“I do not refer to real estate, or to personal property or to cold cash, but rather to that in life which tends to make these tangible substances count for most in the daily lives of people, namely, goodwill, fellowship, mutual sympathy and social intercourse among a group of individuals and families who make up a social unit… If he may come into contact with his neighbor, and they with other neighbors, there will be an accumulation of social capital, which may immediately satisfy his social needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community. The community as a whole will benefit by the cooperation of all its parts, while the individual will find in his associations the advantages of the help, the sympathy, and the fellowship of his neighbors”

Last Sunday, 18th July, the residents of Sudbourne Road, Brixton, gathered to celebrate “The Big Lunch 2010″. Under appropriately blue skies our sleepy, if perfectly formed, slice of south London was transformed for an afternoon into a theatre of food, music, dancing, playing, face painting, badge making, ice cream slurping and neighbourly celebration.

Pre-dating the now ubiquitous “Big Society”, TBL is – like all good ideas – a very simple one. By encouraging neighbours and communities to come together and socialise within the simple construct of a street party, they believe we can:

And you know what. It might just work.

I’ve lived on this street for over two years.  It’s a beautiful place. Yet we only knew the wonderful couple who rent the flat below us and our neighbours to the right. And really, that was it before last Sunday. And it’s interesting how that seems entirely acceptable for so long. How you can live in such close proximity to so many people and yet live so very far apart.

I won’t deny to being a little bit cynical when Lucy Sherwood (our fearless leader for 2010) dropped the first of the leaflets for this year’s event through the door. It’s just easier that way it seems. But I couldn’t help but notice that as the day grew closer the greater my anticipation – and hopes – grew. The evolutionary psychologist in me would have diagnosed this as the natural reaction of any innately social animal, but it was also in part triggered by my long held interest in behavioural psychology – particularly when concerned with collective/group behaviour – both in the workplace and in society at large. In particular, two of my favorite studies on the role and importance of community or social capital, kept playing out in my mind. 

In 1995 Robert Putnam published a groundbreaking study of the growing fragmentation and associated dislocation of community and group life in America. Initially published as an article in the Journal of Democracy ““Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”, a book of the same name in 2000 went on to be a bestseller.  According to Putnam, social capital “refers to the collective value of all ‘social networks‘ and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other”. According to Putnam, social capital is a key component to building and maintaining democracy. Putnam’s studies of modern American life led him to conclude that social capital is declining in the United States. This is seen in lower levels of trust in government and lower levels of civic participation. Putnam also says that television and urban sprawl have had a significant role in making America far less ‘connected’. Putnam believes that social capital can be measured by the amount of trust and “reciprocity” in a community or between individuals.

Anyone familiar with life in N. Ireland or wider United Kingdom will recognise that the trends described by Puttnam are mirrored here. As The Big Lunch website itself reminds us:

While there are subtleties to be recognised with regard to some disadvantages and inequalities associated with the creation and distribution of ’social capital’, in the main commentators agree that it can be an extremely positive force – increasing civic and political participation (”The Big Society”), contributing to our personal and collective mental well-being (The New Economics Foundation) as well as improving our physical health and life expectancy.

Those of you who have read Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent Outliers, will be familiar with what has become known as “The Roseto Effect”.  In the mid 1960’s medical researchers – led by Stewart Wolf (a physician) - were drawn to Roseto (a close-knit Italian-American community Pennsylvania) by a fascinating but puzzling statistic: defying medical logic, Rosetans died of heart attacks at a rate only half that of the rest of America. The men of the village smoked and drank wine without moderation. They worked out their days doing hard manual labor in nearby slate quarries. The Mediterranean diet, with its preference for olive oil rather than animal fats, had to be compromised as poor immigrants couldn’t afford to import cooking oil from their homeland and so instead they fried their sausages and browned their meatballs in lard (don’t we all?). Yet, they retained unusually healthy hearts in spite of their unhealthy diet and lifestyle. The question was: How?

In “The Power of Clan”, a report on studies conducted by Wolf and John Bruhn (a sociologist) over a broad period of time from 1935 to 1984, they found that mutual respect and cooperation contribute to the health and welfare of a community and its inhabitants while a lack of concern for others and self indulgence have the opposite effect.

Studying the history of Roseto, they found that early immigrants were shunned by the English and Welsh who dominated this corner of eastern Pennsylvania. As a result, the Rosetans turned inward and built their own culture of cooperation and community.

“People are nourished by other people,” said Wolf, noting that the characteristics of tight-knit community are better predictors of healthy hearts than are low levels of serum cholesterol or tobacco use. He explained that an isolated individual may be overwhelmed by the problems of everyday life. Such a person internalized that feeling as stress which, in turn, can adversely affect everything from blood pressure to kidney function. That, however, is much less likely to be the outcome when a person is surrounded by caring friends, neighbors and relatives. The sense of being supported reduces stress and the disease stress engenders.

More recently studies in both the USA and here by the BMJ have confirmed the correlation between an active social life/set of social connections and longer life expectancy.

And though it my not have felt that way as  I hoovered up Sudbourne Road’s finest samosa’s, jerk chicken, potato salad, sausages, ice cream and baked goods; there was an undeniable feeling of hope, optimism and yes, “well being” (personal an collective) as the evening drew to a close.

New neighbours had been met; interesting conversations held; ideas on matters of interest to the local community – schooling and local planning applications in particular - were exchanged; histories shared; new friendships made. We appear – and it’s a shame on me that this was even remotely a surprise – to live among wonderful people with shared aspirations, hopes and fears for our street, their families and themelves.

And so in the midst of all the semantic scuffles about The Big Society (or more locally known as Lambeth’s “Co-Operative Council”), what it is and what it might/must become it was a delightful thought that something as simple as a set of street parties, held across the UK, bringing neighbours together one day in July, might just be doing more for all of us than David Cameron’s band of merry social architects as yet.

“People are nourished by other people”.  That’s the Big Lunch. Literally and metaphorically.

Long may it run.

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The Harvard Business Review rarely lets me down but today they strayed into the business of “stating  the bloody obvious”:

http://web.hbr.org/email/archive/dailystat.php?date=051010

I mean what next: Joseph Ratzinger outed as a Catholic and a bear found “taking a break” in the woods? I hope they got reduced rates from McKinsey on this one!!

Employee engagement in change programs has long been known to be a critical success factor in any effort at organisational change so no idea why this was worthy of “Daily Stat” release today or any other day.

I’ll forgive them this time…but something inside me died a little…

Beautiful images of another Ireland. Hard to believe how relatively recently some of these images were captured and a timely reminder of the many changes – some good, some not so good – that we have witnessed on our island in the last 30 years.

The book is sensational.

I meant to comment on this last month but travel kept me away from the PC:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article7026852.ece

This was a fascinating article on February’s Sutton Trust Report and I was actually genuinely delighted to see an echo of a  few of my suggestions made back in October 2009 in a article on the long running post Primary School selection process in Northern Ireland:

http://www.shanepcarmichael.com/2009/11/selection-its-only-natural/   

(check under “some humble suggestions”)

More and more we are coming to understand that education is a sophisticated and much more social process than any narrow debate in NI about post primary education selection or means of selection would have us believe. Consistently on this blog I have maintained that while some form of streaming or selection is a must in any mature and inclusive education system, our real focus should be on primary education; on ensuring our administration of that education is innovative and inclusive enough to support pupils from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds and encouraging an ethos of and commitment to  ”concerted cultivation” of our young children among parents and local communities.  We are currently failing our young people during their most formative years.

NI has wasted over a year wrangling on the narrow issue of post primary selection. It’s time someone started to address the more fundamental – and root cause – issues associated with Primary Education,othewse the means of post Primary selection will be entirely a moot point.  There are some easy ‘quick win’ fixes to this challenge as I and the Sutton Report suggest while we understand how to cultivate that wider community and parental ability to cntribute to the life-long success of our most precious resources 

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A few months ago there was much media interest in a proposal by Mike Freer, then leader of Barnet Council, to change the relationship between local councils and the citizens it serves with the focus being on finding and delivering efficiencies.

I read an interesting article with Mr Freer in today’s Guardian which promptd me to scrawl these thoughts…

In summary the three pronged approach proposed is thus:

1. Offer a basic set of services with additional or prioritised services subject to supplementary payments (where allowed within law). This element of the strategy led to the media labelling the proposal as creating “easyCouncils” after EasyJet and its no frills approach to business - somewhat disproportionately given it was only one part of the “Future Shape” strategy
2. The consolidation (in the name of efficiency) and streamlining of back office public sector functions in an area (aka shared services) and the creation of (our old favorite) a central shared citizen database to enable easier access to citizen needs across multiple service areas reducing duplication of contact and service
3. Targeted intervention strategies for those families who are “high cost” cases including a dedicated liaison officer per family.

In principle I think all this is pretty unexciting stuff - none of it is enormously groundbreaking, particularly points 2 & 3. Although I find unpalatable in the extreme the idea of ‘levels of service’ determined by the ability to pay. That’s just not in my view an acceptable way to deliver public services.

The idea of consolidating back office functions in Government is one I have experience of. Having been around a significant number of Public Sector ”back office streamlining and consolidation” or “single database” or “revised channel/service strategy” projects it’s not so much “easyCouncils” as (un)easyCouncils. 

None of these things are insurmountable to deliver but they are not insignificant areas of change (people, process and technology) particularly when trying to maintain business operations as usual.  These things require significant and sometimes extended up front and ongoing investment – financial and operational. New systems and new ways of working – across councils and departments while changing front line working practices (a change not easy to facilitate overnight). And who will foot that bill and for how long before savings are realised? And let’s not mention the legal wrangles that are sure to come or how this will impact any attempt at cross Council Service Provision comparison?

Followers of Vanguard and John Seddon would go even further and say that there is no evidence that these “shared service” models work at all: http://www.lgcplus.com/5010322.article

I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done to reinvigorate local government and re-empowering local Councils to find new service models is fundamental to many things, not least reinvigorating our political system. But it definitely isn’t “easy”.

I am counting down the days until we start to hear the language of the last era of Public Sector austerity – the early 2000’s – and in particular that favorite phrase of the day: “Spend to Save”. It rolls off the tongue quite nicely doesn’t it. I can hear many Consultants across the land whispering it manta-like on their way to work…”Spend to Save”…”Spend to Save”…that’s right, repeat after me….

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• easyBarnet(fightingmonsters.wordpress.com)
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