Growing the Civic Core:  How to get new people to commit to regularised voluntary social action in an age of austerity in North East England
A seminar organised by the Institute for Local Governance
Bewicks Seminar Room, Gateshead Civic Centre Friday 15 April 2016, 9.30 – 1.00

For many years, voluntary social action has been lauded by governments around the Western world. In the UK, the desire to help build sustainable communities by promoting volunteering resulted in much investment by successive Labour governments. In recent years much less government money has been made available to support volunteering. And yet, in these very different fiscal and policy environments, the ‘civic core’ remained at much the same size and continued to include the same kinds of people.

Growing the civic core demands that new people, who have not traditionally trodden the path towards regular voluntary social action, commit time to benefit their communities. This seminar asks, how can the public sector, voluntary sector and private sector contribute in complementary ways to cement people’s commitment to voluntary action.

While there is much less money around now for the local public sector to invest directly in the promotion of volunteering, this has not diminished policy makers’ enthusiasm for encouraging people to do so. Furthermore, with local authorities drawing back from service delivery in a number of areas such as libraries, leisure facilities and community centres, voluntary support can provide one means to fill gaps in provision.

In pursuing this approach there are several legal, institutional, cultural, political and financial issues which need to be addressed. Drawing on the experience of voluntary, private and public sector stakeholders, academic research and a series of case studies on innovative practice – the seminar will explore how to break down entry barriers to the civic core and consider the potential opportunities to strengthen commitment to voluntary social action in existing and new areas of community life.

Speakers at the seminar will include: John Craggs, Chief Executive, Gentoo;  Sarah Gorman, Project Director, Edbert’s House, Gateshead; Katie Hyson, Thought Leadership, Learning & Innovation Group, Barclays Bank; Julian Batson, Barclays Bank; Lindsay Murray, Service Director for Culture, Communities, Leisure and Volunteering, Gateshead Council. The seminar will be chaired by Professor Tony Chapman, St Chad’s College, Durham University.

The seminar is free to attend, but places are limited and they tend to book up quickly, so please register your attendance via: Janet Atkinson, Institute for Local Governance, Durham University janet.atkinson@durham.ac.uk.

The Institute for Local Governance is a North East Research and Knowledge Exchange Partnership established in 2009 comprising the North East region’s Universities, Local Authorities, Police and Fire and Rescue Services. Further information about the content of the event can be obtained by contacting:- tony.chapman@durham.ac.uk or john.mawson@durham.ac.uk.

Presentations from the seminar can be downloaded here: John Craggs from Gentoo –  Growing the Civic CoreBarclays – Building the civic core Lindsay Murray Sarah Gorman Tony Chapman

Professor Tony Chapman will be making his fourth visit to Japan this March to continue working with colleagues, Professors Shibukawa, Takatani and Nakajima on a long standing comparative study of Japanese and North East England social enterprises. This work, which began in 2007 is exploring the ways that social enterprise can work in very different cultural, policy and economic environments.

Tony will also be forging new relationships with academics while in Japan to explore new possibilities for comparative research on foreign direct investment in the UK and Japan, and also to develop new comparative research on corporate social responsibility programmes by UK and Japanese companies.

During his week in Tokyo, he will visit Profesor Yoshinori Isagai, Executive Director,  Keio Research Institute; Professor Kanji Tanimoto, School of Commerce, Waseda University; Professor Motohide Takeda, Department of Economics, Teikyo University; and Professor Hiroshi Ishida, Institute of Social Sciences, Tokyo University.

Professor Chapman will be visiting Lori Henderson at the British Chamber of Commerce Japan (BCCJ) to continue their conversation on the experiences of UK firms which have established themselves in Japan and will attend an event at the Tokyo Hilton, Shinjuku, addressed by Governor Masuzoe on city business strategy.  It will also be the cherry blossom viewing season when Tokyo is at its most beautiful.

Over the past few months, the Government has been developing proposals for the devolution of some powers from London to the North East. It’s a modest amount of devolution and it comes with strings attached. If the region’s local councils sign up to it, they will have to agree to have a new region-wide elected mayor. Some people see the devolution deal as a positive development that could lead on to more devolved power in the future. Others don’t like it; they think local democracy could be weakened and that the regional combined authority of councils will get the blame for Government spending cuts.

The North East’s councils have provisionally signed up to the deal. However, Durham County Council decided that they wanted to gauge public opinion before making a final decision.

The Institute for Local Governance was asked by Durham County Council to help with the public consultation. Professor Fred Robinson, St Chad’s College, was commissioned to do the job. He drew up unbiased information about what’s on offer and devised questions to find out what people think of it. The Council sent the information and the questions to every elector in County Durham.

There was an impressive response. Nearly 82,000 people answered the questions, a response rate of almost 22%, which is very good for this kind of exercise. 60% said devolving some power and resources to the North East would be a step in the right direction. So there is support for the deal. But people are cautious about how much power the mayor would have and not sure that devolution would actually make much difference. Now it’s up to the Council to consider the results and make a final decision.

Fred commented: ‘It was an interesting task. I had to design the consultation so that people would understand the issues and want to respond. I was very pleased with the response and I think the answers will help the Council decide what to do. I’m glad we’ve been able to help’.

Tony Chapman, Professorial Fellow at St Chads, spoke to researchers in the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University on 3rd February on how to harness ideas and findings to shape the way policy makers make decisions. It was argued that while social scientific research was undertaken rigorously, it invariably stems from a position of ‘interest’, so there is always a risk of the accusation of bias. Consequently, researchers have to be particularly careful about how they present their findings to people of influence.

The audience were reminded of the satirical (but well founded) observations of Jonathan Lynn and Anthony Jay in Yes Minister in which Sir Humphrey Appleby rehearsed how to  dispense with unwelcome research findings using arguments such as these ‘It leaves important questions unanswered’; ‘much of the evidence is inconclusive’; ‘the figures are open to other interpretations’; ‘certain findings are contradictory’; and, ‘some of the main conclusions have been questioned (and if they haven’t, question them yourself; then they have).’

While it was recognised that some researchers may be content with exploring social problems rigorously and allowing others to draw their own conclusions about their relevance, Professor Chapman asserted that most social scientists wanted to find ways in which their research might be used to make a positive difference to the world. This can only happen, though by persuading people, on the strength of ideas and evidence, to think about things in a different way.

There’s no point in waiting for people to beat a path to your door as an academic – it is necessary to get in and amongst it with policy makers. But of course, academics need to think carefully about how they convey their message to those people they intend to influence. This requires a good deal of empathy with the interests of those who make policy or influence professional practice. Consequently, it is vital to recognise the ‘level’ at which academics seek to influence; whether it is a local hospital or local authority, a regional entity, a practicing profession, a campaign group, national government, and so on.  And it is vital to be respectful of and willing to learn from the knowledge that politicians and practitioners have.

In the seminar Professor Chapman argued that ‘facts’ or ‘findings’ rarely speak for themselves – they need to be clearly and succinctly translated into the kind of language that policy makers and practitioners can easily grasp, retain and be eager to communicate to others.  Furthermore, because policy makers are rarely interested in exploring the intricacies of the research methodology, academics have to focus their minds on what they can offer in the way of concrete recommendations on what needs to be done. That requires an enthusiasm on the part of researchers to debate issues on policy makers’ own terms rather than those of the academy.

It can be an uphill struggle to make a difference with the Sir Humphries of the world who may say that there’s ‘not really a basis for long term decisions’; ‘not sufficient information on which to base a valid assessment’;  ‘no reason for any fundamental rethink of existing policy’; and ‘broadly speaking, it endorses current practice’. So along with empathy and enthusiasm, courage and determination are required too.

St Chad’s researchers welcomed Dr. Patrick Harman to the College to discuss complementary interests on charitable giving and community regeneration.  Dr Harman serves as the Executive Director of the Hayden-Harman Foundation.  He is responsible for making giving recommendations as well as monitoring and guiding the Foundation’s processes for determining charitable activities.  He is also an adjunct professor at Elon University where he teaches courses on the nonprofit sector and community development.

His current major work for the Foundation has been a revitalization effort in an historic African-American neighborhood in High Point, North Carolina.  This work has included four commercial building renovations, fifteen residential housing improvements, a new municipal park, and many community events such as family movies, structured play at the park, and neighborhood festivals.

As a Fulbright scholar based in the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University, Dr Harmon will be contributing alongside Professor Fred Robinson of Policy & Practice, while in England, to the University’s ‘Imagine’ project funded by ESRC on Tyneside.