“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive!”

 I may have told the story of Strathclyde’s Social Strategy before – but being given the opportunity to reflect in Zoom conversations almost 30 years later does encourage different perspectives. The tale I told in 1999 was one of success - at least as far as the process of change was concerned. The management of change was, even in the mid-1980s, a largely neglected subject in the UK - indeed no one used such a phrase in those days. The first popular book with that phrase was Managing Change - and making it stick by Roger Plant - in 1989/90. It was the 1990s before the “management of change” exploded into fashionability – with, for example, The Expertise of the Change Agent - public performance and backstage activity (1992) by David Buchanan 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.. Just how fashionable the field became you can see from the Annotated bibliography for change agents I wrote in 1999

Although I started the 1999 paper with a list of the developments which had preceded the creation of Strathclyde Region, I realise now I had underestimated their significance. In particular I had – as most people do – underplayed the positive role of the Labour governments of 1964-1970

• The Labour government of 1964-70 spent much of its period in power exploring how the UK could be modernised; it did this largely via Royal Commissions ie a group of the "Great and the Good" who would take a couple of years to hear evidence and make recommendations

• Its perspective had been very much that of "high modernism" viz a commitment to size, democracy and efficiency

• perhaps no more so than in the literal decimation of the Scottish local government system (albeit with strong support from the Heath government of 1970-74) leading to the creation in 1974 of 9 elected Regions and 53 District Councils

I remember visiting the House of Commons in those years and having a discussion with Willie Ross, the Secretary of State for Scotland, to impress on him the benefits which could accrue the creation of Strathclyde Region – to which, of course, the old Scottish local authorities were utterly opposed. Hansard subsequently recorded Willie Ross's reference to the meeting. In the meantime, the world moved on

• "Born to Fail?" was a 1973 report which exposed the scandal of the scale of multiple deprivation in the West of Scotland ("social disadvantge" was the actual term used but amended in the media to "deprivation"))

• to which SRC responded strongly 2 years later with its deprivation strategy – which it elevated to its top priority

• The Region was seen as a bit of a monster - but some of us saw the "Born to Fail?" Report as an opportunity to demonstrate the difference a well-resourced government body could make to people's lives

• I remember traipsing around the departments of what were then 2 city Universities to try to find knowledgable people – there were none

• this was not only the first municipal strategy against deprivation – it was the first time any UK government body had attempted such a bold step

• It was a remarkably open process – almost certainly because we accepted that, as Labour councils had been responsible for housing and most services for several decades, we had to take our share of responsibility for the results

And we were lucky – a lot of wise people had been developing structures for reform in the previous deacde, expressing itself in at least 4 waves of change

• between 1971-74 a group of individuals led by Ken Alexander produced in 1974 the West Central Scotland plan which contained the basic analysis and recommendations to allow the Region to make the decision to

• one of the Royal Commissions (Wheatley) produced between 1966 and 1968 a radical set of recommendations for Scottish local government

• recognition of urban needs – in the urban programme and CDPs set up in 1968 in partial response to the US War on Poverty

• Special committees of experts were set up by central government in 1971 (Bains: Paterson) to produce - as guidance for new local authorities then being created in England and Scotland - organisational guidelines for better management and policy-making. The main criticism in the reports they produced was the way that local government decision-making focussed (a) on the past (ie continuing to do what it had done before); (b) on itself (making no attempt to explore what those receiving its services thought or wanted) and (c) on single services - rather than the impact on the community.

The new local authorities were therefore advised to -

• appoint a Chief Executive

• set up a Policy Committee (Cabinet)

• establish strategy processes (to ensure a focus on policy issues and on the future)

• have inter-departmental groups (to help that strategic work)

All this reflected what was considered best practice in business and was concerned to concentrate administrative and political power in new structures and posts which were to be used to stamp a strategic purpose on the "ad-hocery" which passed for management. Corporate management and planning structures became fashionable - despite some critiques from those working at a neighbourhood level and a few academics such as John Dearlove.

Born to Fail?

50 years ago, in 1973, a small report was published which was to shape my life for the next 16 years. It was ”Born to Fail?” and exposed the intensity and scale of poverty affecting children – particularly in the West of Scotland.

I had spent the previous 5 years as a councillor in a shipbuilding town - working with tenants to help improve their housing and educational conditions. And had just been elected to one of the leadership positions of a Regional Council covering half of Scotland.

The main political leadership was, unusually, shared between its “Convener” (the public face) who was a community Minister, Geoff Shaw and, briefly, the Leader of Glasgow Corporation and the leader of the Labour group which formed the majority of councillors – Dick Stewart, previously a coal miner. The dual leadership may have been unusual, certainly led to the occasional tension (and was discontinued after Geoff’s tragically early death 4 years later), but offered the possibility for one man to focus on developing policy priorities and the other on the mechanics of implementation and discipline. Geoff shared my outrage at the conditions of marginalised people – so we were half of what jocularly became known as the “Gang of Four” who led the Region and therefore able to shape the Region’s priorities – not least because we had a year’s breathing space before assuming full and final responsibility in May 1975 for its public services (which employed 100,000 staff such as teachers, social workers, engineers and police)

I’ve written before about the strategy we developed in response to the “Born to Fail?” report (the full story is here – and a short version here) but focusing, understandably, on a description of the steps taken and an exploration of some of the dilemmas we faced. What I want to do here is instead to look in more detail at how exactly we framed the issue – and at what seemed to be the choices and constraints on offer.

We’ve only recently learned about the Overton Window – a strange term used to describe how perceptions of what is politically acceptable suddenly shift and can be exploited by reformers. I’m fascinated by this concept of “turning points” or “critical junctures” brilliantly dissected in Anthony Barnett’s extended essay Out of the Belly of Hell (2020)

What, by 1982, had become the “Social Strategy for the Eighties” was quite unique at the time – no other government body had dared contemplate anything so bold. It was to be another 2 decades before New Labour made a similar attempt – this time with the discourse about “inner cities” and “social exclusion” rather than "deprivation". Jules Feiffer nailed it perfectly when he had his little cartoon character say

I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. They told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy, I was deprived. Then they told me underprivileged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime. But I have a great vocabulary.

 Basically we suggested four principles of action which had not been attempted before

• 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

• 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 was therefore held in 1976/77 with District Councils, Central Government, Health Boards, Universities and Voluntary Organisations: from which 8 experimental area initiatives emerged, followed in the 1980s with larger ones in Glasgow eventually with central government and private sector support.

• 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 Conservative Minister at the time.

Now strategies are now ten a penny – and we have become cynical of those who attempt them. One of our many current besetting sins! There is actually nothing better for a man’s soul than coming together with others in a spirit of fellowship to explore how the lot of one’s fellows might be improved.

I was so pleased, some 18 months ago, to find a small book (from a Canadian) celebrating the need for “strategies for governing” For 40 years we have been regaled with the ideology of the small state and the time for a new conception of the State is long overdue.

This series of posts will set the Strathclyde strategy in the wider context of the modernisation efforts set in train by the Labour government of 1964-70 – which rarely gets the credit it is due for what it both did and what it attempted. Because the story is told in more detail elsewhere, I will try to compress the basic story in bullet points…..

Strategic Change in Scotland in the 1970s

In April I had a series of 10 posts on the subject of strategic change (and how I learned to love it in the 1970s and 1980s ) which readers can access in this table and which also gives a sense of the issues covered in each post. Talk about spoiling my readers!! 

Today I received a copy of the second interview I did recently with my closest (official) colleague in Strathclyde Region about how we came to develop the Region’s famous Social Strategy for the Eighties. Here it is https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZhrMzVZHvVziv27ENJGS2QOROXMHmR4PWpX

The Obliteration of Memories

Googling is so easy – “everything we need is there”. Except it’s simply not true. Google has a gigantic hole which no-one talks about – knowledge of those who acted as role models in the period before Google existed (BG – before google).

I’ve been trying to check my memory of events in the late 1960s and 1970s when I was involved in initiatives which swept across Scotland and had influences further afield. But as far as Google is concerned, these events never took place. 

I google the names of people on whose words I used to hang – like John Mackintosh, who had been an academic tutor of mine and then Professor and Labour MP but found only a couple of references (including a huge list of the articles in his archives). However, thanks to the archives site, I was able to access his The Devolution of Power : local democracy, regionalism and nationalism which came out in 1968.

Geoff Shaw had been an inspiring Glasgow community minister and then, all-too briefly, political leader of Glasgow City and the first Convener of the new Strathclyde Regional Council from 1974-78. A book had been written about him (“Geoff”) and his funeral (at Glasgow Cathedral) attended by the nation’s dignitaries drew overflow crowds. But he gets only a couple of google references – including a short Wikipedia entry.  

And Dick Stewart, the ex-miner and leader of Lanark County Council and of Strathclyde’s Labour Group is virtually impossible to find - despite his funeral actually being attended by a Conservative Cabinet Minister. 

It’s only thanks to an ex-official’s mountain blogs that we have this record of the Region’s achievements – although one of my other senior colleagues was persuaded by one of the Scottish national newspapers to pen this paean on the Region’s demise in 1996. 

So – to offset the Google hegemony – I offer my record of important material about the Scottish condition between the 1960s and 1980s which I know about -

·       Scottish Government Yearbooks !976-1992 A superb website which gives access the archives of every yearbook in this period. Probably the only source which gives a sense of what it was like to be alive during these years – although subject to the usual vagaries and prejudices of the academics (generally) who supplied the material. A couple of my pieces can be found – one from 1983 on the relationships between the Scottish Regions and the Districts.- and a more speculative piece from 1984 called Scottish local government; what future? 

·         Review of Local Governance (COSLA 2018) A useful overview – starting in 1968 - of what various efforts of reorganisation have achieved

Re  generation and Poverty in Scotland – evidence and policy review; Douglas Robertson (Rowntree Trust 2014) This is an important academic study of how governments from 1968 to the Coalition government dealt with the social and economic aspects of regeneration. A shorter version is available here

·       The making of an empowering profession (Community Learning and Development Council 2002) tells the fascinating story of how Scotland rediscovered its democratic traditions in the last few decades of the 20th century 

·       Case study in Organisational Learning and Political Amnesia (1995) tells the neglected story of how Strathclyde Region came to establish a unique social strategy which influenced the Scottish government - updated this year by  Modernity’s Last Gasp - SRC’’s theory of change

·       Criticism and public rationality – professional rigidity and the search for caring government; Harry Smart (1991) is a rare and riveting account of tensions between education and social work as a political system tried to introduce changes which challenged professional traditions. 

·         Social Strategy for the Eighties (Strathclyde Regional Council 1982) This is the “little Red Book” which was widely distributed within the Region and whose development is described in later posts. I’m seeing it for the first time in 30 years thanks to the valiant efforts of Keith Yates who worked with me on the draft for several months in 1981/82 

·       The Search for Democracy – a guide to and polemic about local government in Scotland (1977); a little book I produced for students and community activists to help demystify a new system of local government 

·       What Sort of Overgovernment?  Chapter in “Red Paper on Scotland” ed G Brown (1975) My earliest published piece about the challenge of democracy – in a famous book edited by someone who was UK Prime Minister 2007-2010.

part V - more open and creative policy-making

I have written an extensive paper about the innovative work I was involved in from 1975-1990 in the Region trying to make its policies, structures and staff more sensitive to the needs and aspirations of those who lived in its poorer areas. It is paper 5 of “key papers” of my website. Here I just want to focus on the structural aspects of our work – how we tried to get officials, councillors and community activists working more productively with one another to solve problems.
This entry talks about our member-officer groups -the next entry looks at how we tried to "make a difference" in the poorer areas.
At the end of Strathclyde Region's first year of existence in 1976, a major weekend seminar of all the councillors and the new Directors was held to review the experience of the new systems of decision-making. The exhilarating experience a few of us had had of working together across the boundaries of political and professional roles first to set up the new Departments and second on the deprivation strategy was something we wanted to keep. And other councillors wanted that involvement too.
Our answer was "member-officer groups" (Young 1981). These were working groups of about 15 people (equal number of officials and councillors) given the responsibility to investigate a service or problem area - and to produce, within 12-18 months, an analysis and recommendations for action. Initially social service topics were selected - youth services, mental handicap, pre-school services and the elderly - since the inspiration, on the officer side, was very much from one of the senior Social Work officials.

The member-officer groups broke from the conventions of municipal decision-making in various ways -
· officials and members were treated as equals
· noone was assumed to have a monopoly of truth : by virtue of ideological or professional status
· the officers nominated to the groups were generally not from Headquarters - but from the field
· evidence was invited from staff and the outside world, in many cases from clients themselves
· the represented a political statement that certain issues had been neglected in the past
· the process invited external bodies (eg voluntary organisations) to give evidence
· the reports were written in frank terms : and concerned more with how existing resources were being used than with demands for more money.
· the reports were seen as the start of a process - rather than the end - with monitoring groups established once decisions had been made.

The achievements of the groups can be measured in such terms as -
· the acceptance, and implementation, of most of the reports : after all, the composition and the openness of the process generates its own momentum of understanding and commitment !
· the subsequent career development of many of their chairmen
· the value given to critical inquiry - instead of traditional party-bickering and over-simplification.
· the quality of relations between the councillors : and with the officials

With this new way of working, we had done two things. First discovered a mechanism for continuing the momentum of innovation which was the feature of the Council's first year. Now more people had the chance to apply their energies and skills in the search for improvement.
We had, however, done more - we had stumbled on far more fruitful ways of structuring local government than the traditional one (the Committee system) which focuses on one "Service" - eg Education which defines the world in terms of the client group: of one professional group and is producer-led. And whose deliberations are very sterile - as the various actors play their allotted roles (expert, leader, oppositionist, fool etc).