Pro-Community Welfare StateExploring common ground to identify collective action

Who’s hereClare Wightman • Vinesh Kumar • Brian Fisher • Mervyn Eastman • Mark Brown • Kathy Evans • Susan Harrison • David Floyd • Maff Potts • John Dalrymple • Rob Trimble • Thomas Allan • Steve Wyler • Tricia Nichol • Ian Scholes • Ian McPherson • Anna Merryfield • Bob Thust • Alan Dootson •

Who’d have liked to have beenChris Yapp • Clare Jones • Bob Rhodes • Chris Howells • David Towell • Vidhya Alakeson • Wendy Lowder • Stephen Sloss • Ralph Broad • Nick Dixon • Kelly Hicks •  Charlotte Hollins • Su Maddock • Cheryl Barrott • Dennis O’Rourke • Steven Rose • Richard Lee

Dream outcomes…

1. A policy manifesto outlining the changes necessary to promote citizenship and community

2. A leadership community willing to communicate these ideas locally and nationally

3. Local leaders, local authorities or others willing to test and develop these new models

My personal nightmare… lots of disagreement, fear and mistrust between

people I like and admire (and bad time management)

‘plan’

1. Simon will facilitate a discussion to explore common ground.

2. Simon will write a paper, in consultation with you, to outline possible next steps.

3. The real goal is to try and identify shared positions around which we might see ourselves organising for change in the future.

A word from our sponsors…Community business provides one important strategy for increasing social justice, advancing citizenship and strengthening the fabric of our community life. It gives people new opportunities to get involved in their community and to create new forms of collective good for those communities.

Many do not need direct funding from the welfare state in order to survive, but they do exist in relationship with local democratic systems, commissioning arrangements and local services.

They are an important part of a bigger picture.

a bigger community picture

Looked at from the perspective of the welfare state, community businesses are just one strand in a fabric of grassroots initiatives that have always been present, but which have become increasingly active as austerity has eroded older service models.

Arguably many of these community initiatives could be woven into a more positive and engaging future version of the welfare state, not just as a response to cuts.

Citizenship & community• Cooperatives and

shared care

• Women-centred work

• Peer support

• Local Area Coordination

• Place-based commissioning

• Neighbourhood leadership (C2)

• Personal budgets

• Relationship-based work

• Volunteering

• Microenterprise & community catalysts

• Voluntary sector leadership

• Community circles

• Community businesses

• Time banks & local currencies

• Citizen and independent advocacy

• Faith communities

• Associations (youth, arts, sports etc.)

• Centres for independent living

• Unions

• Buurtzorg

• Community budgeting

• Charities, local businesses et al…

£

Brian - community development & health - SHA

Clare - relationships, citizen advocacy, social movement

Vinny - IT, questions are enlightening, entrepreneurship

John - social work, neighbourhood networks, personal budgets

Susan - local government & homelessnessKathy - children & charities & asset lock

Thomas - commons

Tricia - power of the ordinary

Bob - arts, accountancy, charities

Anna - social spider, refugees, community foundations

Mervyn - coops, social work, older people, charities

Mark - mental health, 1:4, digital

David - community development

Ian - mental health, it’s people, IIMH

David - social investment market, commissioning, newspapers

Steve - locality, a better way, homelessness

Alan - coops, seeking a movement

Maff - homelessness, friends + purpose

Ian - Spacious Place, business, church, work, sustainable businesses

introductions

1. There are multiple positive forms of community life that are essential to our welfare

2. We need the security of the welfare state (we can’t go back to before 1945)

3. We do not need a welfare state that is more than state control and professional service delivery (we can’t go back to 1945)

4. Most of the ‘reforms’ of the welfare state since 1945 have been more toxic than the problem they were supposedly trying to solve (we don’t need more internal markets, PFIs, or austerity…)

5. We need a different approach…

These are the hypotheses that framed the day (the narrative)

OR is it possible to design a (welfare) state that promotes citizen and

community activity but does not become

corrupted and turned into Big Society Bullshit?

Can we come together and redesign that reflects what we’ve learned from past success (and failure)?

Perhaps it would be useful to distinguish policy from constitutional measures.

Policies are the directions set by our leaders. Of course, we want good policy and we may be able to recommend ‘better policies’. This may be worthwhile when those leaders are acting with integrity. However recommending policy to leaders without integrity can be damaging.

Constitutional measures provide the structure of norms, incentives and disciplines within which all citizens must operate. They constrain and discipline action to try and limit the risk of injustice. History suggests constitutional measures are essential to harmonise democratic control and justice.

If our task is to seek constitutional (defined broadly) reform of the welfare state (defined broadly) then we are operating at the edges of what is known. This is largely uncharted territory, but here are a couple of very different examples to provoke thought…

1. Shifting the production of social care delivery from government to democratically structured civil institutions, with government retaining its role as prime funder to these services.

2. Government funding should flow direct to people who need support who would then select services they need from a choice of accredited organisations. Independent consumer cooperatives should be funded to assist people (e.g. without mental capacity) and their families in the identification, evaluation and contracting of care services.

3. Social care organisations must have the legal ability to raise capital from members and civil society more generally on the basis of social investing.

4. Surpluses generated by these social care organisations with public funding would need to be held as social assets and a reserve held for the expansion and development of that organisation and its services.

5. The primary role of government would be to continue to provide funding for social care and establish the rules of the game, in partnership with service providers, caregivers and people who need support

6. Service design and the assessment of need would take place at the community and regional level of delivery. This decentralisation must include the democratisation of decision making through the sharing of control rights with people who need support and care givers.

John Restakis on Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna (thanks to Thomas Allan)

http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/by-az/beyond-efficiency.html

this model is drawn from care provision in a region of Italy

We can also learn much from Ancient Athens.

Pynx - where the assembly met

Lots used to give people jobs

Ostracism to limit the powerful

The Agora - where most public life was lived

The boundary of the agora was marked by sacred stones - that could not be moved. Inside the agora all

private land ownership was banned. All was in

common.

• Democratic decision-making, religious life, the courts and the public life in the agora were all separate and given separate places.

• The agora was where business, government, education and every kind different activity was carried on.

• Measures like ostracism, the civic duty to take on public offices, time limits, lots for public roles, decentralisation of decisions (to the deme or neighbourhood) all served to limit corruption and ensure the welfare of citizens.

So what are the destructive forces that we need to attend to if we are going to

design a better welfare state?

• Elitist thinking that focuses on deficits of citizens (not their gifts)

• Intrusive behaviour by the state (thinking they know best and must control what happens).

• Delusions of competence and control

• New public management - technocratic, goals orientated management that leads to dysfunctional behaviour

• The goal of economic growth, with no respect for the real economy or human values.

• Year Zero approaches that simply disregard expertise

• Patronage which gives undue power to politicians and public officials.

• Resources stuck in the wrong place, but with no capacity to re-invest.

• Lack of transparency about resources and roles.

• Lack of awareness at the power of IT solutions

• The ability of private corporations to buy influence and take-over parts of the welfare state.

• The view that taxation entitles us to imposes conditions on those who receive benefits.

• Short-termism - politicians eager to look like they are doing something - end up doing harm

• No respect for human rights

• Them and Us - elitist rhetoric and thinking and the ‘othering’ of folk at the margins.

• Lack of meaningful accountability

• Monopoly/monopsony in provision and commissioning.

• Mad measurement corrupting purpose.

• Artificial personality - disguising personal accountability (e.g. companies)

• Institutional self-interest.

[I can’t stop myself offering some additional destructive

forces… sorry]

• Inequality of income (including extreme inequalities inside the welfare state, e.g. CEO/Dr pay vs frontline workers)

• Taxing the poor - the poorest pay the most tax but these burdens are hidden by indirect taxes

• Stigmatising provision (e.g. DWP) and others systems that are designed to divide us.

• Means-testing and non-universal provision (e.g social care)

• Compliant charities and media - there are no major institutions with the integrity to challenge injustice.

• Medianocracy - swing voters (middle earners) are targeted for subsidy at the expense of the poorest.

• Welfare state as a middle-class industry. (Long-term trend has been to shift public spending from redistribution to paying salaries for some).

• Think tanks purchased by corporations; universities sharing information behind paywalls etc.

• Meritocracy - belief that the best, the richest and the powerful are all the same group (or should be).

• The most centralised welfare state in the world.

• Constitutional incoherence of UK and local government.

• Media that is centred on London and Westminster.

• House of Lords where charity chiefs can be rewarded for compliance

• That’s enough for now…

What would our sacred stones or “interim

demands” be?

• Fixed % of GDP set aside for welfare (make it difficult for hypothecation to be watered down).

• Human rights (from state and corporate abuse) strengthened.

• Value = whole/true value not just money

• Relationship-in-community e.g. community development is critical to service (cf. recent LGA guidance)

• Basic income

• Local by default as principle for delivery

• State run on ABCD principles for community engagement (ethical audit)

• Shared account - mutual accountability & transparency around community and business and state endeavours (connected to community budgeting?)

• Lanyard free zone

• Electoral reform to advance long-term thinking

• Commons copyright

• Back success

• Investment not commissioning (decentralised)

• Respect the human nature of expertise (back talent?)

• Return to grants - promote trust

• Freedom to make and learn from mistakes

• Equal status (undiluted by capacity, passport)

• Anchors organisations in every community

• End to no win no fee - create a pro-risk strategy (i.e. reduce fear of litigation).

• Means/intentions matter

• Profit is not acceptable when dealing with the distress of a child

• Value of ABCD - its logic can drive the pattern of state investment (invest in what works etc.)

• Investment and stimulation of valuable activity - the social fabric (not outcome-based commissioning)

• State role should be enabling citizenship activity

• Still need to have a clear regulatory control

• Safeguard individuals from witch-hunting

• Remember it’s coproduction and a partnership between state and citizen

• Local action + state support

• State’s role defined so as to protect citizens from corporate predatory activity

• Expand commons ownership, ethical trading + investment (not commissioning)

• ‘Banishment’ of those who transgress (putting bad business people out of business for real).

• Transparency re the commons duties of candour and transparency (cf. B-Corps - only responsible private bodies can enter the public realm).

• Ban private profiteering in public endeavour

• [Fear that localism will disadvantage the marginal and miss key issues]

• Transparency of information

• End copyright restrictions on all information produced with any public support.

• Platonic inequality restriction on salaries (1:5)

• Democratic second chamber

• Electoral reform - PR

• Radically localise boundaries - return older more meaningful identities and make boundary changes very very difficult.

• Community asset locks made easier, - and more transparent

• Basic income and wider money reform

• Hypothecation of % GDP for welfare spending (e.g 3% social care)

• End means-testing of services

• Social care reform

• Radical devolution - create primary locus of decision-making at the neighbourhood level

• Direct democracy at the local level.

• Create system of public civic duties

• Neighbourhood

• Tax reform and charity law reform

Simon’s (extra) list

Next steps

• Suggest practical things we could have a go at…

• Proto-typing - recognising the dynamic environment

• …build on our own working models… what could be done that would advance…

• focus on opportunities emerging within NHS England

• Check out our assumptions

• Help define the broader narrative

• Take some time - before scope & shaping

• What about the people who did not come today…

• What about area-based accounting…

• Does this link to the post-Brexit challenge?

• cf. Declaration of Interdependence