Some further thoughts on Community Empowerment

"Community empowerment is about people and government, working together to make life better. It involves more people being able to influence decisions about their communities, and more people taking responsibility for tackling local problems, rather than expecting others to."

The above is the definition of Community Empowerment as given by the Department of Communities and Local Government.

This is not to say that DCLG's definition is necessarily the best one, of course, neither should we accept without question the right of a government department to impose its interpretation upon us all. Nevertheless, as an attempt to put flesh onto the bones of an abstract concept it is a surprisingly good starting point.

Yesterday Councillor Paul Fisher and I attended a one-day conference at London's Cavendish Conference Centre on the theme "Community Ownership of Assets - Creating Strong and Sustainable Communities", which discussed and debated the innovative Quirk Review into asset ownership.

Community Empowerment has, of course, been the core objective of the ICG since the day it was formed. Back then in 1994 the concept was unfashionable, particularly in the context of our own local authority, where organisational Stalinism was to survive Labour's lurch to the right of the political spectrum in policy terms.

It is gratifying to know that our vision has come into vogue even though, other than perhaps in Hounslow, it is unlikely that we as a Group actually contributed in any way towards this new departure.

As I see it there are essentially two schools of thought on the question of Community Empowerment. At the recent Housing Conference in Harrogate I was appalled to hear a speaker delivering himself of the view that all the community aspired to was good services, and that in the event of such being delivered members of the public were happy to sit back and let the political elite get on with the business of making decisions on their behalf. It is a view which I personally would always instinctively associate with New Labour, but in this instance I had been surprised to learn that the speaker was in fact a Liberal Democrat.

That is one school of thought. The other is that which would tend to be associated with the ICG, that holders of political office are morally, if not legally, delegated to act as those who elected them instruct, and that the true source of power lies with the community which put them where they are. Whilst it is necessary for the efficient working of local government for holders of political office to make decisions on a day to day basis, all reasonable efforts should be made to involve the community itself in the decision-making process, in a meaningful as opposed to a tokenistic way, to the greatest extent possible.

Yesterday's conference seemed to flow from the assumption that the second school of thought has it right. Several speakers gave their views as to how this might best be achieved. Most of it was very interesting.

However, one disappointing aspect of the whole debate for me was the fact that every speaker, without exception, seemed to equate Community Empowerment solely with grant funding. The more money which is given to communities and their organisations, so the logic went, the more free and independent they become.

It is undoubtedly true that community initatives do need funding. It would be absurd to argue against this. However it is equally true that funding can actually work against the whole ethos of Community Empowerment. We have seen this in Hounslow, indeed I have seen it in Isleworth - on my own estate - where grant funding is given which the recipient becomes dependent upon, and then the political conditions become evident which, if not fulfilled, lead to the threatened withdrawal of the funding and, if the threat is carried out, the subsequent collapse of the group.

This is not Community Empowerment. This is Community Enslavement.

There is a certain breed of political animal which seems to talk about nothing but grant funding, revenue streams and so on. They seem to speak in a language all of their own. I confess to finding such people tiresome.

Community Empowerment is an ideal, not a commodity which can be purchased. Community Empowerment is about creating irreversable channels through which the community can direct government, local and national.

If, having created those irreversable channels, you then still wish to give us your money, it will seldom be refused.

Musings from a faraway place

As I write I am enjoying a short break between sessions at the 2008 CIH Housing Conference in Harrogate.

Until very recently I was only half a Lead Member for Housing, sharing the portfolio with Councillor Mark Bowen. My responsibility involved liaising with Hounslow Homes, the Council's ALMO (Arm's Length Management Organisation), whilst Councillor Bowen dealt with the client side of the operation. Following the slight reshuffle which took place following the election of the new Executive by Borough Council in May, it was agreed that I would take on the whole Housing portfolio from the end of this month.

Against all odds I arrived in Harrogate yesterday morning in time for the opening speech from the Rt. Hon. Caroline Flint MP, the Minister for Housing and Planning. This was immediately followed by a familar political double-act from the Rt. Hon. Michael Portillo (I hadn't previously realised that Right Honourability remained after one ceased to be a political bigwig) and Diane Abbott MP, giving slightly different but equally helpful perspectives on the main challenges facing local and national politicians in trying to deliver what people want whilst helping to build diverse but cohesive communities.

But it was a session involving such B-list celebrities as the Deputy Leader of Islington Council and the Deputy Chief Executive of the Housing Corporation on the theme "Power to the People - will the Tenant Services Authority deliver?" which I have found the most helpful so far.

I would like to digress just for a moment and offer some background as to how I came to be here in the first place. The ICG, which is a partner in the coalition that took control of the London Borough of Hounslow back in 2006, has its roots in the tenants' movement. It emerged from within the heart of the Isleworth community as a response to the inequities and unfairness of a régime which possessed a strictly limited view of the tenants' movement as simply one of many vehicles through which to pursue a political agenda. An ipso facto consequence of this narrow view was that our tenants' associations became political playthings, with positions of office being achieved through service to the political cause rather than through a democratic process driven by residents. Associations thus constituted were never going offer a meaningful challenge to the policies or actions of a régime of which they were, after all, an integral part.

The justification which the practitioners of this chicanery attached to their actions was that they, as a "socialist" party, had the tenants' interests at heart. Historically there is little doubt that there is some truth in this, although the existence of checks and balances on political power is healthy under any system.

More recently, however, the Labour Party has of course abandoned its traditional values in its pursuit of electability (which must rather grate with people of principle who remain in the party now that it is neither socialist nor electable). As New Labour, the party has become an organisation whose raison d'etre would appear to be no more than the acquisition of power, for the purpose of being in power.

So we have (or had until very recently), on our estates, a policy which sought to influence our tenants' movement, not for the furtherence of an ideological agenda from which it might expect to derive some benefit, but simply for the purposes of pursuing the power objectives of an organisation which desires to exercise control over others.

The ICG has an entirely different philosophy, one which our opponents almost universally fail to understand, and one which they sometimes go to extraordinary lengths not to understand. In our way of doing things, criticism and complaint is encouraged. We believe in structures which are by their nature self-critical, always holding themselves up to scrutiny. In order to achieve this we welcome and encourage the greatest possible level of involvement from everybody, including those who oppose us as a Group. Our opponents mock us for what they perceive as our lack of political savvy in taking such a position (although it is worth noting that they do so now from a position of opposition), but for us this is, quite simply, morally the right thing to do.

It is also our belief that tenants' and residents' associations are among the best means of promoting community cohesion. Residents from diverse backgrounds who find that they have concerns and issues in common soon learn to put any differences to one side. In the current climate, to do anything with might jeopardise the growth of associations and interest groups across the community in pursuit of a political agenda would be an act of unforgivable selfishness and irresponsibility.

It is because of Labour's track record and instinct for organisational self-advancement at any price that I harbour a natural suspicion of any member of that party who seeks to be involved in any way in the process of tenant participation. My default position when any new initiative issues forth from this government with the stated objective of empowering residents is always to look for the catch. So it was when Phil Morgan, the Chief Executive of the Tenant Participation Advisory Service, declared to the Conference that he had always been "a bit of a lefty". Not because there is anything at all wrong with being a "lefty", but simply because the majority who would describe themselves thus still seem to retain an irrational organisational affinity to the Labour Party in spite of its rejection of its their core beliefs, which in more cases than not leads them to a position of party before principle.

But as I waited for the catch it occurred to me that maybe that I would be left waiting for some time. The language which brings news of the powers which the Tenant Services Authority will have is uncharacteristically that of giving communities more power and more independence. Proposals, for instance, to give tenants powers to reward good practice and to take action against poor landlords have to be encouraging. There is a worryingly frequent use of the word "regulation", but only time will tell how this fits in within the wider context of the initiative.

As Lead Member for the whole Housing portfolio I will be taking a keen interest in all these developments, and in particular will want to analyse their implications for Hounslow. More on this anon.