There are no experts - being Part VIII of a series

The beauty of a series of posts is that you get the chance to see an issue from several points of view (that indeed explains the blog's title). Although the focus of the present series of posts has been a strategy covering half of Scotland’s population for 20 odd years, the underlying question has been whether it had an appropriate “theory of change” and that is the one I want to pursue today.

Of course, no one used such a phrase in the 1970s – nor indeed “managing change” which became so fashionable almost 2 decades later as you can see from the Annotated bibliography for change agents I wrote at a much later stage. But I do remember reading Managing Change and making it stick by Roger Plant when it first came out in paperback in 1989/90.  This was indeed the very first book I came across on the topic - and note the date! It was only in the 1990s that the “management of change” exploded into fashionability – with The Expertise of the Change Agent - public performance and backstage activity (1992), for example, offering some fascinating insights. But it was 2000 before Robert Quinn gave us the deeply impressive “Change the World”-  which coincided with the outbreak of unrest from social movements globally.. 

How, then, did Strathclyde Region develop its particular “theory of change”?

The following is, I think, a fair description of its key elements -

·         we understood that what we initially called “multiple deprivation” was a complex phenomenon and that, as put it. “there were no experts” as was evident when we round the various institutions of higher education to seek their help

·         we knew that this would be a long-term effort

·         we started gradually with a draft deprivation strategy in 1976

·         which designated 45 areas for priority treatment

·         in which community activity would be encouraged

·         took an experimental approach

·         reviewed progress after 5 years – using community conferences attended by about 1000 people

·         submitted a draft “Social Strategy for the Eighties” to a final conference

·         and then to the first Council meeting after the May 1982 Regional elections – giving it a fresh legitimacy

·         realised that the political conditions required a further tweak after another few years with a new dialogue to strengthen partnership with Glasgow District and to develop relations with the private sector 

The keywords, for me, are uncertainty, experimental, inclusive, participative, legitimacy, community structures, openness. But the question remained – what could we actually do? How on earth could we develop a strategy that could inspire?  The full story of the strategy is here – and a short version here. Here’s an excerpt -

 

In trying to develop a response we knew we faced strong resistance from two sources - first the left within the Labour Party who argued that economic realities meant that there was nothing that could be done at a local level (and in this they were joined by Keynesians). Growth and redistribution were matters for national Government and would have therefore to await a reforming Labour Government.

The second difficult group was the staff of the public sector whose loyalties were to their particular profession rather than to a local authority, a neighbourhood or policy group! And many staff had deeply-held prejudices about the capacity of people in these areas - and the desirability of working participatively with them - let alone with other professionals or local politicians.

How we devised a policy response - and its focus - had to be sensitive to these attitudes. The search for policy was also made immediately more difficult by the absence of any "experts" in the field. We knew there were none within the Council: and appeals to the local Universities produced no responses in those days.

We could, however, vaguely see four paths which had not been attempted –

 

·         Positive Discrimination : the scope for allocating welfare State resources on a more equitable basis had been part of the "New Left" critique since the late 1950s (Townsend). Being a new organisation meant that it was to no-one's shame to admit that they did not know how exactly the money was being allocated. Studies were carried out which confirmed our suspicions that it was the richer areas which, arguably, needed certain services least (eg "pre-school" services for children) which, in fact, had the most of them! And, once discovered, this was certainly an area we considered we had a duty to engage in redistribution of resources - notwithstanding those who considered this was not for local government to attempt. 

·         Community Development : one of the major beliefs shared by some of us driving the new Council (borne of our own experience) was that the energies and ideas of residents and local officials in these "marginalised" areas were being frustrated by the hierarchical structures of departments whose professionals were too often prejudiced against local initiatives. Our desire was to find more creative organisational forms which would release these ideas and energies - of residents and professionals alike. This approach meant experimentation (Barr;  Henderson; McConnell).

·         Inter-Agency Cooperation : there needed to be a focussed priority of all departments and agencies on these areas. Educational performance and health were affected more by housing and income than by teachers and doctors! One agency - even as large as Strathclyde - could not do much on its own. An intensive round of dialogues were therefore held in 1976/77 with District Councils, Central Government, Health Boards, Universities and Voluntary Organisations: it must be said that considerable time elapsed before there were material results from this eg it was 1984 before the Joint Area Initiatives in the larger Glasgow Housing Schemes were up and running and 1988 before central government was stirred to move.

·         Information and Income-Maximisation : the Region could certainly use its muscle to ensure that people were getting their entitlements : ie the information and advice to receive the welfare benefits many were missing out on. The campaigns mounted in the late 1970s were soon pulling millions of pounds into these areas: and served as a national model which attracted the active interest of the Minister at the time (Linda Chalker).

to be continued