How Does Your Garden Grow?

This was part of the discussion at last week’s committee meeting. Hannah Worth and Paul Slatter of the Chamberlain Forum, a think-do tank, suggested that devolution should be more like gardening. Gardeners allow plants to grow where they appear and don’t cover things over with mulch to kill them. They suggested that the council should nurture the best of what’s happening in the garden. They also pointed out that you can’t garden from the living room which might explain why my garden looks such a mess!

But an alternative view was put forward that gardeners are actually benign dictators – always in control and moving plants around to suit the agreed plan with no scope for self seeding. If you’re green fingers are like this the gardening analogy is surely the wrong way to describe devolution!

This conversation was part of the process of understanding how devolution’s arrived at this point in Birmingham. [See also the 7 September post on the journey of devolution – your views welcome on that.] Guests at the table and the councillors set out what they saw as home truths about the city and also offered ways forward.

Councillor John Cotton, the Cabinet Member for Social Cohesion and Equalities talked of the “creative tension” between the centre and localities. He suggested that as devolution concerns the delivery of public services and spending public money districts need to have core standards to work to. But at the same time discussions with local communities need to flow back to the centre to ensure the right structures are in place. He suggested that creative approaches need to be particularly encouraged at ward and neighbourhood level

It was noted that the Council can’t deliver everything alone and the partnerships with voluntary and community organisations are key. The way the Council consults with and listens to communities was debated by all the contributors too. Paul Slatter suggested:

“When you can show people one bit of action that’s happened because of their involvement everything changes and people can share the credit for it.”

There was much debate about how the culture of the council needs to change to make devolution work. It was suggested that:

“We need a new covenant between officers and members with shared accountability”.

It was also agreed that the Council had to do more to learn from mistakes and become a learning organisation.

One challenge in Birmingham is that the pattern of deprivation within the city hasn’t changed over the past 20 years. It’s not necessarily that regeneration programmes haven’t worked, but when people have become skilled up and empowered they often move away. For devolution to be a success it was argued that this pattern has to change.

Arguably, the biggest issue to face up to is finance with budget reductions of up to 28% over three years. It was argued that local government has gone through the phases of doing “more for less” and “less for less”, and now it’s time to do things “different for less.” Angus Kennedy, who used to head up Castle Vale’s Housing Action Trust warned of the danger of devolution being blamed for not being able to deliver key services, when the real issue is the current financial position.

It was pointed out that it will be people that make this agenda work. Getting the structures right was argued to be less important than ensuring there is a common understanding of devolution and that those involved in making it work are signed up to it.

It’s clear that a devolved approach has to strengthen the city as a whole. The isolation of people in certain parts of the city was mentioned. Should an aim of devolution be about helping to connect them with jobs and leisure and culture opportunities beyond the boundaries of the neighbourhood they identify with? Or is the aim just to improve local services and local neighbourhoods?

Everything is changing in this transition period, but this shouldn’t be seen as the end. Cllr Cotton agreed that the structures and processes need to evolve and change over time as local councillors get to grips with what district committees need to deliver and suggested:

“We’re all going on a bit of a journey here.”

The aim of the committee is to help provide direction on that journey.

(The next session of the Districts and Public Engagement Making it Real Inquiry will be on 12th September at 1415 hours in the Council House, Victoria Square.)