Counting on communities

Recently, I was asked to speak at the Policy Network annual conference in Leeds, just a hop over the Pennines for me.

This network serves local government officers with an interest in policy and performance review and I think it’s a useful forum to share ideas, practice and experiences in the interpretation of the central government 'vision' for local communities.

I was asked to read the runes, if you like, and try to predict what challenges would be facing local government over the next twelve months. This was no mean feat, particularly given the shifts in opinion polls and the current volatile economic climate.

After a fair amount of research, though, I tried to piece together a presentation that focused on a number of ‘key topics’. These were:

Regeneration
Efficiency
Local political revitalisation
Citizen engagement
Innovation

However, one thing that I couldn’t shed any light on was what good regeneration and successful communities look like or, perhaps more significantly, feel like. Is it the more predictable café culture pedestrainised streets that seemingly have prefaced every town centre regeneration plan, or something subtler?

This tricky topic has been brought to the fore again today with a study commissioned by the BBC on the feelings of loneliness and social fragmentation among communities in this country.

The measure, or anomie index as it is known, has essentially become worse for all areas of the UK over the last 30 years. There have been shifts in the league table, with the Holyrood area of Edinburgh now scoring the worst. Stoke-on-Trent has consistently performed well in this measure, though.

Such measures should be interpreted with care, of course, but the index might suggest something more fundamental should underpin local authorities’ regeneration efforts. But it also poses the question as to how much influence a council can, or should, exert. Communities need to invest time and effort to generate the social capital or ‘glue’ which binds them together and counteracts the resultant decline in trust between neighbours.

A counter argument might say that this measure is not relevant anymore, though, and that mobility is a good thing in that it allows communities to renew and refresh. The Internet, too, has facilitated this mobility both in terms of work, communication and access to services.

It would be interesting to hear your views.