UWS-OXFAM PARTNERSHIP POLICY FORUM: 24TH JUNE 2015

Knowledge, empowerment, language:

“What do local communities know and understand that policy folk maybe don’t?”

“What do local communities know and understand that policy folk maybe don’t?”

• The UWS-Oxfam Partnership: “For a more equitable and sustainable Scotland” (2011-2015)• Research and knowledge exchange• Policy Forum• Students

• Policy Forums• July 2014: Inequality• Nov 2014: Social Justice• Mar 2015: Decent Work• Jun 2015: Community knowledge/power

Talking the same language – apparently ...?

• The challenge and the danger – substance to the rhetoric; hope and disappointment …

• Kevin McKenna: “Fair and Equal Scotland? Not so that you would notice”, The Guardian (online, 21st June):

“If there were prizes for soaring rhetoric …. (we) would win them all”.

“Until [things actually change] the SNP government will be remembered always as being the most socially progressive-sounding party that we have ever had in a country that always talked a good game. Fair and equal Scotland, my arse”.

Community empowerment?

• Community empowerment, 1988-2015: Local people/communities ‘know best’

 “It is based on the fundamental belief that no-one knows an area better than the people who live there and so they are often the best people to be in charge and certainly always the best people to be in the driving seat of how areas move forward into the future”.

• June 2015, Marco Biagi (Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment) on Community Empowerment Bill.

 • But, the past experience is not good!

• Empowerment and destruction• Regeneration and inequality• ‘Tackling poverty’ and ……………… poverty

• Danger of rhetoric-induced complacency.

“What do local communities know and understand that policy folk maybe don’t?”

So today we are raising questions around:

• How government and others actually relate to communities?

• How they can actually share knowledge and understanding?

• How shared knowledge and understanding might be put to work in a way that does justice to people and to problems, and might deliver some justice within – and crucially between – our local communities.

• The kinds of collaborative relationships between people and organisations which can achieve that, and which can project it into the policy imagination.

Speakers

• John Connolly, Lecturer in Public Policy, UWS

• Maria Feeney, Lecturer in Sociology, UWS

• Jim Boyle, Linwood/Beith Community Development Trust

Group discussions in tables1. Initial stage: Everyone at table to comment by post-it

and/or in-person about the one key thing that struck them about the presentations. (10 mins)

Is it the case that local communities know and understand things in a way which policy folk currently don’t, and which could improve policy and what it ‘delivers’?

2. Subsequent stage: Based on these points, what does this mean for communities and policy makers? (10 mins)

What might usefully happen to give more meaningful effect to ideas of ‘community empowerment’?

3. Concluding stage: Group collectively agree one or two key points to feedback to wider group (5 mins)