In recent writings both Sarah Longlands and Matthew Taylor suggest that our immediate surroundings seem to have an increasing importance in our everyday lives. Personally, I think this could possibly be a reaction to economics before the credit crunch when some ecomonic models, like like long tail, seemed to defy locality and use the global scene as their local market but with which result – we could ask ourselves whether this contributed to brining our economies to their knees.
I really enjoyed Sarah Longlands’ article on City Regions on the CLES website and think this is an interesting follow-on to Neil McInroy recent blog post Snuggles Cities – on cities and polycentricity.
I agree with the point of view that by introducing the larger frameworks of city regions, local social enterprises of a limited size and working in the local environment could be challenged when facing the scaling up of projects. And although this would of course give opportunities to partner with like-minded organisations and win bigger contracts, there is a danger that organisations sever their bond to their locality and the community they are immersed in. As Longlands writes:
”a consequence of the city region governance is that we may find that there is less emphasis, and less value, placed on activity and knowledge at the “local” level. However, CLES believe that this would be a mistake [...] when it comes to delivering support to local communities and knowing your customer base, nothing beats the quality of local knowledge. From CLES’ research, we know that social enterprises play an important role in supporting communities, particularly those who are most deprived, through employment and their supply chain. This investment in localities is a vital part of supporting the resilience of local economies.”
On a very similar note but from a slightly different perspective, Matthew Taylor of the RSA mentions in a recent blog post, called For good ideas – go local, two challenges has heard over and over again from public service leaders and managers:
- a growing ambition to reduce social exclusion, increase attainment and improve life chances with the expectation of declining resources,
- there was the emphasis on the urgency of greater co-ordination and collaboration between public sector institutions and agencies.
Matthew Taylor wisely concludes:
”So the message out in public sector land is; we have to do things very differently if we are meet growing needs with shrinking budgets, and that crucial to the capacity to reform and innovate is a much higher level of collaboration, focussed around a shared strategy and a strong sense of place.”