Note from an online roundtable: Coronavirus - building community and connection 3
Note of a third online roundtable on the coronavirus crisis and the power of connection and community, 18 June 2020
Summary
We started with speakers who set the scene, then went into four breakout groups, and came back into a plenary discussion in which the groups reported back. The key messages were:
A common purpose in the Covid-19 crisis is driving collaboration. Can we create a future common purpose as we emerge from the crisis?
The surge in mutual aid, and the Black Lives Matter protests, have raised fundamental questions about the role of many institutions. A shift in power, and a letting go, is clearkly required. But there will be resistance.
The state and charities have a tendency to ‘colonise’ human connections to validate their own work. But we know from excellent examples it need not be like this.
The recent procurement guidelines have encouraged collaboration rather than competition, and these need to be maintained.
The role of local community anchors as ‘cogs of connection’ has been undervalued. And we need to better appreciate the different roles that individuals, community groups, established voluntary agencies, businesses, as well as local and national government can best play.
2. In more detail
Caroline Slocock, co-convenor of the Better Way, introduced the discussion. She explained that this was a third meeting on Covid19 and the power of connection and community. Our Call to Action for a Better Way called for a radical shift to liberate the power of connection and community and in recent weeks across the country we have seen inspiring examples of this, despite physical distancing.
The discussions have highlighted both opportunity and danger. Many of the things we have set out in our Call to Action (collaborative leadership, sharing power, changing organisations and shifting practices in favour of human relationships) are happening, sometimes faster and better than we could have imagined. There has been more solidarity and sense of purpose, flexibility, creativity, a speed of response, new connections and collaborations, as well as more humanity and kindness. But the future is more likely to be a negative one, with more inequality, more command and control, and more suffering. So what can we do collectively and individually to turn this into a moment where things go better in the future, not worse? And in particular this meeting will consider how we can we build on the collaborative leadership that is already happening, to change for good.
Nick Plumb, Locality
Nick highlighted findings from the new Locality report ‘We were built for this’. Local collaborative relationships are being built in many places, driven in part by shared purpose across sectors and across public agencies. Collaboration has especially flourished where there were pre-existing relationships with community organisations. Community organisations were often able to take the lead and move quickly, not waiting to ask permission. National procurement guidance issued at beginning of the crisis allowed greater flexibility and this also helped to create favourable conditions for partnership.
The report contains recommendations on community powered economic recovery, on ways of turning community spirit into community power, and on collaborative public services. These include a shift from the competitive mind-set which has underpinned public services for many years to a new collaborative mind-set. In the wake of a decade of cuts in public spending the report calls for a review of local government finance including new fiscal powers to reverse cuts to preventative services, and tackle inequality. The recent very welcome cabinet office guidance on procurement should be further embedded, rather than a return to normal. Government should also promote models of service transformation partnerships between councils, community organisations, and health agencies and peer learning programmes such as the Locality-hosted The Keep it Local Network should be expanded. There are several opportunities to influence government investment and policy to support a shift in favour of local collaboration, including the long-promised UK Shared Prosperity Fund, the forthcoming Community Ownership fund, and the forthcoming Devolution White Paper.
The report also explains that community-led anchor organisations can play a critical role in establishing ‘cogs of connection’ in a locality, but as Nick pointed out this not always recognised and rarely funded through public sector contracts, and that needs to change
Becca Dove, Camden Council
Becca is head of family support and complex families. She described a recent Zoom call led by the manager of Kentish Town Community Centre, with local residents, a council colleague who runs food hubs, a local GP delivering social prescribing by bringing people together in a garden, and partners from University College London. In the meeting there was no distinction between the council staff, residents, community workers, and academics. ‘Lanyards were left on the floor’, said Becca, and people made on the spot offers to help each other: ‘I can do that for you.’ There was a strong sense of the commons, of everyone seeing themselves as stewards, wanting to leave Kentish Town in a better place, and seeing connection and relationships as the way to do that. Becca wrote an article in April, recognising that the state doesn’t always have the answer, and that during the emergency the community have given the solutions to a problem in countless ways. The job of the council is to lend hand and hearts to the constant collective effort, making a contribution, respecting what residents need and want, and recognising the widespread goodness in the community. New public management forced everyone down the wrong road, but there are a lot of public servants who think and feel as Becca does, she feels.
3. Achieving more collaborative leadership
Participants broke into smaller groups to discuss the question, ‘What can be done nationally and locally to achieve more collaborative leadership in the coming months?’ Feedback from the breakout sessions, and the subsequent discussion, included the following points:
Common purpose
There is an underlying power imbalance, and while people have generally put aside competitive behaviours and organisational roles in the crisis, we can’t assume that will continue in future.
A sense of shared endeavour in the face of a common enemy has been critical to encourage collaboration. We will need to establish a new common cause in the months ahead, one capable of determining how we behave towards each other and which will maintain the shift from ‘I AM’ to ‘WE ARE’.
We will need to describe and name the future we want to see as clearly as possible.
Letting go
In times of crisis institutions have discovered they do not have the flexibility to respond to community action, and when they do respond, they often do so in ways which seek to validate themselves. They need to learn to let go and trust. Where that has happened it leaves a positive legacy and the foundations for a different kind of relationship.
The conventional charity model may not be the way forward. It has been challenged by the wave of mutual aid, and by the recent Black Lives Matter protests. Some organisations are thinking deeply out their purpose and role and how they work. But there are many in institutions of all sectors who are not ready or willing to let go, and will want to hold on to their power.
Understanding different roles
There are different and distinctive roles that can be played by community self-help, established community organisations, and the public authorities.
There is an unresolved debate about role of the state. Is the role for local government, for example, to protect citizens, by taking action directly, or should it adopt a more hands-off role which allow people to take action on their own terms?
It was suggested that charities achieve most when they see their role as meeting the purpose of individuals.
Businesses have been compelled to rethink their purpose, and a new alignment between communities and businesses might be possible.
Commissioning and procurement
The prevailing commissioning system is hard-wired to drive competition between groups, and that produces weak and transactional relationships. But good commissioning can encourage collaboration. Human Learning Systems, developed by Better Way member Toby Lowe, with Collaborate, presents an alternative to new public management methods, and sets out a better path for commissioning and procurement.
The Moral Economy
It’s not always about money, but it is always about connection, it was felt. The term ‘moral economy’ describes economic activity that can take place without money changing hands. This can happen on a very big scale (for example in the Arba’een pilgrimage in Iraq which can include 20 million people and where people are fed without money for days on end).
Civic immune systems – the precious nature of relationships between human peoples, can be infected and damaged by funding, interventions of voluntary agencies, or the state. Individualism on the political left and right has led to outsourcing many things that we used to do as families and communities. We should not seek to go backwards, but human life is enriched when we do things together. The distinctions between labour, work, and action made by Hannah Arendt may be helpful in our thinking on this.
Creating conditions for collaboration to flourish
Community spaces and other forms of local infrastructure can encourage connectivity and help to build a more equal and mutually supportive society, as Eric Klinenberg’s book Palaces for the People explains (and see an interview with him here).
We need to understand what it takes for people to relate to each other well. The language we use can help, or can get in the way. Many terms in widespread use (like complex families, vulnerable people) reinforce them-and-us divisions, and we need to frame our story in different ways.
A strong signal from central government in favour of collaborative practice, in service of local communities, and to create the conditions for people to do things on their own terms, would be helpful, and would confer permission for those in the public sector and beyond to do things differently. But it is best not to depend on that, it is always better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission.
Some things, mutual aid groups for example. are best left alone, and certainly not regulated.
4. Next meeting
We agreed we should organise a further meeting, in a few weeks’ time. Suggested topics for discussion:
The unifying shared purpose beyond the COVID-19 crisis.
The changing and distinctive roles of individuals, community organisations, charities, and the state, and the contribution each can make to the social architecture we want to see in the future.
Better Way members are invited to contribute blogs and video clips on these or related topics.