Public services and mutual self help

Mike Chitty pointed me to a really good piece in yesterday's Guardian by Charles Leadbetter.

In the piece he argues the following:

"The fiscal crisis has fully exposed the current model of public service reform - invest, modernise, set targets, review performance, eliminate failure - as having run out of steam.  Public services may be more efficient, but all too often they are not joined up, leaving the people on the receiving end bewildered by what one elderly woman, who was being visited by four occupational therapists, described to me as a blizzard of services."

I found myself nodding away at various other things he said - and my heart probably raced a bit faster at this bit:

"The key will be to redesign services to enable more mutual self-help, so that people can create and sustain their own solutions."

Easy words of course, but I think he's spot on.  We've got to start thinking more like this, particularly now that we're entering a decade of savage public spending cuts. 

I was in a meeting yesterday, discussing a project I'm involved in where we've helped to set up a number of gardening services for older people.  The project has had a fair amount of success, but one steering group member pointed out that there are still thousands of people in the city who can't access gardening services.

Part of me wanted to scream (we haven't managed to secure world peace in the lifespan of the project either, but I don't think that means we've failed).  But there was an important point there too.  We, well meaning people, with public funds, have tried to intervene in the marketplace to support people in need.  In reality we've only touched a small percentage of people - largely because we don't have the resources (money) to help more people. 

The steering group member suggested we should have done more to encourage other ways to get gardening done - for example schemes where a neighbour helps out an older person with cutting their hedge, in return for access to their garden to grow veg (see Landshare for more ideas).

We did do a bit of that, but not much came of it.  But she does have a point.  Communities helping themselves is perhaps the only sustainable solution to the problems we face as a society.  Maybe there's a lesson there for us. 

Comments

[David Floyd]

"The steering group member suggested we should have done more to encourage other ways to get gardening done - for example schemes where a neighbour helps out an older person with cutting their hedge, in return for access to their garden to grow veg (see Landshare for more ideas).

We did do a bit of that, but not much came of it."

This is a recurring problem. You're clearly right that communities helping themselves (people helping each other) is likely to be more sustainable than activities that take place because there's some funding to pay for it. The question is what does the state - and wider society - do when communities either can't or choose not to help themselves of their own volition.

New Labour's attempts at artificial stimulation of 'volunteering' - while well intentioned - have often primarily resulted in young people getting funded to take part in vaguely socially progressive recreational activities.

There was even a point last year where youth volunteering funding organisation, V, attempted to rebrand volunteering as 'favours' because research told them young people didn't find the idea of volunteering very exciting.

I'm not clear if they're still doing this or if someone's pointed out that blurring the distinction between volunteering (which could involve cutting someone's hedge, at appointed time, properly, on a regular basis or working a regular weekly shift at a soup kitchen) and a favour (lending your mate 50p to buy a can of Coke or picking up your mum's jacket from the dry cleaners) is probably as negative for literacy as it is useless in promoting positive social activity.

The question raised is, is it more productive for the government to chuck lots of cash into getting people to do stuff they don't want to do on voluntary basis, when the alternative is paying people to do it?

[Mike Chitty]

Rob
Cracking post.
Only thing I would argue with is the issue of communities helping themselves. Only people can help other people. And the challenge is to help individuals to recognise that the development of 'supportive relationships' on a local level is more likely to help them make more progress, more quickly than relying on agencies - be they social enterprises or public services. Once this habit of mutual support starts to spread then a sense of community will start to emerge.

I would suggest that too much of what we call community development work at the moment depends on a small group of activists doing stuff to help a much larger group of generally indifferent and passive citizens.

Whether we are cutting their grass or organising a community fayre or mela the very act of 'helping' may further re-inforce passivity and indifference in the community we are seeking to help. We provide them with another pacifier, a diversion that helps to inoculate them against the realities of life and thereby maintaining the status quo.

[Rob Greenland]

Thank you both - plenty of good points there. I agree that there's a question about what should the State do if communities/people don't help themselves. I suppose there's a question before that about what is the role of the State in creating an environment were the number of people who don't help themselves is few and far between. A big question... but once again, one that we need to consider, particularly when funding for the traditional ways to "intervene and help" will become increasingly scarce.