Changing gear

Touted as the biggest transfer of powers since devolution, this proposed legislation has raised many questions. While widely welcomed in principle, the Bill has also proved to be controversial, with some asking whether it is possible to use legislation to inspire and energise communities. Despite its bold and very worthy intentions, according to Martin Crewe, director of Barnardo’s Scotland, taken as a whole, the Bill “will do little to address Scotland’s most deep seated inequalities, unless it is seriously strengthened”.

Writing exclusively for Holyrood, Crewe said: “There are a number of good ideas in the Community Empowerment Bill, and although I expect that much of the public debate will focus on the development of land reform, it is a wide-sweeping Bill. 

“The danger is that the Bill only further empowers already empowered people and communities, rather than putting power into the hands of those who currently have little. Research recently carried out by Barnardo’s Scotland and NSPCC found that an increasing number of families we work with in Scotland are experiencing extreme levels of poverty and destitution. For our staff working with these families, providing initial support all too often takes the form of helping to get food into the cupboards and electricity into the meter. Grinding poverty on this level is as disempowering as it gets, and it is these families that the Community Empowerment Bill needs to make a difference for.”

In September, Felix Spittal, policy officer with SCVO – the umbrella body for voluntary organisations in Scotland – said the Bill needed “a shot in the arm”. While welcoming the premise, he said “some serious life needs to be injected into it if it’s ever going to lead to real change”.

He added: “Sadly, participatory budgeting (the terrible name that has been given to the process where people are directly involved in deciding the budget priorities in their area) didn’t make it through to the Bill. It could well have been the radical proposal required. Participatory budgeting brings together the community, improves accountability of decision making and delivers outcomes that reflect the needs of the people – what’s not to like?

“SCVO, in our response to a committee inquiry, have suggested that 10 per cent of the total public sector spend in each local authority should be assigned for participatory budgeting processes. This is considerably more than has been proposed before but still less than the 18 per cent that was committed in Porto Alegre Brazil, where the process was first developed.”

The Scottish Parliament’s Local Government and Regeneration Committee is currently taking evidence on Stage 1 of the Bill. Voluntary Action Scotland, the organisation for Scotland’s network of third sector interfaces (unitary agencies and partnerships of councils for voluntary services, volunteer centres and social enterprise networks) said in their submission to the committee: “Overall, we do not believe this Bill on its own will produce the empowered communities that we wish to see. 

“Overall, we do not believe this Bill on its own will produce the empowered communities that we wish to see.

“However, if taken as part of a wider public service reform agenda and coupled with increased capacity building we believe it provides a useful stepping stone on the journey to real community empowerment. Crucial in achieving this is a culture change within public bodies that moves from a ‘top down model’ of service design and delivery to a ‘bottom-up’ community-led model. We acknowledge that legislative provisions can only achieve so much in this regard, they can however provide the impetus to public bodies to move towards more collaborative ways of working.

“We believe a culture within the public sector that works closely with local communities in service design and delivery will be hugely beneficial for the public bodies involved and crucially advantageous for the individuals within our society. It will lead to greater community buy-in and services which are more reflective of the true needs of the community.” Martin Crewe told Holyrood that working with other organisations, including the Poverty Alliance and Oxfam Scotland, Barnardo’s Scotland has identified a number of ways the Bill could be strengthened to make a difference to disadvantaged families.

He said: “Central to the operation of the Bill are plans to put community planning partnerships (CPPs) onto a statutory footing. Most people in Scotland will be entirely unfamiliar with the concept of CPPs, and therein lies the problem. We think it is necessary that the Bill requires CPPs to involve local people, participatively, when they create their local plans. 

“The Bill will also put National Outcomes for Scotland onto a statutory footing. These are akin to a report card for the Scottish Government, yet the current proposal is that the Government will decide what the outcomes are and how they are doing against them, as well as doing all the hard work. Teacher, pupil and examiner all in one, if you will. That’s why we think it is important that people who live and work in Scotland are part of the process of deciding what the outcomes should be. But, there are some outcomes which already have the special status of being in law. It is crucial that the National Outcomes don’t override this existing legal duty on the Scottish Government.

“Public bodies engaging people is all well and good, but whether this actually empowers people is a consequence of the quality and genuineness of that engagement. We think this Bill should put standards for community engagement onto a legal footing. Doing so would provide a benchmark to assess whether public bodies, or indeed ministers, were carrying out public involvement in decision making adequately. 

“Lastly, if public bodies are genuine about relinquishing some of their power to the people they serve, then they have to let go of some of their grip over the purse strings. Various forms of participatory budgeting have been used across Scotland, and around the world, as a way of giving communities real decision-making power.”