Small is still beautiful

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Small is still beautiful
Localism and public services
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The politics of localism

• The government double devolution/quangocracy
• Democratic socialist (Morris) revival of local
  government.
• Liberal people-centred localism co-production
• Conservative small business and competition
• Green money flows/local life

3
Roadblocks to localism

• Target culture
• Efficiency culture
• Risk culture
• Corporate culture
• Consumer culture
• Note for each of the traditions, the main
  supporters are deeply enmeshed in the problem.

4
Possible ways out

• The People Principle
• Indemnification and co-production
• Effectiveness not efficiency
• Anti-trust and procurement
• Money flows analysis

5
The People Principle

• The McKinsey Fallacy Everything can be counted,
  and what can be counted can be managed.
• The People Principle If you employ imaginative
  and effective people at local level and give them
  the freedom to innovate, they will succeed no
  matter what the programme is. If you dont, they
  will fail, no matter what the programme is.

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Output indicators
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Co-production

• The failures of conventional welfare.
• The vital role of time
• - Chicago crime research.
• - MDR-TB
• Defining clients differently (according to
  abilities).
• Professional dependency.
• Reciprocity not philanthropy.
• Public services as engines of local renewal.
• New kind of mutualism

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Effectiveness not efficiency

• McDonaldisation/Tescofication
• The next time you are phoned by a computer,
  gently place the phone on the floor, thereby
  allowing the disembodied voice to drove on and
  occupying the line so that others will not be
  bothered by such calls for a while.
• If you are a regular at McDonald's, develop
  personal ties with the counterpeople try to get
  to know them.
• Rage against the dying of the light.
• George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society

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The cost of centralisation

• The Empty Homes Agency
• The NHS
• The Probation Service

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Anti-trust and procurement

• Local competition policies
• Break up the monopolies
• BizFizz and enterprise coaching
• The perils of national procurement
• The benefits of local procurement

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Northumberland
Local suppliers in Northumberland re-spent on
average 76 per cent of their income from
contracts with local people and businesses, while
suppliers from outside Northumberland spent only
36 per cent in the area. Every 1 spent with a
local supplier is worth 1.76 to the local
economy, and only 36 pence if it is spent out of
the area. That makes 1 spent locally worth
almost 400 per cent more. A ten per cent
increase in the proportion of the council's
annual procurement spent locally would mean 34
million extra circulating in the local economy
each year.
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Money flows analysis
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Ghost Town Britain

• Six wholesalers closing every week.
• 2,000 small shops closed last year.
• 1,500 football pitches lost in London since 1989.
• Third of UK bank branch network lost 1992-2002.
• 60 cottage hospitals lost in 2002.
• 20 traditional pubs close every year.
• Average person travels 893 miles a year to buy
  food.
• Only 18 per cent of parks now in good condition.

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Clone Town Britain

• People (1) invest, and want to live, in places
  that are distinctive, (2) visit places that
  bustle, (3) are attracted to what is real.

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What all this means

• All these elements feed off each other.
• They require a Big Bang local shift.
• Different, more human ways of measuring success
  (which may include complementary currencies).
• Human relationships are at the heart they make
  things happen.
• Shift of the argument local is therefore
  efficient and less costly.

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Find out more
www.neweconomics.org www.david-boyle.co.uk www.tim
edollar.org www.timebanks.co.uk www.clonetownbrita
in.org.uk www.bizfizz.org.uk www.pluggingtheleaks.
org