emerge if only government unfurls the ‘community-leadership’ banner. Gorton’s community

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activists were largely people with pre-existing experience and time on their hands. Beacons residents appear to have been lacking in certain skills for organising and leadership. In any case, whilst residents of deprived areas can contribute what Lister (2007: 53) calls “expertise borne of experience” to state interventions, fundamental issues of the democratic governing for the common good cannot and should not be left to a minority of self-selected, variably accountable individuals, however well-intentioned or highly skilled they may be. Furthermore a governmentality strategy of employing the community as means of government (Marinetto, 2003: 109) is shown neither to be a reasonable, nor realistic expectation in this study, given the burdens and demands of being active in the community and concomitantly the limits of what ordinary people can or should be willing to do.

This drives home the salience of Walzer’s (1992 in Foley and Edwards, 1996: 48) notion of the “paradox of civil society” whereby a strong and responsive state requires a strong civil society and vice versa. Participation, including community self-organising activity, is best positioned as a complement to, not substitute for, strong representative democracy (Richardson, 2008 in John, 2009a: 24). And a key issue here is the extent to which action in the community at the behest of government can ever be empowering for people living in poverty, or whether it is merely exploited on the basis of the “pervasive myth of the endless resourcefulness of the poor” (Cleaver, 2004: 275, citing Gonzalez and Rocha, 2003). Many problems cannot be fixed at a local level. Thus when trying to understand the successes and failures of a top down/ bottom up initiative such as NDC, the failure of New Labour to devolve the governing powers of the central executive (Marinetto, 2003: 116), and to engage with the macro-level structural causes of localised deprivation, must be kept in mind. No amount of community can shield citizens from the effects of boom and bust, as neighbourhoods such as those in East Manchester which have yet to recover from the economic decline of previous decades, are now discovering once again.

9.2.2 Collaboration or resistance: collective action by community for community In light of all of this it seems reasonable to ask whether in fact communities should participate in this “game” of participation at all, as does Taylor (2011: 181). Older ideas about confrontational community organising, such as those espoused by Saul Alinsky (e.g. Alinsky, 1971) and related radical community development practices, have been struck from participatory practice since the 1980s, whilst at the same time inequality has continued to grow. Thus some might argue that under current arrangements involvement in governance on apparently collaborative, cooperative terms, amounts to collusion in one’s own oppression, as one of the NDC residents in Dargan’s (2009: 313) study complained. Dargan’s (2009) take on the weakness of the approach to New Labour’s

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community involvement policies implies that it was born of ignorance or lack of thought- whence the failure to recognise the consequences of the heterogeneous composition of community, and to appreciate that community members adopt different strategies for participation, some more collaborative, some more combative. Other observers, such as Gary Craig (2007: 354) are less generous and see the current use of community capacity building in policy as a form of manipulation “to give a sense of false community ownership and control”.

However, Davies (2007) makes a more nuanced interpretation, albeit drawing equally strong conclusions based on it; he finds that understandings of the meaning of community involvement in governance on the part of officers and residents are not just divergent, but unbridgeable because they remain tacit, with each party assuming the other means the same. Thus, much like Dargan (2009), he finds residents reading a script of community leadership, where officers see the role as horizontally coordinated (but top-down controlled) managerialism (Davies, 2007: 791). In this he takes from Bourdieu’s ideas on distinction in the political environment, which Bourdieu argued produces policy closure by tacitly delimiting the politically thinkable, through the delimitation of what is possible (Bourdieu, 1984, in Davies, 2007: 786). Given the sincerity of conviction with which well- meaning Beacons NDC officers spoke of their contributions to developing community capacity in the area, the possibility that they failed to grasp their own domination and misrecognition of residents, seems a valid interpretation162. However, Davies (2007) is so convinced of the extent to which this renders any truly deliberative governance impossible that he argues it necessitates the exit of community actors, and collective organising outside of partnership in order to achieve community empowerment.

This is a complicated issue in the East Manchester context. On the one hand, Blakeley and Evan’s (2009:18) see the results of the HMR-related protest in Beacons as the clearest example of any community influence on decisions. On the other, residents involved in the community partnership at the end of NDC articulated feelings of disempowerment linked directly to their new influencing muscles and their willingness to flex them (e.g. being seen as “a nuisance” and councillors being “angry”). This suggested that they felt penalised for their show of strength, a situation which offers a different, less optimistic interpretation of the benefits of coercive strategies than that of Davies (2007), as suggested by Frances Cleaver (2004). She highlights the fundamental need for the prosaic transformation of everyday life of people living in poverty, such that “the costs of

162 One former senior NDC officer, when asked what his definition of community would be (from the perspective of his job role) replied “We have more of an academic view, I think…so ours is easier to define. It's less fluid actually, and less responsive, isn't it?, in that way, because it's not about person anymore, it's about process”. (Comment from interview on 17.11.11.) 221

confronting unequal relations, on which they depend, may simply outweigh the benefits of acquiescence” (Cleaver, 2004: 275). Indeed she cautions against interpreting the exercise of oppositional agency as evidence of something more durable and meaningfully empowering (Cleaver, 2004: 276). Such actions tend to be “intermittent and partial” (Cleaver, 2004: 276), as was the case in East Manchester, as well as in the tenants’ movement, where Lowe (1986: 87) observes most militant tenants’ associations were “transient and left few traces”. Cleaver (2004: 276) therefore suggests that such infrequent oppositional activity illustrates “the crippling constraints which preclude frequent, regularized participation in the public good”.

The question then becomes how some kind of political bargaining power can be developed and maintained, if indeed it can be, in this context. It is not enough to accept Secretary of State for Local Government, Eric Pickles’ recommendation of an anodyne conception of community action as one of your ‘five-a day’ (Flood, 2012) based on the vision offered in ResPublica’s (2012) recent report, which sells the “hidden wealth” of small scale collective interaction based on leisure pursuits in the form of clubs. This approach seems to once again channel Putnam’s civil society of benign, consensual voluntary association, which Foley and Edwards (1996) characterise as “Civil Society I”, whilst largely washing out the political, social justice concerns more likely to be pursued by social movements, or “Civil Society II”. Such an approach is clearly palatable for those affluent communities most likely to spawn such activity, whose interests are already well represented in the existing body politic; it is not sufficient as a source of ‘wealth’ for deprived communities who are poorly represented by middle and upper class politicians in parliament163, who have limited knowledge of, or connection to, the lives of the most vulnerable.

However, a hybrid approach of mixing efforts to lobby for improved services and conditions in the neighbourhood, with more fun, sociable activity, may be a good way forward, given the alienation felt by many towards politicians and the political in general (which Power, 2006: 46, find is the reality behind what they refer to as the “myth of apathy”). Such activity finds echoes elsewhere, such as the “blended social action” documented by Sampson et al. (2005) in Chicago, whereby traditional types of civic participation such as festivals and neighbourhood association meetings are combined with “public events which seek change” (Sampson et al., 2005: 680- 681) This recalls Sennett’s (2012: 39) distinction between the political Left’s top down version of solidarity- seeking unity in order to achieve political goals, and a bottom up, social Left version which

163 The 2006 Power Inquiry reported that following the 2005 General Election, only 6.2 per cent of MPs came from a manual occupation, and a third had been private school educated (Power, 2006: 96). 222

seeks merely inclusion through free participation, sacrificing a certain amount of discipline. Clearly there are advantages to be had in not attempting to force people from one category to another, though this does not eliminate the need, recognised by the political Left and movement activists, for some kind of agreement of purpose in order to act collectively vis-a-vis the state.

Indeed it is not clear that social events in Gorton are blended in quite this way, though there is some overlap between association and representation activity, and between GAT and Gorton Events, which sustains a link between sociable activities and those constituting claims regarding public needs. Indeed, it is arguably a strength of Gorton’s community infrastructure that it has been able to remain to some degree embedded in higher levels of the local governance structure through the continued attendance of ward coordination officers in Gorton North and South wards, as well as officers from other key agencies, and the links some of the groups have into the ruling Manchester Labour Party, as well as enduring personal relations with councillors and the MP. This is suggestive of the nestedness within higher structures through formal recognition of self-organisation structures which Ostrom (1990, in Basurto and Ostrom, 2009) theorised as one of eight design principles critical to whether such collective action is sustained in the long term or dies away.

However, what both the community partnerships lack is embeddedness in formal governance structures. Indeed full participatory governance arrangements were never established in Manchester in the way they were in some local authorities, such as Salford which has formal structures of community governance within a local authority-wide neighbourhood management structure.164 By contrast, in a move clearly motivated by economic and social rationales, Manchester’s service restructure in response to the pressures of central government funding cuts in 2010, saw a move to neighbourhood- based services across the city, but this did not include any community governance dimension. Thus, the reality was that there were no pre-existing or to-be-established community governance structures in Manchester’s “whole city approach” to regeneration (Evans, 2007: 208) into which the Beacons community partnership, as a successor to the “small fry” of NDC (Lawless, 2006: 2007) could have naturally fitted.

The apparent nestedness of GAT must therefore also be seen in this context. Were attendance numbers to fall, and officers and local elected members to stop taking an

164 Salford’s neighbourhood management structures include eight community committees, chaired by members of the community, and with voting rights for residents’ group representatives along with local authority partner officers, and responsibility for managing a council budget for local spending. Details on this kindly provided by John Chapman, formerly Learning and Development Coordinator at Salford’s NDC. 223

interest in it, it would have no formal recourse to protect it, and allow it to continue to assert any influence. Furthermore, in discussing the clout of GAT, the former NEM regeneration officer for Gorton was keen to emphasise that such a group will never have as much weight as its equivalent in other more affluent Manchester suburbs165. In such places residents have the education, the personal connections, and financial resources to potentially oppose the council by the most powerful route open to the ordinary citizen- through the law. For lack of such resource advantages, GAT must therefore tread a more delicate path in its collaborations with the local state, or risk ending up in a position of no greater strength than the individual activists who remain in Beacons, cut adrift from any overarching collective grassroots structure. Remaining alert to limits of such participation is thus extremely important.

Yet, for participation pragmatists such as Durose and Richardson (2009: 44) the continuing weaknesses of representative democracy strengthen, not weaken, the case for participation, however flawed it may be. Indeed whilst Davies’ (2007) position may be excessively idealistic in recommending exit and opposition as a response to the power imbalances built into partnership governance, the alternative of lapsing into cynicism about the whole participatory project is a luxury which the least powerful in society can ill afford (Taylor, 2011: 300). Though there have been increasing calls in response to the current economic crisis for the mobilisation of public anger and protest, given expression in movements like UK Uncut and Occupy (as well as the August 2011 riots), their limited impact appears only to reaffirm the case for a pragmatic approach of some kind of cooperation- particularly in the absence of the mass organisational support and bargaining power of the old trades unions and the Labour Party as was, and in the face of an increasingly “elusive, scrambled state” (Eliasoph, 2009: 307).

9.2.3 Building community: horizontal inclusion and exclusion The fact that this study has again confirmed the well-recognised narrowness of demographic profile of voluntary activism ought, on the one hand, to be met with a reassertion of the informal, freely-entered-into nature of such activity. Some measure of homophily is characteristic of all human interaction, regardless of socio-economic background. It seems unfair to criticise people running residents’ groups as entirely voluntary pastimes for their failure to make them inclusive of people with whom they would not ordinarily tend to mix. However it becomes a problem from a policy point of view, when such groups are expected to hold the key to bridging ethnic and cultural divides within neighbourhoods, and when they are expected to stand as singular governing representatives for the whole range of interests within the neighbourhood. Indeed Raco

165 Conversation with former NEM regeneration officer on 24.8.12. 224

(2003: 242) suggests that community may be an inappropriate vehicle for urban policy intended to promote inclusion, precisely because of its exclusionary character, inherent in the definition of its boundaries.

Though social inclusion was a goal pursued by Beacons NDC, it too struggled to be meaningfully inclusive, a fact which puts the limited inclusivity of resident-led voluntary groups into context. A senior NDC officer acknowledged166 that despite their best attempts the results were limited, and certainly did not extend as far in getting anyone from a BME background onto the board of NDC. Meanwhile the much-feted Social Inclusion Toolkit which Beacons developed was designed for a partner agency audience, to help mainstream services learn (from the NDC experience) to be more inclusive of different categories of ‘excluded’ or minority residents; it did not offer guidance to residents or residents’ groups on how to go about building or managing such relations in their day-today activities167.

The implications of this issue for policy are brought out more starkly with an examination of work on the concrete processes which existing research shows are required to be undergone in building relationships between strangers within neighbourhoods. Looking at neighbourhoods from a community perspective, Grannis (2009: 39) argues that one of the factors implicated in the choosing of a neighbourhood in which to live is the question of “who we would like to be conveniently available to us and to whom we would like to be conveniently available”. However, the decision to live in so-called ‘low demand’, deprived neighbourhoods is usually not a choice, but a function of financial resources. And in an era of increasing ethnic diversity and income inequality, residents in places like East Manchester are likely to find themselves living alongside people whom they might not naturally choose as neighbours: that is, people with whom they may not have lifestyle, identity of whatever sort, or indeed language, in common. This makes neighbouring a much more challenging business. Building neighbourly relationships is, in Grannis’ (2009) theorising, a multi-stage process. This proceeds from the first stage relation of simply being geographically available to each other, to a second stage relation of people’s lifestyles causing them to casually encounter one another, through a third stage relation of intentionally initiated contact, culminating in a final stage of engagement in substantial activity together indicating mutual trust, shared norms and a “willingness and ability to act together to achieve a common goal” (Grannis, 2009: 18). However, the likelihood of such relationships developing, and developing to the

166 Comments made during exploratory interview on 30.4.09. 167 The Beacons NDC Information and Equality Strategy reports under its activities in relation to participation, “training on race equality, disability and ‘dealing with difference’ for local residents, NDC and partners organisations” (Beacons, 2002: 7). 225

final stage, is shown to be much reduced in circumstances of inequality and diversity, once insights from Allport’s (1954) inter-group contact theory, and Pettigrew’s (1998) longitudinal extension of it, are brought into the picture.

Allport (1954) identified four necessary conditions for the building of contact between people from different groups, of whatever sort, to which Pettigrew adds a fifth, based on newer evidence: i) the expectation and perceptions of equal status amongst groups in the contact situation; ii) a common goal, that is an active, collective, goal-orientated effort; iii) intergroup cooperation and interdependency, without competition; iv) support of authorities, law or custom, which establishes norms of mutual acceptance; and v) situations which provide opportunities for participants to become friends through extensive and repeated contact (Pettigrew, 1998: 66-67 and 76; paraphrased with italics added). Because of the importance of repeated contact, and the complexity of the processes of breaking down barriers to acceptance and friendship, Pettigrew extends Allport’s theory to take account of the role of time, formulating a multi-stage process, reminiscent of, Grannis’ (2009). This shows a movement from initial anxiety and suspicion, through reduced prejudice, to acceptance, obscuring the ‘us and them’ boundary (Pettigrew, 1998: 75).

In places like East Manchester developing inter-group contact, which would allow collective action involving people from different backgrounds to take place, is a challenging task on many levels, and is limited both by the action and inaction of the state, and media outlets. Focussing on point iv) above, relating to the institutional and societal norms, Pettigrew (1998: 78) observes that situations in which there is perceived or actual struggle over power, or where there are societal norms of discrimination, intergroup contact can become poisoned. Smith’s (2012) North Manchester study of white working class anxieties around Englishness suggests how this may play out in the neighbourhoods in this study. She found that perceptions of neglect and stigmatisation by the state as effectively White ‘scum’, and perceived preferential treatment of ethnic minorities, drives some people to vote for the British National Party as an act of protest and expression of powerlessness in the face of guaranteed local electoral victory by a Labour Party which no longer appears to represent their interests. In such situations governments and media outlets have much responsibility for the resulting inter-community/ intra-community divisions, with additional battle lines increasingly drawn between ‘immigrant’ and British nationals, and between those in employment and benefit claimants. Divisive political rhetoric and media messages merely encourage practices of distinction, including between rough and respectable highlighted in Chapter 2, and based on the discourse of apathy (read as laziness) reported in Chapter 8.

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Indeed calls are increasingly being made for a move beyond multiculturalism insofar as it celebrates difference without addressing how people from different backgrounds can live together. Rattansi’s call for ‘interculturalism’ (e.g. Rattansi, 2011: 161-163) responds to this. It emphasises finding common ground, whilst respecting the fact that differences of identity and belief remain. Rattansi (2011: 162) describes interculturalism as “an emergent process, with no necessary end point” (his emphasis), and one which “may lead to increased conflict in the short term”. This is best undertaken in carefully planned and managed contexts, which are tailored to unique local circumstances (Rattansi, 2011: 162). Tentative steps were taken in East Manchester which recognised the need for community activity to promote joint participation between White and non-White residents, such as the funding of a refugee and asylum project, still going today, which has included open events to celebrate ‘Refugee Week’ held in a local community centre, used by people from many backgrounds.168 And indeed, the less formal, more fun activities of residents’ groups in this study offer opportunities for the kind of casual encounters which might potentially help begin the journey towards inter-group relations with the capacity for realising collective agency.

However, as Grannis, Allport and Pettigrew’s theorising suggests, this is only the start, and requires something more enduring and systematic to go forward. In the NDC scheme, which might have offered such opportunities, an approach was adopted which sought consensus and cooperation on the state’s terms, treated as ‘maturity’. Yet the work of Rattansi (2011) and more recently, Sennett (2012), suggests that building meaningful relationships of cooperation in such environments is slow, conflict-laden work, and that to be effective it takes learning and the development of skills of cooperation- with a mature recognition of the reality of difference, and the possibility that some differences may need to be managed rather than fully reconciled. A high pressure, high profile, target-driven, temporary initiative such as NDC may therefore be the worst possible setting in which to attempt to go through the processes of Sennett’s (2012) dialogic communication169; for even with a ten-year timeframe, it is clear that there was insufficient time or capacity allowed for the messy rituals of deep cooperation.

9.2.4 Looking forward: policy trajectories The discussion above has highlighted some of the implications for policy of findings from this study. These reflections suggest three general but important recommendations for future policymaking. Firstly there is a need much fuller regard for the impact on community

168 Interview with co-manager of the project in Abbey Hey 4.8.11. 169 According to Sennett (2012: 19) ‘dialogic’ is a term coined by Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, and refers to “discussion which does not resolve itself by finding common ground”. 227

of any and every policy, which is made more pressing, not less in times of economic hardship- including, for example, the impact of policies which give primacy to paid, full- time employment and enforce later retirement. Secondly it should be recognised that community itself may be a poor vehicle for policy with other ultimate goals. And thirdly, that any policy with community-building as an explicit target must necessarily eschew the pursuit of quick wins and high returns of ‘political capital’ which most motivate politicians, if it is to be successful. How such complexities can or will be addressed by politicians and policymakers in the current political and economic climate is much less clear. Indeed the coalition government’s own ‘localism’, ‘Big Society’ and ‘Community Budget’ projects strike familiar notes of devolution, civil renewal, and joined-upness, but with less money and (even) more ideological baggage than the New Labour variants. What is clear is that if there were ever a time to avoid simplistic Blairite soundbites, such as the one which appears in the introduction to this thesis, now is it. The easy breaking of the current governing parties’ pre-election promises, by the Liberal Democrats on university tuition fees, and by the Conservatives on reorganisation of the NHS, can have only served to further damage trust in politicians and faith in our political system at a time when more people are becoming reliant on state support, not fewer. Indeed Lorna Dargan’s (2009: 316) hope that “the difficulties experienced by NDC partnerships will provide a catalyst for change” now seems excessively optimistic- particularly under a different government, pursuing increasingly socially-divisive policies, apparently undeterred by loud criticisms from social scientists and policy commentators of the Centre and Left.

9.3 Critical reflections on this study

9.3.1 Limitations There are far more limitations and lessons to be learned from this study than space in this thesis will allow adequate exploration of, however an overview is provided here. Firstly the cross-sectional nature of this study must be mentioned as a limitation. Though its small- scale, case study approach plainly precludes generalisation in conventional terms, had a similar study been undertaken at the outset of NDC, and/or with some monitoring during the scheme, this would clearly have allowed a much stronger argument to made about what the key factors driving community connectivity are, and the extent to which the NDC initiative itself was instrumental among these.

Secondly, whilst this study attempted to compensate for the weaknesses of existing data collected in relation to community involvement in NDC, the new tool designed to fulfil this ambition was destined to reveal flaws in the course of its use. Its strength lies in having been developed in response to careful preliminary observation and interviewing in the field, as well as a small pilot exercise, however concerns over reliability and validity did 228

emerge. In light of the sheer number of questions required to be asked, particularly because of the repetitious nature of the networks element in cases where respondents reported many relationships, the interview proved burdensome to both interviewee and researcher. In an environment such as East Manchester, where educational attainment and levels of employment experience in skilled professional roles tends to be lower, it was unsurprising to find some residents struggle with the systematic nature of such a survey and the focus of mind required to go through it. In such instances the researcher found herself deviating from the script in an effort to find ways to engage the interviewee, and indeed on one case, an entirely different data collection method was deployed for the networks element, as reported in Chapter 3, a situation which plainly violates the principle of consistency in survey administration.

Thirdly, the limited validity of the tool itself for measuring community infrastructure as inter-organisational ties must also be acknowledged, a limitation partly driven by the simple question of feasibility in a face-to-face survey administered by a single researcher. A key issue here lies in asking one or two individuals to account for all relationships connecting one group to another group of people. This plainly risks under-estimating the extent of connectivity of larger-sized groups, and therefore in effect also risks inflating the centrality of groups with only one or two active members relative to those larger groups. This issue is somewhat balanced out, though not completely resolved, in a complete network study, since interviewing representatives of both the ego and alter group means that ties effectively have two opportunities to be reported. This situation was maximally exploited by symmetrising data where it made sense substantively, and by joining the meso-level receiving and giving information networks to create a single information- sharing network taking account of both ego and alter responses (using the procedure described in Chapter 3). A further issue with the method of measuring inter-organisational connectivity relates to the informal character of small-scale residents’ groups. It became clear that, when looking at the list of groups named in the networks element of the survey, the respondent did not always recognise the name of the group with whom their contacts were associated. This meant that revealing of names of group representatives recorded in the NEM database was sometimes necessary- though this felt sub-optimal from a strict ethical perspective. The high response rate and the reality that leadership of a community group is by definition no kind of covert activity, was felt to minimise these ethical concerns. However, giving name prompts may have exacerbated the risk of social desirability bias i.e. exaggeration of the extent of one’s connectivity. Indeed it is not clear whether or not the association of the researcher with New East Manchester may have increased the potential risk of groups attempting to enhance their status within the network through over- reporting. The multi-stage questioning undergone in order to fully report on each tie may

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have helped to reduce this, and indeed in some cases individuals initially identified contacts and then retracted them when asked to provide the detail.

This issue also flagged up simple problems of recall, which is a key weakness of networks data based on perceptions rather than contact records. Hogan et al. (2007: 120) discusses this issue in some detail: he points out that earlier research by Bernard, Killworth and Sailer (1979) showed little overlap between actual communication networks and self-reported networks, as well as citing later studies which suggest bias against infrequent contacts. Indeed Krackhardt (1987: 110) reports psychological research indicating that people may average individual instances of contact to record an underlying pattern, for which reason the decision in this study to prompt respondents by asking about contact ‘on average’ may have been helpful. However it does not overcome the risk that weaker and less frequent contact was forgotten about, even with the advantage of a roster, which ego-network, name-generator approaches such as Hogan et al.’s (2007) do not have the benefit of.

The study was also limited in the potentially important variables it failed to measure in an attempt to capture and understand community infrastructure. For example, the micro-level proxies for network connectivity within the neighbourhood do not provide the rich picture a proper networks approach at this level could provide. Indeed contact with people involved in the group or engaging with the group as a resource were focussed on, yet the activities and attitudes of residents’ group members may be impacted upon as much by their personal networks of friends and family members, which this study could offer no insight into. Another area which was not scrutinised was individual personality. Work in the social and community psychology literature highlights the values of measuring psychological aspects of empowerment, such as indicators of individual and collective efficacy (e.g. Perkins et al., 2002; Zimmerman et al., 1988; Bandura, 1997) in order to understand community mobilisation capacity, albeit without negating considerations of the impact which environment has on psychological empowerment (Barr, 1995). A further area of weakness, lies in the fact that, despite establishing a critical stance on the ideological positioning of New Labour community-orientated policy as an expression of the individualistic, depoliticising Putnam School of social capital, this study has been unable to give very much attention to the impact of economic policy, or lack thereof, and economic restructuring for example around labour market flexibility and the economic competitiveness agenda. It would have been useful to better consider the top down contribution of the market as the third macro-level actor in governance. Indeed it has been observed that Manchester City Council’s own wider growth agenda led it to “become one

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of the most widely cited examples of entrepreneurial urbanism” (Ward, 2003: 124). This is far from being without consequence for community power.170

9.3.2 Original contribution of the study This study did not set out to systematically review the full body of existing literature which has been produced in relation to NDC and the investigation of community in the wider context of New Labour policy. However the sustained period of engagement with existing evidence over the four-year period of the PhD process allows some limited claims to an original contribution to be made. Firstly the study has been very much informed by and built upon existing research into NDC, particularly studies in the Beacons NDC area, such as the work of Blakeley and Evans (2008, 2009, 2010) and Morgan-Trimmer (2009a and 2009b). The latter drew attention to some evidence of network-building through NDC based on qualitative data, however the quantitative networks approach developed and employed in this study is the first of its kind in an NDC setting, as far as the author is aware. The RSA has collected and analysed ego network data of individual residents in two NDC areas as part of its ‘Connected Communities’ project (see Rowson et al., 2010). However this is a very different approach from the one adopted in this study, which has focussed scrutiny directly on the community as a complete network, and explicitly targeted its manifestation in entities known to NDC, effectively allowing the evidence of the impact of the scheme to be investigated right where NDC had directed most effort. The situation of the quantitative networks approach within a wider, though admittedly far from fully- articulated, ethnography, also adds to the methodological originality.

This study also has pushed at the boundaries of NDC’s conception of community; that is, it has taken seriously the emphasis placed on the multi-dimensional nature of community involvement and the need to understand and respect its distinct, though ideally interconnected, planes of interaction highlighted by observers such as Chanan (2003). This was reflected in the examination of micro, meso, and macro levels of interaction and the interplay between the three. Indeed the study attempted to refocus attention on the truly communal, collective potential of community involvement, under the influence of social movements theory, and move away from the individualised, social capital approach which underpins so much of the work in this area. Furthermore in examining community infrastructure based around residents’ groups, rather than merely individuals, this study has made a contribution to what appears to be a thus far limited, fragmentary literature on

170 On one particular occasion core residents’ group representatives in Beacons revealed themselves to be quite aware of the role of the market in East Manchester. In a community partnership meeting on 31.5.11 an officer extolled the virtues of the council’s new partnership with Manchester City Football club (now owned by members of the Abu Dhabi royal family) who are building major sports facilities on the Beswick/ Clayton border. To this news a resident observed that officers should be honest about what this meant with regard to community and council powers, articulating the view that, as the council weren’t putting any money into the scheme “the sheikhs and private enterprise will decide”. 231

very small ‘below the radar’ community groups (e.g. see McCabe et al., 2010). It is important that this field is developed further, both in order to make an ongoing case for funding and support of such groups, in light of the very valuable contribution they can make within the neighbourhood, whilst also highlighting their unsuitability as a substitute for the state as a reality check on the fiscal retrenchment fantasies of the Right.

Finally this study appears to have made an original contribution in two other ways. First is the comparative dimension. Most case studies of NDC appear, with good reason, to focus on just one NDC area. The comparison with an economically and demographically similar area not subject to the NDC intervention has helped bring out important areas of weakness in NDC and allowed the findings to offer some response to the enduring top down versus bottom up debate regarding local governance and community development. Of course, Gorton did not constitute a full and proper counterfactual because of its geographical contiguity with the NDC area, as was emphasised in Chapter 3. However, as Chapter 8 showed, at least some of the change in the POS affecting Gorton seems to have been a manifestation of shifts in governing practice at the local authority level, reflecting central government’s localism agenda. As such, the effects of these would also have potentially impacted on NDC national evaluation’s own, non-contiguous comparator areas (selected within the same local authority, with similar levels of deprivation, but located away from the NDC area). The second and very final potential source of originality lies in the timing of the study. Much was made of the idea of developing succession strategies and attempting to sustain and ‘mainstream’ the achievements of NDC beyond the life of the scheme. However, there does not appear to have been any work done to seek evidence of the realisation of this ambition, no doubt partly because of the reality that the end of scheme lessens the political motivation, partly because of the economic crisis and austerity which appears to rule out the possibility of any such future government spending, and partly because of the change of government. Of course, academic work on community life ‘after NDC’ may be yet to emerge, but at the current time no such work has been encountered by the author, nor has any been mentioned by colleagues working in the same field. Thus this study appears to make a new contribution in highlighting the painful realities of sustaining community mobilisation in the absence of the scheme which provided the focus for it, and with the lack of formal, permanent community governance structures to replace it, which do exist in some other local authorities.

9.3.3 Future research Many possible future research trajectories present themselves following this study. Indeed though the researcher has endeavoured to be rigorous and thorough within the limitations of a solo project, in some areas it has only been able to offer “flashes of insight” (Mason,

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2011: 83). However such flashes can make a significant contribution to a research agenda, as facet methodologist, Jennifer Mason (2011), suggests. In this study some of the rapid-fire insights offered in Chapter 8 provide avenues for investigation. One such possible avenue is the perspective of residents who are not involved in residents’ groups. Active residents employed a discourse of apathy, the other side of which could be illuminated by using a snowball technique, often used to access difficult to reach or hidden populations (Atkinson and Flint, 2001). This would involve asking residents’ group representatives to identify households on their street whose residents do not participate in the group, and interviewing them as to why this is the case. Their very proximity to would- be ‘community representatives’ offers the potential to gain important insights into non- participation, which could build on the work of Blokland and Noordhoff (2008) on the “weakness of weak ties” and Mathers et al. (2008) on non-participation in NDC. Indeed the TCI project which the author is involved in with colleagues Liz Richardson and Yasminah Beebeejaun has moved some way in this direction. It has made use of contacts in a third sector organisation offering refugee and asylum-seeker support to interview users about their conceptions and enactments of community in day-to-day life (in some cases through a translator). This revealed that some non-European languages simply do not have a word for ‘community’, which made it difficult for participants to grasp the meaning of the questions being asked of them. This suggest that the very idea of participating in a community group with strangers, beyond the family, may therefore be alien to certain ethnic minority groups whom white residents and officers alike struggled to reach in the Beacons NDC area.

The ethnographic element of this study also tended to rely heavily on contact with residents who were frequent participants at meetings, and often therefore core actors in the meso-networks. This has proved useful and necessary in order to elucidate the nature, strengths and weaknesses of leadership in the network, given its importance for collective action capacity. However it has meant that the nature of ‘followship’ has been less fully considered. Some populations may be more resistant to the charms even of the most charismatic leaders. Further in-depth interviewing with peripheral groups, many of whom were in the 4-7 year age category, could be a very illuminating avenue for future research.

Looking further ahead it would also be useful to consider further development and simplification of the survey tool developed in this study to make it appropriate for a less labour-intensive follow-up study, or potentially also for use in other geographical areas. Indeed in the Beacons and Gorton areas themselves residents who participated in this study could be re-interviewed in two or three years’ time, using the network profile

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generated in this study, as a basis to discuss the maintenance or loss of ties, as well as asking about any new relationships.

9.4 Summary and concluding remarks

This chapter has brought together the thesis, summarising the research findings, reflecting on some of the implications for policy, critically reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the study, and looking ahead briefly to future research possibilities. NDC is a policy which was established with many good intentions, and on the basis of claims to have acknowledged the failings of previous regeneration interventions. However, in practice it was unable to live up to its bottom up ‘community-led’ billing, encountering the same drives to control from the centre, and the same delays, conflicts and unintended consequences experienced by governments in previous decades, which had attempted to mobilise deprived communities to government-led urban renewal causes (e.g. Imrie and Raco, 2003; John, 2009a). This is one reason why this study has produced findings which reflect many old problems relating to collective action and citizen empowerment, and which echo those of other academic studies in NDC areas. However it has found new and fuller means to elucidate these challenges, bringing together in-depth insights with quantification of social relationships. As Chris Allen (2008: 197) suggests, in the spirit of Bourdieu (1993) and Foucault (1994), the key purpose of the social scientific profession “should be to ‘make trouble’ for urban elites who would otherwise do as they want, unchallenged”. This study has also attempted to make some small contribution to this purpose, in a Gramscian171 spirit of pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.

171 Showstack Sassoon (2000: 136) reports that this phrase was borrowed from Romain Rolland, and used as the masthead for a newspaper edited by Gramsci, whence its frequent attribution to him.

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Appendix 1.

NDC survey measures of participation and empowerment: from Beacons NDC survey and NDC national evaluation survey

Table 43. Local and national survey data on resident involvement and empowerment in Manchester NDC area: 2002-2008

% Involved in local % With % Feel can Data organisation on responsibilities Boundary Year influence collector voluntary basis last In local organization decisions in area 3 years over last 3 years

Manchester 10.0% 7.4% 19.6% 2002 (Ipsos MORI) NDC (502) (502) (501)

14.6% 8.4% 31.9% Beacons/NDC 2002 (KWEST) (679) (681) (678)

Manchester 13.6% 8.9% 25% 2004 (Ipsos MORI) NDC (508) (508) (509)

19.0% 10.6% 29.1% Beacons/NDC 2005 (KWEST) (421) (417) (426)

Manchester 11.2% 24.4% 2006 (Ipsos MORI) N/A NDC (400) (401)

16.6% 11.0% 27.9% Beacons/NDC 2008 (KWEST) (464) (462) (369)

11.9% 7.2% 22.9% 2002 (19578) (19578) (19575)

All NDC (Ipsos MORI) 11.7% 6.7% 24.2% 2004 average (19632) (19632) (19634)

13.1% 25.4% 2006 N/A (15789) (15793)

Sources: Ipsos MORI. Social Research Institute and GfK NOP, National Evaluation of the New Deal for Communities Programme: Household Survey Data, 2002-2006 (Data weighted to account for differential individual selection probabilities and at partnership level to ensure equal contribution by partnership to overall estimates). Kwest Research. New East Manchester Residents’ Perceptions Survey 2002, 2005, 2008. Copyright Kwest Research (Data unweighted)

246

Schedule of spending against Beacons Partnership programme budget

Table 44. Beacons Partnerships NDC and SRB budget spending 1999-2010 by theme

Source: Ekosgen, (2010: 19) Beacons NDC Final Evaluation Volume 1

247

Key ward-level statistics for Beacons and Gorton wards

Table 45. Key ward-level statistics on indicators of demographic composition and community empowerment/ cohesion

Ward Population Population % BME Unemployment % 5 A*-C Influence Satisfaction with Feel strongly (2001) (2007) (2007) (2001) GCSE (2010) decisions area to live in belong to area (2009/10) (2009/10) (2009/10) Beacons wards

Ancoats & 12,111 14,779 10.3% 12.1% 58.9% 42% 69% 64% Clayton Bradford 12,228 13,108 15% 13.7% 66.9% 47% 73% 78%

Gorton wards

Gorton North 14,175 14,700 12.2% 10% 77.4% 39% 61% 68%

Gorton South 14,616 16,335 17.6% 10% 58.0% 42% 64% 71%

Ardwick 14,025 15,862 48% 16.5% 65.4% 50% 76% 64%

Source: Manchester City Council 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2010d, 2010e, ward profiles

248

Appendix 2.

Reasons why residents’ groups wound up or struggled to keep going

These items have been coded up from notes taken following conversation with residents on the telephone or doorstep when they were contacted to be invited to interview.

Table 46. Reasons for groups no longer being active/ struggling to keep going Reason Beacons Gorton

Percent Count Percent Count

1 Lack of interest from/ apathy of local residents 21.2 7 25.0 3 2 Running of group limited to one or two people 36.4 12 25.0 3 3 Key person/people became too ill to continue 15.2 5 8.3 1 4 Key person/ people died 21.2 7 0.0 0 5 People too elderly to participate 15.2 5 0.0 0 6 Main person moved away/ people moved away/ divorces 15.2 5 16.7 2 7 Dispute within group re: funds/ responsibilities 6.1 2 8.3 1 8 Not getting funding/ unresponsive agencies/ unfulfilled promises undermining motivation to participate 9.1 3 33.3 4 9 Once key objective achieved no longer interest in/ reason for group 6.1 2 16.7 2 10 Nowhere to hold meetings 3.0 1 8.3 1 11 Increase in transient population living in private renting/ bedsits and who won’t get involved 6.1 2 8.3 1 12 Perceived increase in self-centredness/ lack of pride in environment: 3.0 1 8.3 1 13 Vandalism of community garden space undermining will to participate 6.1 2 0.0 0 14 Attacks on property and targeted intimidation of group members 0.0 0 8.3 1 15 Abuse of/ unreasonable demands on key activists from other residents 3.0 1 0.0 0 16 Street/ block groups based in knocked down as part of development 6.1 2 0.0 0 17 Not groups in way conceived of in study- just in database for information 6.1 2 0.0 0 Beacons N=33, Gorton N=12

249

Appendix 3.

Further measurement of cohesion: cliques

Table 47. Descriptive statistics on cliques and clique memberships in binary information-sharing networks- by area

Cliques Beacons Gorton Total number cliques 49 26 Min clique size 3 3 Max clique size 8 7 Mean clique size 5.06 4.35 Median clique size 5 4 SD clique size 1.49 1.29 Cliques memberships Min clique memberships 0 0 Max clique memberships 36 14 Mean clique memberships 7.29 3.76 Median clique memberships 4.5 2.0 SD clique memberships 8.49 3.76 Beacons N= 1122; Gorton N=870

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Correlations between five meso-networks

Table 48. QAP correlations of matrices of five different 1-mode relations by area Beacons 1 2 3 4 1 Contact 2 Information-sharing 0.828 3 Worked together 0.720 0.631 4 Work together in future 0.651 0.568 0.665 5 Share members 0.360 0.439 0.302 0.297

Gorton 1 2 3 4 1 Contact 2 Information-sharing 0.799 3 Worked together 0.745 0.676 4 Work together in future 0.691 0.583 0.640 5 Share members 0.309 0.274 0.268 0.233 Beacons N=1122 ; Gorton N=870 ties. All coefficients statistically significant at <0.001,based on 5000 permutations of matrices

251

Appendix 4.

Turnout in local elections in Beacons and Gorton wards

Table 49. Local election turnout in Beacons and Gorton wards, 1999-2012: percentage turnout 1999 2000 2002 2003 20042006 2007 2008 2010 2011 2012 Beacons wards Ancoats & - - - - 38.0 32.9 24.4 23.4 46.1 25.8 23.5 Clayton Beswick & 24.8 25.2 29.6 26.4 ------Clayton Bradford 24.6 24.0 31.6 23.9 29.8 25.3 22.3 22.0 42.1 25.3 21.2

Gorton wards Gorton 26.2 24.8 26.6 24.0 33.3 31.6 31.6 27.5 46.4 29.2 24.9 North Gorton 25.0 21.8 22.9 24.0 27.9 27.1 26.9 25.2 49.8 33.2 30.7 South Ardwick 13.6 13.3 16.5 14.9 24.4 21.9 21.5 17.9 39.2 22.0 18.1

Manchester 21.9 20.5 24.4 22.2 34.3 33.2 28.3 27.0 50.9 25.8 25.4 all wards Source: Results from 1999-2004 from Manchester City Council web archive (beta version) http://web.archive.org/web/20030628191215/http://www.manchester.gov.uk/elections/types/index.htm#Local%20Elections Results from 2006-2012 from Manchester City Council’s current website: http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/362/elections/4658/previous_election_results

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Perceptions of extent to which regeneration improved the Beacons area Table 50 shows responses of individual Beacons residents’ group representatives to the question ‘How much do you feel that regeneration has made the Beacons area a better place to live over the past ten years?’

Table 50. Individual perceptions of extent to which regeneration made Beacons area a better place to live Beacons Count Percent Not at all 1 2.4 A little 9 22.0 Quite a lot 12 29.3 A great deal 17 41.5 Don't know 2 4.9 Total 41 100.0

253

Appendix 5.

Testing for homophily effects: ANOVA density models (variable homophily)

The full suite of attribute variables used in the analysis presented in Chapter 7 were explored using this procedure. However only those shown below produced models with a statistically significant model fit, and even then the R-squared is low in all cases, indicating that they can only account for a small amount of variation in connectivity of the networks.

Table 51. Beacons homophily models 1. Age of group Adj R- R-squared Sqr Sig N 0.054 0.051 0.038 930

Std Coeff coeff Sig Intercept 0.296 0.000 0.888 1-3 years 0.371 0.064 0.100 4-7 years -0.196 -0.125 0.030 8-10 years 0.037 0.014 0.371 More than 10 years 0.227 0.171 0.026 2. Group attended community partnership 3 or more times Adj R- R-squared Sqr Sig N 0.093 0.092 0.004 1122

Std Coeff coeff Sig Intercept 0.275 0.000 0.459 No -0.141 -0.150 0.012 Yes 0.269 0.223 0.003 Significance values based on 25,000 permutations

254

Table 52. Gorton homophily models 1. Group type- 2 categories Adj R- R-squared Sqr Sig N 0.084 0.083 0.006 870

Std Coeff coeff Sig Intercept 0.231 0.000 0.885 Neighbourhood-based -0.068 -0.075 0.179 Non-neighbourhood 0.314 0.258 0.001 2. Group attended community partnership 3 or more times Adj R- R-square Sqr Sig N 0.041 0.04 0.0581870

Std Coeff coeff Sig Intercept 0.229 0.000 0.899 No -0.131 -0.108 0.025 Yes 0.130 0.143 0.047

Significance values based on 25,000 permutations

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Geographic distance and information-sharing ties: correlation of social and spatial distance matrices For each of the Beacons and Gorton networks, geographical coordinates (latitude/ longitude) were obtained to produce two lists of coordinates corresponding to i) the postcode172 of the home address of the main representative of each residents’ group and ii) the postcode, or location (where necessary, pinpointed on Google Maps) of the place where the group meets. Where home address and meeting address were the same, the same coordinates were used for.173These sets were then transformed into matrices of distances between the pairs of coordinates (in kilometres).174 The result was two matrices of distances between each pair of residents’ groups in Beacons and Gorton, one based on home address, labelled ‘Live’, and one based on meeting address, labelled ‘Meet’. The relationship between connectivity in the meso-network of information-sharing ties and each of the geographical distance matrices was examined; this was on the basis that both the meeting place and the living place might each provide opportunities for contact with residents from other groups, particularly if meeting places were more central locations used by multiple groups, as is the case for groups in both Beacons and Gorton (though more commonly in Gorton).

Table 53. QAP correlations- geographical distances (kilometres) and information- sharing ties Info-sharing (Y/N) Freq info-sharing Beacons Live r -0.207 -0.243 p 0.000 0.000 Meet r -0.207 -0.243 p 0.000 0.000 Gorton Live r -0.350 -0.364 p 0.000 0.000 Meet r -0.226 -0.247 p 0.003 0.000 Beacons N=1122; Gorton N=870 P values based on 25,000 permutations. Coefficients in bold are statistically significant at 0.05 level.

QAP correlations of the distance networks with the information-sharing networks, shown in Table 51, show that as distance increases the likelihood of pairs of groups sharing information decreases, as well as the frequency of information-sharing. In all cases the relationships are not strong, though they are stronger in Gorton than in Beacons.

172 Of course the use of a postcode means does not pinpoint the precise location of the address. The average number of addresses in a UK postcode is 15, according to http://www.bph-postcodes.co.uk/guidetopc.cgi, though they point out that this can range anywhere between 1 and 100. 173 Coordinates from postcodes were generated using online software at http://www.pauldjohnson.co.uk/content/uk-postcode-geocoder-returning-latitude-longitude-and-plots-map. 174 This was done using the java-based Geographic Distance Matrix Generator downloaded from http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open_source/gdmg/documentation.php.

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Characteristics of core and periphery groups in meso-networks of information-sharing

Table 54. Description of core and periphery groups based on mean/ median/ mode on key attribute measures- Beacons

Core Periphery Attribute N Mean Median Mode/ largest categories N Mean Median Mode/ largest categories Group age in years 16 10.1 9.5 15 8.4 7.0 Group age in cats 16 3.5 (8-10 years) 4 (10 or more years; 50.0%) 2 2 (4-7 years; 46.7%) Group size (no. people regularly involved) 16 1 (<10 people) 1 (<10 people; 56.2%) 15 2 (10-20 people) 1 & 2 (<10, 10-20; both 40%) Group type- 3 cats 16 1 1 (Neighbourhood-based; 62.5%) 18 1 1 (Neighbourhood-based; 83.3%) Gender of group leader- 2 cats 16 1 1 (Female; 62.5%) 18 1 1 (Female; 61.1%) Employment status of leader 16 0 0 (Employed; 62.5%) 15 1 1 (Not employed; 73.3%) Any BME members 16 0 0 (No; 62.5%) 15 1 1 (Yes; 60.0%) Leader(s) previously involved in community 16 No largest group; 50%-50% split 15 0 (No; 53.3%) or voluntary group NDC Governance highest level 16 2 (Residents' Forum) 2 & 3 (Resi Forum & NDC 15 2 (Residents' Forum) 1 (None; 46.7%) involved- 3 cats board; both 43.8%) Attended CP meeting 3 or more times 16 1 1 (Yes; 62.5%) 18 0 0 (No;77.8%) Total number times attended CP meeting 16 3.8 4.0 18 1.1 0 Proportion alters met through NDC/NEM 16 3 (Most) 4 (All; 37.5%) 15 1 (None) 1 (None; 60%) Attends non-NEM agency forums 16 1 1 (Yes; 75.0%) 15 0 1 (Yes; 53.3%) Set-up funds from any agency 16 1 1 (Yes; 68.8%) 15 1 1 (Yes; 73.3%) Set-up help from any agency 16 1 1 (Yes; 81.2%) 15 1 1 (Yes; 80.0%) Set-up funds from NDC 16 0 0 (No; 56.2%) 15 0 0 (No; 53.3%) Set-up help from NDC 16 0 0 (No; 56.2%) 1 1 (Yes; 53.3%) Total income last 2 years- 4 cats 16 2 (£1-£1000) 1 & 2 (Zero & £1-£1000; both 31.2%) 15 2 (£1-£1000) 2 (£1-£1000; 33.3%) Association 16 -1.097 -0.908 15 0.503 0.257 Representation 16 -0.706 -1.459 15 -0.663 -1.304

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Table 55. Description of core and periphery groups based on mean/ median/ mode on key attribute measures- Gorton

Core Periphery Attribute N Mean Median Mode/ largest categories N Mean Median Mode/ largest categories Group age in years 12 9.3 8.0 18 7.9 6.0 Group age in cats 12 3 (8-10 years) 3 (8-10 years; 41.7%) 18 2 (4-7 years) 2 (4-7 years; 55.6%) Group size (no. people regularly involved) 12 2 (10-20 people) 2 (10-20 people; 50.0%) 18 1 (<10 people) 1 (<10 people; 77.8%) Group type- 3 cats 12 2 1,2,3 (N'hood, Green, Culture; 33.3% ea

c 18 1 1 (Neighbourhood; 72.2%) Gender of group leader- 2 cats 12 1 1 (Female; 58.3%) 18 1 1 (Female; 66.7%) Employment status of leader 12 1 1 (Not employed; 83.3%) 18 1 1 (Not employed; 61.1%) Any BME members 12 0.5 0,1 (50.0%/ 50.0%) 18 1 1 (Yes; 55.6%) Leader(s) previously involved in community 12 1 1 (Yes, 75.0%) 18 1 1 (Yes; 72.2%) or voluntary group 12 18 Attended CP meeting 3 or more times 12 1 1 (Yes; 83.0%) 18 0 0 (No; 55.6% ) Total number times attended CP meeting 12 4.6 4.5 18 3.3 2.0 Proportion alters met through NEM CP 12 1 (None) 1 (None; 66.7%) 18 1 (None) 1 (55.6%) Attends non-NEM agency forums 12 1 1 (Yes; 91.7%) 18 1 1 (Yes; 72.2%) Set-up funds from any agency 12 0 0 (No; 58.3%) 18 1 1 (Yes; 61.1%) Set-up help from any agency 12 0 0 (No; 58.3%) 18 1 1 (Yes; 66.7%) Set-up funds from NDC 12 0 0 (No; 83.3%) 18 All values=0 0 (No; 100.0%) Set-up help from NDC 12 0 0 (No; 75.0%) 18 0 0 (No; 83.3%) Total income last 2 years- 4 cats 12 3 (£1000-£4999) 3 (£1000-£4999; 41.7%) 18 2 (£1-£1000) 2 (£1-£1000; 61.1%) Association 12 1.778 2.445 18 -0.005 -0.132 Representation 12 2.964 3.131 18 -1.420 -1.885

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Results of principal components analysis

The tables below show the results of principal components analysis undertaken on the Beacons and Gorton data, encompassing attribute variables and centrality in the meso and macro-networks of information-sharing. In order to address the problem of very high correlations between outdegree and indegree in the meso- network and between degree in the receiving information and giving information macro-networks, a single measure of centrality was used in each case. For the meso-networks this involved symmetrising the data and then using degree centrality in the symmetrised network. For the macro-network data, degree in the receiving information and giving information networks was summed and divided by two to produce an average of incoming and outgoing communication across the macro-network interface.

Beacons

Table 56. Pattern matrix showing loadings greater than 0.4 for principal components analysis- Beacons

Variable Component 1 2 Norm degree meso-network info-sharing- binary, symmetrised at max 0.875 Norm degree macro-network info-give/receive- binary average give/ receive 0.804

Total number times attended community partnership 0.789

Highest level of involvement in NDC governance 0.671

Association index score 0.852

Total income past two years 0.840

Previous involvement in community/ voluntary group 0.594 N=31

Table 57. Correlation of components- Beacons

Component 1 2 1 1.000 0.092 2 0.092 1.000

259

Table 58. Results from assumptions tests for PCA component extraction- Beacons Test Result

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.593

Bartlett's Test of Sphericity (chi-square) 62.689** (on 21 df)

Determinant of correlation matrix 0.097

Percentage of residuals > 0.05 66% All > 0.5 apart from Correlations on diagonal of anti-image matrix Association index: r =0.451 ** Significant at 0.001 level

Inspection of the anti-image matrix (not shown) showed that the value on the diagonal was smaller than 0.5 for the association index variable. Field (2005: 650) advises that in these circumstances one should consider excluding the variable in question from the analysis. Doing this leaves a solution in which the second component contains only total income and previous involvement in a community or voluntary group- a component with no community infrastructure measures in it at all.

Gorton

Table 59. Pattern matrix showing loadings greater than 0.4 for principal components analysis- Gorton Variable Component 1 2 Norm degree meso-network info-sharing- binary, symmetrised at max 0.716 Norm degree macro-network info-give/receive- binary average give/ receive 0.804

Association index 0.943

Group Size 0.888

Attends other forums 0.956

Representation index 0.792 N=30

260

Table 60. Correlation of components- Gorton Component 1 2 1 1.000 0.326 2 0.326 1.000

Table 61. Results from assumptions tests for PCA component extraction- Gorton Test Result

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.760

Bartlett's Test of Sphericity (chi-square) 88.523** (on 15 df)

Determinant of correlation matrix 0.34

Percentage of residuals > 0.05 46%

Correlations on diagonal of anti-image matrix All >0.5 ** Significant at 0.001 level

261

Appendix 6.

Interview questions from semi-structured interviews with residents and officers

Preliminary interviews with residents’ group representatives

1. Can you tell me about your experiences of NDC- how it was at the beginning, and how things progressed from your perspective over time, what involvement you had in the scheme?

2. Can you tell me about your experiences of running a residents’ group- how long you have been going, what sorts of things you do, how often you meet?

3. What personal contacts does your group currently have in local services, and what sort of things do you use your contacts for?

4. Do you have any personal contacts in community centres/ youth centres/ Surestart such as The Wells Centre, The Roundhouse, Ashbury Meadow, Crossley House […etc] which you make use of in relation to your group or problems addressed by the group? What about schools, health centres?

5. What are relations like between your group and local councillors? Do you find them useful?

6. Do you have relationships with other residents’ groups in the area? How did you first come into contact with them, and what is the nature of those relationships?

262

Preliminary interviews with officers

1. Can you tell me about your job role/ how long you’ve been working at X?

2. How in your view did NDC change the nature of community involvement in East Manchester?

3. What do you think residents get out of being involved- either short term or long term? What difference does it make to them?

4. What difference do you think involving residents makes to what NDC/ NEM/ council/ your service does? What would you say the principal contribution is of residents involved in governance?

5. What do you think the future of community involvement is in East Manchester? Do you think NDC provided momentum for involvement and action which will be sustained?

6. Do you think there are general, wider benefits to the community as a whole from having a small number of individual residents involved in governance activities? How would you characterise these?

7. Do you think those who are actively involved in governance try to represent/ feel that they represent a wider constituency? To what extent do you think they speak for others?

8. If you wanted to provide evidence in support of community involvement as a policy and something to which funds, time, staff, should be dedicated, what aspects of it would you like to find a way to measure?

9. What lessons do you think need to be learned to make resident involvement sustainable as a goal of regeneration-type policies? What are the key challenges?

12. Do you think it is meaningful and useful to compare community involvement outcomes and activities in NEM with those in other NDC areas or in areas in which have not be subject to the NDC intervention?

263

NETWORKS INTERVIEW SCHEDULE/ QUESTIONS

In this interview I want to ask you about your group- about the relationships it has and some its activities.

i) What type of group are you?

Select ALL that apply 1.Tenants’ and residents’ association/ Residents’ association/ Community association 1

2. Home/ Neighbourhood watch group 2

3. Interest group- eg ‘Friends of’ /Social 3 Please specify interest

3. Faith group 4

4. Other- Please specify below 5

ii). Does the work of your group focus mainly on a particular street, neighbourhood or green space?

Yes 1 If yes, go to next question iii)

No 2 If no, go to Question iv)

iii). If yes, where?

iv). If no, do cover a wider area, or can anyone who shares your interest join the group?

A: GROUP TO GROUP 1.CONTACT 2. RECEIVE INFO 3. GIVE INFO 4. WORK WITH 5.SHARE MEMS a. Please tick the groups a. Does your group ever b. Does your group ever a. Does your group ever a. Are any of your your group ever has receive information from give information to this work with this group on current members also direct, personal contact this group, thinking group, thinking back specific activities or members of this group? with, thinking about now back over the past two over the past two years? projects? and over the past two years? years.

b. Are there any other SHOWCARD SHOWCARD b. Do you think you will b. If yes, how many? residents groups/ b. If yes, how often does b. If yes, how often does work with them (again) community orgs not in your group receive your group receive in the FUTURE? box which your group information from this information from this has direct contact with? group? group? Y / N/ Maybe

1. Weekly 1. Weekly 2. Monthly 2. Monthly 3. Once every 2-6 months 3. Once every 2-6 months 4. Less than once every 6 4. Less than once every 6 months months SHOWCARD AT END THIS GO TO Q2.c on examples of c. How would you rate information, below. the STRENGTH of your relationship with this group?

1. Weak 2. Medium strength 3. Strong

2 1 2 3 4 5 Tick Organisation 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 No Y N M No. 1. Name of Residents’ Group (not shown) 2. Name of Residents’ Group (not shown) 3. Name of Residents’ Group (not shown) 4. Name of Residents’ Group (not shown) 5. Name of Residents’ Group (not shown) 6. 7. 8.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17.

18.

2.c What sort of information do you share with other groups? Can you give some quick examples?

2d. What sort of things have you worked on with other groups? Can you give some quick examples?

3. REASONS FOR NON-CONTACT WITH (SOME) OTHER GROUPS

3a. Which of the following are reasons why you don’t have contact with (some) other groups? SHOWCARD

Tick ALL that Main One or A few Many Most All apply reason? two 1. We don’t have time to engage with 1 1 other groups.

2. We don’t see any real benefit to what our group does from having contact with 2 1 other groups.

3. We haven’t had the chance to have 3 1 contact up to now.

4. They are located in a different/ 4 neighbourhood/ area 1

5. We’ve never heard of them. 5 1 1 2 3 4 5

6. They have different interests to us. 6 1 1 2 3 4 5

7. They have very similar interests to us, 7 1 1 2 3 4 5 which puts us in competition.

8. We had previous contact which fizzled 8 1 1 2 3 4 5 out.

9. We had previous contact which ended 9 1 1 2 3 4 5 badly.

10. We have chosen not to have contact with them because the group or its 10 1 1 2 3 4 5 members have a negative reputation.

11. Other- Write in below 11 1 1 2 3 4 5

Other…

4 3b. Do you think your group is likely to make contact with other groups (that you are not currently in contact with) in the future?

Yes 1

No 2

Maybe 3

3c. BENEFITS OF RELATIONS WITH OTHER GROUPS

3c. Can you summarise what you think are the main benefits of having relationships with other groups? OR 3c. Can you think of any benefits which your group could get from having relationships with other residents’ groups or working with them?

4. Of all the groups you have indicated that your group has contact with, roughly what proportion would you say you first came into contact with through: your involvement in Beacons resident involvement structures, or through events organised by Beacons?/ : attending Gorton All Together meetings?

1 1. None

2 2. Some

3 3. Most

4 4. All

5 5. Don’t know

-END OF SECTION A-

5 B: GROUP TO AGENCY 1. CONTACT 2. RECEIVE INFO 3. GIVE INFO 4. WORK WITH 5.FORMAL ROLE a. Please tick the a. Does your group ever b. Does your group ever a. Has your group ever a. Do any of members of organisations your receive information from give information to this worked with* this your group have a group ever has direct, this organisation, organisation, thinking organisation on specific formal role in this org personal contact with, thinking back over the back over the past two activities or projects? such as: thinking about now and past two years? years? SHOWCARD over the past two years. (So have you worked with X to 1. Policy/service panel sort/ organise something or 2. Board member/ governor have you just got them to go off 3. Paid employee and fix a problem.) 4. Formal, ongoing volunteer SHOWCARD SHOWCARD b. Do you think you will 5. Other formal role b. Are there any others b. If yes, how often does b. If yes, how often does work with them (again) not in the list which your your group receive your group give in the FUTURE? Y / N WHICH role(s)? group has direct contact information from this information to this with? organisation? organisation? b. How many of your READ CATEGORIES ON members are in NEXT PAGE; 1. Weekly 1. Weekly this/each role? WAIT FOR RESPONSE 2. Monthly 2. Monthly 3. Once every 2-6 months 3. Once every 2-6 months c. SPECIFY role- on p.11 4. Less than once every 6 4. Less than once every 6 months months

(Prompt: on average across a (Prompt: on average across a year, how often?) year, how often?) * Something beyond just SHOWCARD informing them of d. How would you rate problems eg members the STRENGTH of your of your group jointly relationship with this doing something with group? them or sorting 1. Weak something out with their 2. Medium strength help. 3. Strong

6 1 2 3 4 5 Tick Organisation 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 No Y N M 1 2 3 4 5 1. New East Manchester- Regeneration Team

2. Ward coordination- Man City Council

3. Street Environment-Man City Council

4. Highways Services- Man City Council

5. GMPTE- Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive 6. Manchester Leisure (Man City Council Parks & Leisure) 7. Park Wardens Service- Man City Council

8. Waste and Recycling Team- Man City Council 9. Community Safety Coordinators (Man City Council Crime & Disorder Team) 10. Neighbourhood Policing Team- Greater Manchester Police 11. Neighbourhood Wardens

12. Neighbour Nuisance Team (Eastlands Homes Community Safety Team) 13. ASBAT- (Antisocial Behaviour Action Team)- Man City Council 14. Manchester Probation Services

15. Libraries- Man City Council

16. Manchester Markets- Man City Council

17. Private Sector Housing/ Housing Market Renewal Team- Man City Council 18. Manchester Housing- Man City Council

1.b Do you have direct personal contacts in any other organisations not included in the box such as:

- Any other council services

- Any other housing providers

- Any other schools

- Community centres

- Youth/ leisure/ sports centres

- Children’s centres/ nurseries- Surestart, for instance.

- Churches/ Church halls

- Local councillors/ MPs

- Other public or voluntary sector organisations: e.g. Groundwork, 4CT, Debdale Eco-Centre, The Monastery/ 4CT, Groundwork, MERCi, EDEN Openshaw

- Health centres/ NHS services

- Trades Unions

- Political parties

5. FORMAL ROLES OF MEMBERS IN OTHER ORGANISATIONS, OR OF ORGS IN YOUR GROUP Organisation name/ No. What role?

6. MOST VALUABLE CONTACTS

Of all the agencies and services you’re group has contact with- can you tell me which you would say are your group’s most valuable contacts naming UP TO THREE?

7. In general, what would you say are the main benefits you get from having direct personal contacts in local services?

8a. Has your group ever had contact with an agency and then lost it because the individual you dealt with moved on to another role/ organisation and you did not succeed in establishing a relationship with the person who took over their role?

Y / N

8b. If yes, which agencies did you have this experience with?

9a. Has your group ever attempted to have contact with an organisation but found they not able to engage with you or were not willing to?

Y / N

9b. If yes, which organisations did you have this experience with?

10a. Thinking about the activities of your group over the past two years, has your group been involved in any of the following three things through working with local agencies: (If several, please tell me about the most significant one)

-in any kind of project in your neighbourhood which provided some new kind of resource for the neighbourhood as a whole?

-in helping bring about a change to the way services are delivered in the neighbourhood?

-in or in the development of a new policy which affects your neighbourhood or the wider area?

10b. If so, were any other local groups involved; and what local agencies or politicians were involved? 10c. Who took the lead on it, was it your group, another group, or the agencies in question?

10d. Was there any conflict or confrontation involved either with other groups; local residents; or agencies in order to achieve this?

11a. Thinking about the activities of your group over the past two years, how often has your group come into conflict or challenge with officers of local agencies when trying to get something done?

1 Never Go to Question 12

2 Rarely

3 Sometimes

4 Often

5 Always

6 Don’t know

11b. Thinking about the issues you have come into conflict with local agencies over, roughly how many have you succeeded in getting a positive outcome from?

1 1. None

2 2. Some

3 3. Most

4 4. All

5 5. Don’t know

12. A couple of extra things to finish. Firstly would you be willing to be interviewed again in a more informal way sometime within the next 6 to 8 months?

Y N

And secondly, I’ve got a couple of quick bits that I’d like you to complete for yourself, if you would.

COMMUNITIES AND REGENERATION IN EAST MANCHESTER: BEACONS SURVEY

This questionnaire is all about your group or organisation. Your personal identity as a respondent will remain confidential. The results of the survey will be identified only by the name of your group. Detailed questions about your group, such as how much funding you have received, will only be reported in a summary of all groups, and not reported individually for your group. The answers you give here are unique and very important for this study.

1. What is the name of your group?

2. When was your group set up?

Insert year YYYY

3. Does your group have a constitution? (ie has elected officers- chair, treasurer etc)

1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 4

2 No If no, go to Question 5

4. How many committee members does your group currently have?

Write in number Number Now go to Question 6 (Skip next question)

5. If you don’t have a constitution, how many core members would you say your group has- ie the people who organise things and make things happen?

Write in number Number Now go to next question- 6

6. How often has your group typically held committee (or core member) meetings over the past 2 years (or less if you are a newer organisation)?

Tick ONE box only 1 Once a month or more

2 Once every couple of months

3 Once every six months

4 Less than once every six months

7. Where does your group usually hold these meetings?

8. Not including any committee/ core members of your group, how many people are currently involved with your group on a regular basis?

Tick ONE box only 1 Less than 10

2 10 to 20

3 21 to 30

4 More than 30

9. What is the age range of the people involved with your group, including any committee/ core members? Please write the approximate age of the youngest and oldest people.

Youngest Oldest

10. Of all the people who are involved in your group, including any committee/ core members, are there…?

Tick ONE box only 1 More women

2 More men

3 About even

11. Including any committee/ core members, roughly what proportion of the people who are involved with your group are of Black or minority ethnicity? (I.e. not White British)

Tick ONE box only 1 None

2 Less than half

3 About a half

4 More than a half

5 All

12. Was your group set up with funding from New Deal for Communities/ New East Manchester or any other funding source, such as Novas Scarman, 4CT, Manchester City Council voluntary sector cash grants?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 13

2 No If no, go to Question 14. Question 14 on next page

3 Don’t know If don’t know, go to Question 14.

13. List the organisation(s) or grants your group received funding from to set-up below.

14. Apart from funding, did you get any help or advice in setting up your group from New Deal for Communities/ New East Manchester or any other organisation?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 15

2 No If no, go to Question 16.

3 Don’t know If don’t know, go to Question 16.

15. List the organisation(s) you got help or advice from below.

16. What have been the main sources of income for your group over the past 2 years?

Tick ALL that apply 1 Grants

2 Our own fundraising activities

3 Other

17. Please give details of these sources of income.

In this box write : Names of grants/ grant providers (in addition to any already detailed earlier in Question 13)

Continues on next page

Details of sources of income…continued

In this box write: Types of fundraising activity i.e. what you did.

In this box write: Any other sources of income

18. Roughly what is the total income of your group over the past 2 years, including any money raised through your own fundraising?

Tick ONE box only

1 None

2 Less than £1000

3 £1000 to £4,999

4 £5000 to £9,999

5 £10,000 to £14,999

6 £15,000 to £19,999

7 £20,000 to £24,999

8 £25,000 to £29,999

9 £30,000 or more

10 Don’t know

19. Does your group have any paid staff?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 20.

2 No If no, go to Question 21.

20. How many of those staff are full-time and/ or how many part-time?

(Then go to next question-21) Write in number Full-time

Part-time

21. Does your group ever hold open meetings which anyone can go to?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 22 Question 25 on next page 2 No If no, go to Question 25.

22. How often has your group typically held open meetings over the past 2 years (or less if you are a newer organisation)?

Tick ONE box only 1 Once a month or more

2 Once every couple of months

3 Once every six months

4 Once a year

5 Less than once a year

23. Where does your group usually hold its open meetings?

24. On average how many people have come to your open meetings over the past 2 years, not including any committee or core members of your group?

Tick ONE box only 1 Less than 10

2 10 to 20

3 21 to 30

4 More than 30

25. Do people who are not involved with your group come to your group for help or advice?

Tick ONE box only 1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 26

2 No If no, go to Question 27.

26. Roughly how often do they come to you, thinking back over the past 2 years? (Then go to next question- 27)

Tick ONE box only 1 Once or twice a week

2 Once or twice a month

3 Once every couple of months

4 Once every six months

5 Less than once every six months

6 Don’t know

27. Do members of your group ever contact local services on behalf of local residents to report a problem or seek advice for them?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 28

2 No If no, go to Question 29.

28. Roughly how often do you do this, thinking back over the past 2 years? (Then go to next question- 29)

Tick ONE box only 1 Once or twice a week

2 Once or twice a month

3 Once every couple of months

4 Once every six months

5 Less than once every six months

6 Don’t know

29. Besides any open meetings, do members of your group make a specific effort to speak to residents in your area to find out what is going on or to get people’s views on what is important to them?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 30.

2 No If no, go to Question 31 below.

30. Roughly how often does your group do this, thinking back over the past 2 years?

Tick ONE box only 1 Once or twice a week

2 Once or twice a month

3 Once every couple of months

4 Once every six months

5 Less than once every six months (Now go to Question 32

on NEXT PAGE) 6 6. Don’t know

31. What is the reason why your group doesn’t speak to local residents in this way? (Then go to next question-32.)

Tick ALL that apply

1 We don’t have the time

People usually come to us with any information or problems 2

We hold regular open meetings, so we don’t find other informal contact is necessary 3

We intend to do this in the future 4

The activities of our group are very specific, so we don’t engage with the wider population 5

Other- Please specify in the box below 6

32. Apart from any open meetings you hold, does your group run activities or hold events which anyone can participate in?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 33. Question 36 on next page 2 No If no, go to Question 36.

33. Roughly how often do you usually run any such activities, thinking back over the past 2 years? (Then go to next question- 34)

Tick ONE box only 1 Once a month or more

2 Once every couple of months

3 Once every six months

4 Once a year

5 Less than once a year

34. Please can you briefly describe the types of activities or events you have run over the past 2 years? This question is important to understanding the contribution community groups/ organisations make to the local community.

Please feel free to continue on a separate sheet.

35. Thinking about the events or activities you have run in the past 2 years, how many people have taken part in them? Please give the lowest number and the highest number, approximately. (Then go to next question- 36)

Lowest number Highest number

36. Do you tell the local community about what your group is doing or activities you are running?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question- 37.

2 No If no, go to Question 38.

37. How often do you use the following ways to communicate with the local community?

Please tick ONE box for EACH of the ways Often Sometimes Rarely Never Word of mouth 1 2 3 4

Email 1 2 3 4

Posters/ flyers 1 2 3 4

Your group’s own newsletter 1 2 3 4

Advert in a general newsletter/ mail-out 1 2 3 4

Advert in newspaper 1 2 3 4

Radio 1 2 3 4

Other- Please write below 1 2 3 4

38. Do you think that your group will still be active in 2 years’ time?

1 Yes If yes, go to Question 40.

2 No If no, go to next question- 39.

39. If no, why not? Please write in the box below. (Then go to next question- 40.)

40. Has your group been to any meetings of Beacons Community Partnership?

1 Yes If yes, go to Question 42. Question 42 on next page 2 No If no, go to next question- 41.

41. What is the reason for NOT going? (Then go to Question 43.)

Tick ALL that apply 1 We don’t know anything about it.

2 We don’t think it would be useful/ relevant to our group.

3 We don’t feel a need to meet with other groups in this way.

4 We would like to attend but do not have the time.

4 We don’t think it has any real powers.

5 We have not been able to attend so far but we intend to do so in the future.

6 Other- Please specify below

42. Do you think that your group will continue going to Beacons Community Partnership meetings on a regular basis?

1 Yes If yes, go to Question 44.

2 No If no, go to next question- 43.

3 Maybe If maybe, go to next question- 43

43. If no, why do you think you will not continue to go?/ If maybe, what is the reason for your uncertainty? Please write in the box below.

44. Does your group ever go to, or participate in, any other partnerships or consultative forums? For example, ward coordination meetings, the Neighbourhood Partnership on crime and disorder in your ward, the Valuing Older People (VOP) Network, or any others.

1 Yes If yes, go to next question below.

2 No If no, questionnaire go to Question 46 on NEXT PAGE.

45. If yes, which one(s). Please write in the box below.

Now go to next page. 9

46. Did any of the current members of your group ever participate in the governance structures of New East Manchester or Beacons/NDC? For example being member of NEM or Beacons board, being involved in any of the Beacons/NDC task groups and steering groups or regularly representing your group at the Residents’ Forum?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question below.

2 No If no, questionnaire ENDS HERE.

47. If yes, what roles did they have?

---END OF QUESTIONNAIRE---

MANY THANKS YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THIS STUDY. IT IS IMPORTANT AND UNIQUE.

If not collected by the researcher, this questionnaire can be returned to: Beth Carley CCSR School of Social Sciences Humanities Bridgeford Street University of Manchester Manchester. Tel: 07786 386978 M13 9PL Email: [email protected]

Community and regeneration in East Manchester: ABOUT YOU

This short questionnaire is about you. All personal information will remain confidential and will only be used in a way that means you can’t be personally identified.

1. What is your role in your group/ organisation?

Tick ONE box only 1 Chair

2 Vice/ Deputy Chair

3 Treasurer

4 Secretary

5 Other committee member- Please specify in box:

6 6. Non-committee member of group

2. How long have you been involved with the group?

Please insert the number of years and/or months Number of years

Number of months

3. Do you live within the area in which your group operates?

1 Yes If yes, go to next question.

2 No If no, go to Question 5

4. For how long have you lived in the area? If you previously lived in the area, moved away, and then returned in recent years, please write the total number of years, including the previous length of time you lived in the area.

Please insert the number of years and/or months (Then go to next question- 5) Number of years

Number of months

5. Before you became involved with this group had you ever been involved with any other community or voluntary group, either in this area or somewhere else?

1 Yes

2 No

6. How much do you think your group can influence decisions which affect your area?

Tick ONE box only 1 Not at all

2 A little

3 Quite a lot

4 A great deal

5 Don’t know

7. How much do you feel that regeneration has made the Beacons area a better place to live over the past ten years?

Tick ONE box only 1 Not at all

2 A little

3 Quite a lot

4 A great deal

5 Don’t know

8. How much do you feel that regeneration has helped local residents to get involved in improving where they live over the past ten years?

Tick ONE box only 1 Not at all

2 A little

3 Quite a lot

4 A great deal

5 Don’t know

9. How much do you feel that regeneration has helped increase community spirit in the Beacons area over the past ten years?

Tick ONE box only 1 Not at all

2 A little

3 Quite a lot

4 A great deal

5 Don’t know

10. How much do you know about regeneration in Gorton?

Tick ONE box only 1 1. Nothing

2 2. A little

3 3. Quite a lot

4 4. A great deal 2

11. Since you have been eligible to vote in general elections, have you voted in…

1 all general elections

2 most of them

3 some of them

4 not very many of them

5 none of them

6 I’ve not been eligible to vote

7 Don’t know

12. Since you have been eligible to vote in local elections, have you voted in…

1 all local elections

2 most of them

3 some of them

4 not very many of them

5 none of them

6 I’ve not been eligible to vote

7 Don’t know

13. What is your gender?

1 Male

2 Female

14. What age are you?

1 Under 18

2 18-24

3 25-34

4 35-44

5 45-59

6 60-65

7 Over 65

15. What is your ethnicity?

Tick ALL that apply 1 White 7 Black Caribbean

2 Mixed 8 Black African

3 Indian 9 Other Black

4 Pakistani 10 Chinese

5 Bangladeshi 11 Any other ethnic group-Please specify below

6 Other Asian 3

16. What is your current employment status?

Tick ONE box only 1 Employed full-time

2 Employed part-time

3 Home full-time looking after family

4 Unemployed

5 Full-time student

6 Retired

7 Other- Please specify below

17. Which of the following describes the type of property you live in?

Tick ONE box only 1 Council property END

2 Housing association property Go to next question, 18.

3 Property rented from a private landlord END

4 Own property END

5 Shared ownership scheme property END

6 Other- Please specify below END

18. If you are a housing association tenant, which housing association owns/ manages your property?

Tick ONE box only 1 Eastlands Homes

2 Adactus

3 Mosscare Housing Association

4 William Sutton Housing

5 Guinness Northern Counties

6 Great Places

7 Harvest Housing Group

8 Other- Please specify below

-END OF QUESTIONNAIRE: MANY THANKS FOR YOUR TIME!