In South Tyneside, over half our residents live in neighbourhoods ranked in the 25% most deprived in England. But even in its industrial heyday, our borough always faced the challenge of deprivation – what was different then was the strength of the social networks that helped sustain our communities through difficult times. I'm now convinced that building social capital is the answer to many of the issues facing communities right now.
The other difference back then was the absence of a strong welfare state. The pioneering reforms of Sir William Beveridge and others all had laudable aims, and have done great things, but a side-effect of these well-meaning interventions has been the effective 'nationalisation' of community life – a nationalisation that has outlasted all the other state-owned monoliths. The management of community life has been so effectively outsourced to councils, the police and others that it bred a feeling of powerlessness and perhaps dependency in our communities that has contributed to abdication of responsibility in many areas.
Social networks
Robert Putnam's groundbreaking work on 'social capital' has been key to our understanding of how altruistic behaviour and successful communities depend on strong social networks. A major research programme at Binghamton University in New York state has recently concluded that the stronger a person's social networks the more likely they are to want to give back to society.
We're fortunate in South Tyneside that a lot of the old community spirit still lives on, and I'm clear that if we really want to start making a difference for our communities we need to nourish these networks, and tap into them where appropriate – harnessing the relationships and interests which exist already.
Policy-makers far too often reach for blunt instruments like laws, regulations, state spending, structural reform and taxes, but this over-reliance potentially alienates the public still further by crowding out existing social networks. Indeed, Matthew Taylor has argued persuasively that policy-makers have underestimated the power of social norms — and their potential to lead change. So, the management of domestic refuse recycling, for example, went from being the council's responsibility alone, to one where the householder now sorts it out — building and harnessing social capacity without anyone really noticing.
Supporting neighbourhoods
Our neighbourhood support structures are the keystone in our programme to cherish social capital In South Tyneside. We know that our residents are the people best placed to come up with solutions to problems in their neighbourhoods, and our 'participatory appraisal' harnesses this by encouraging and supporting people to take an active role in their community to make change happen. One resident told us that this really worked because 'they showed us how to get things done' – and it's at that interface between local knowledge and enthusiasm, and the resources and expertise of the council or its partners that the most exciting work often happens.
So that's why we're piloting a programme worth £1.5M to recruit 'community entrepreneurs', who'll be employed to work in their own communities, with their own neighbours to design their own pathways out of poverty. But alongside this we want to strengthen social networks that already exist, while supporting and stretching them to do more. That is why we have worked closely with our faith communities to develop the 'Happy at home' project, which tackles isolation in older people through a bank of volunteers who pay regular befriending visits to older people. The 'demographic tsunami', where we know the person who will live to be 120 has already been born means we need to be more creative about how we combat isolation as the eligibility bar for social care is raised higher and higher.
We also know it is important to hold up a mirror to the inspiring things that our communities do without our involvement, and reflect them back through events like our annual Pride Awards in South Tyneside which goes from strength to strength and celebrate acts of social value in communities with categories such as safer neighbourhoods, role models, community groups and carer of the year - all raising the profile of altruism and the innate capacity that our communities possess to build social capital formally.
If we want to unlock that potential we need to engage our communities as partners, not as passive recipients of services.
But too often professionals don't fully understand the landscape of public services, in which case the public won't either, so we need to be crystal clear about the services we offer, and how they're accessed. In doing so local councils can perform a unique function in breaking down organisational barriers within and between the public, voluntary and community sectors, help the public to understand what services exist, and facilitate new collaborations.
Working together with the public
Such a process can't be led by Whitehall – or the town hall or other partners in the public sector. It means all of us working together towards a less interventionist and more enabling state. Local strategic partnerships must become truly transformative spaces in which service leaders are encouraged to lead, to do more than it says on their business cards, and to focus on building the capacity of communities rather than narrow organisational imperatives.
That is why we have placed wellbeing, innovation and the cultivation of social capital at the heart of our local area agreement (LAA).
As we enter a period of public sector austerity, then being smart enough to plug into existing networks (and realising when less is more) is key to achieving a stronger multiplier effect in service delivery. Fostering social capital will also help us strengthen local democracy, and give us a real mandate to deliver change.
When the public become more actively engaged in collective decision-making, then they are more inclined to get involved and contribute to the collective capacity of society. This would provide an ideal opportunity for elected members to reclaim their community leadership role where this has been eroded.
Some may be unnerved by engaging directly with the public but really we need to harness that passion. Consensus is sometimes unhealthy in a democracy, because it's in that creative tension where real solutions are forged, and it is in that open dialogue with our communities that trust is built, and social capital is created.
Irene Lucas CBE is Chief Executive of South Tyneside Council. She has held a number of public appointments including the BBC and the Sports Council of England and has worked with the FA, Premier League, Department of Culture Media and Sport and Sport England. She is currently a board member of the Institute of Public Policy Research (North East). She will be taking up the DCLG post of Director General, Local Government and Regeneration later this year.
