Enabling Self Sufficiency

Sea are now embarking on a pilot programme in Pengegon, which is centred around a vision for enabling the community to become increasingly self-sufficient. We envisage that this could significantly reduce the social and economic impacts of deprivation in communities.

Community Job Creation

From our continued engagement with the community we have learnt that most of what motivates residents is based around their community. Subsequently we have co-developed a "community job creation" scheme that encourages residents to become more active in their communities, gain confidence and develop the skills they need for getting back into employment.

The scheme enlists residents on community projects such as the build of a new community centre, community maintenence, retrofitting houses for energy efficiency, installing broadband - anything and everything that will create a significantly improved living environment.

Create An Intermediate Labour Market

This will create an intermediate labour market that links people with jobs in their own estate and create a catalyst for sustainable employment that is supported through skills development and family/community engagement. If their activity performs a valuable role in the community and can be sponsored, each resident will have the option to be paid the minimum wage and come off benefits.

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It's a mission that has served Sea well so far and yet, as co-director of Sea, I find myself longing for the autonomy and mandate to get to the epicentre of problems such as deprivation, poverty, healthcare, housing, employment, waste, energy, sustainable living and so forth.

I have a definite sense that we are on the right track with our work for CPR Regeneration in Pengegon (a Dott Cornwall project). It's clear to me that community restoration is key to reducing deprivation and state dependency, and the practical steps towards this goal seem really achievable.

And yet...and yet...a culture of dependency within deprived communities seems more than offset by a political view that deprived communities can't be independent. Who's holding who back?

Here is a challenge that I would like to get to the bottom of, because given a generation or two, I believe the benefits system could be phased out without jeopardising the welfare of people. There will always be jeopardy in deprived communities, don't get me wrong, but jeopardy in a strong, well-designed, self-sufficient community is a jeopardy that would bring people together rather than create divides and apathy, as the benefit system does.

I'm sure the same could be said of the social dilemmas for young people, old people, people affected by redundancy and worklessness, people in poor health. Whatever their situation, whatever their jeopardy, there are always ways to inspire change and people within communities who will inspire behaviour.

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He thought our work, and the work in Pengegon that had preceded us, was a compelling example of Big Society in action. Where ideas and improvements were best achieved in partnership with residents and agencies already active in the community.

Lord Wei was interested in how we had started to think more deeply about the social challenges faced in Pengegon; such as the disproportionate cost of Jobseekers Allowance and Incapacity Benefits within a community like Pengegon.

He also liked the way we had considered the economic impact of social deprivation in England, not just in terms of the benefits system, but in other areas of spending too - like the national health and family support services.

In getting to know the people and protagonists in Pengegon, we've achieved two things. Firstly, we've co-designed a new community building, which has been led by the residents. Along the way, Designing Communities has enabled the community to feel better about themselves.

Secondly, we've presented new ideas to Lord Wei and the Department for Communities and Local Government for reducing the number of people on long-term benefits. One idea - the Peoples Benefits System - focuses on nurturing community activism as a way of topping up benefit payments, and this idea is about people accepting change for themselves and their community. From small things do big things come.

Another example of how Big Society might be delivered with small change comes from our second Dott project New Work Cornwall - a skills development project for the Skills Funding Agency.

We spent three months mapping the employment opportunities in Cornwall arising from public investments. In total, we added up 22,715 new jobs forecast for Cornwall. Let's compare that number against the number of unemployed people in Cornwall (17,700) and the number of people currently claiming Jobseekers in Cornwall (8,298).

You don't need to be a maths whizz to see that the cost would double if all unemployed people claimed jobseekers (adding around £16m to the taxpayers bill by my calculations). Then again, in theory anyway, for every unemployed person in Cornwall there is a job with which they can aspire to.

The current system for supporting unemployed people is to provide lots and lots of support. Yet, with unemployment still rising, one must reflect at some point about whether this represents value for money.

By contrast, New Work through co-design has outlined a number of unique ideas, such as Freedundancy, where services and support are exchanged or bartered by individuals and businesses without any funds being passed. This idea among many others would be a very Big Society approach. The future of service delivery?

And so to our last project for Dott, the Big Design Challenge sponsored by the Technology Strategy Board. Epic budget cuts sounds like a bad deal for people and, when presented as an alternative to budget cuts, it's understandable that many people and the media dismiss Big Society as vague. But without budget cuts, without an economic crisis, would we be thinking differently? Would we be thinking about achieving more for less?

This project asked the people of Cornwall what issues matter most to them, and they responded in their numbers. The Community Innovation Awards at the Eden Project demonstrated what can be achieved by providing the right information and the right environment for successful collaboration.

So, can Big Society be delivered with small change?

In my view, yes it can be, it's simply a question of how you look at problems and how we all look at society. There will always be better and more sustainable answers out there. As Albert Einstein said: "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

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Having identified the viability of a community building in Pengegon, our next challenge was to co-design it. We wanted to empower the community and take ownership of the building, but we recognized that engagement of so-called ‘heard to reach' communities is challenging.

Enter the service design cake. Children and parents came after school, they created floor plans and moodboards and made a community centre model out of cake and sweets. This was inspiring and insightful, and demonstrates how it is possible to get any community motivated to participate.

Following this co-design activity, we used this information to develop some early stage building space plans for further discussion with the community. And here was the result:

"The residents already feel that they own the new community centre, even though it doesn't yet exist." 

Claire Arymar, Neighbourhood Manager, Cornwall Council

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So the question is, why?

Experts tell us that it is because of the general "can't be bothered" attitude in the community. "People lack motivation to change the way they do things" and the "general feeling of apathy" is blamed for unusually high levels of unemployment, education drop out, poverty, crime, teenage pregnancy, drug and alcohol problems. But by talking to some of the residents themselves, we are beginning to discover that very often people either don't know what services are available to them or simply don't understand the benefits they may bring.

So can better communication change peoples' behaviour?

There is no silver bullet when it comes to changing people's behaviour, some people will never change no matter what you do, but by talking to people on the Pengegon estate we believe that by improving communication and providing better facilities the majority will respond in a positive way and the downward spiral of deprivation given time, will begin to turn the other way.

So would a new community centre with trusted workers be a good place to start? Could it restore the sense of self pride and community pride needed to reverse the trend? Our work so far suggest that a community centre should be:

• A place that gives people a reason to be happy and like who th ey are.
• A place that gives people a reason to meet and exchange in conversation.
• A place that gives people chance to learn and succeed.
• A place where the community can take control of their own future.

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