Week 4 - Community Centre - Asset Transfer

[Alan Mulvie]

Hi folks,

I hope my discussion generates a bit of debate.

This is not my work email address as I don't think I can access This via work.  If folk want to email me at work it's amu...@aberdeencity.gov.uk

It's clear that there are some people who feel that the decision to have community centres managed by community members isn't an empowering decision.

I think that this is interesting as I said that this was also the impression that many of management committees had.

I'm curious as to what people feel the Council should have done to achieve empowerment in this situation?

Alan

[Pauline Gerrard]

Really enjoyed the presentation Alan. I believe timing was a major negative contributing factor to the disharmony regarding the new system. It was too easy for people ( and local press) to jump and attack the  ACC changes as being purely due to the lack of funding in the city. 

Basically ACC was having to convince Aberdonians that volunteering would be good for them - I do think in many ways this could be empowering,as volunteering can be, however ideally scrapping everything and starting from scratch may have been easier than all the hard work it has taken to implement the changes.

If there had been time to introduce the idea, allow people to be genuinely consulted and benefits to the community highlighted and capacity building support ( from an independent source) available to people, it may have been a smoother transition.

Pauline

[Kate MacLean]

Hi Alan (and Pauline!)

Something similar happened in Highland. Highlife Highland was a charity created out of the old LA Culture and Sport depts. The idea was to save paying rates on the bigger buildings, such as community and sports centres, libraries and museums. it certainly was not done by consultation! The dummy they sold was the one about retaining all staff: most folk are aware that a similar scheme in Glasgow ended up after year 2 making a third of the staff redundant, with another third soon.

And a particular concern of mine is that the Culture part is being sidelined, partly by attrition, partly by funding being removed. The same charity which pats itself on the back for an excellent rehab of ex-offenders using Adult Learner's funding, will not be able to continue because4 that strand of funding has just been cut - again, without consultation with either staff or the public.

The charity model means they can do as they please, without the caveats protecting disadvantaged groups that the LA used to abide by.

Rant over!

Kx

[Kevin McDermott]

Hi Alan

Thanks for doing the input and sorry it has taken me so long to respond to this. 

I think maybe some of the concerns that people have had are about the drivers of the change - was it because people wanted to take over the assets or was it because they felt they had no option?  I always remember someone talking in the past about why it was always the poorest that had to volunteer to provide basic services in their community ( I think then it was in relation to childcare)- services which other more affluent communities took for granted or were able to buy.

I think it is early days to see how the transfer will work out in practice - but hopefully support will still be available to help the committee's as the process develops. I posted a blog (http://kevinmcdermottmooc.wordpress.com/) on the MOOC about my experience of being a  Director of a charity owning an asset and running a social enterprise which I think has made me more realistic as a practitioner when working with groups on things like asset transfers which have long term implications. The transfer is the easy part.

Cheers, kevin

On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:31:20 PM UTC, Alan Mulvie wrote: