Ten for 10: Turning community development ambitions in actions

To mark 10 years of SCDC as an independent organisation, Director Fiona Garven explores how now more than ever there is a need to develop a coherent, sustainable and long-term approach to community development in our communities.

What kind of community work is needed in Scotland? It’s a good question. I’ve been involved in community development in Scotland for most of my adult life and, thinking back over that journey to where we are now, it’s changed days.

Colleagues often talk nostalgically about Strathclyde Regional Council’s social strategy for the eighties, when there were hundreds of dedicated staff working directly in communities, each having a clear community development role.

It could seem that this was the heyday for community development - people supported to mobilise to address inequality and bring their collective influence to bear on how public services should be shaped and delivered - not so far away from our current policy ambitions in Scotland.

Nowadays, although many of the social justice issues some communities face remain the same, or worse, we’re operating in a very different political and policy climate.

Over the last ten years the policy and legislative backdrop in Scotland has worked towards reshaping the relationship between the citizen and the state, providing new levers for communities to act independently and to influence the decisions that affect them. 

What matters locally?

Community development now happens in different places – there are still some Community Learning and Development workers employed within most of our local authorities, but public sector driven neighbourhood community development work is mostly a thing of the past.  

In its place we see community-based anchor organisations working to develop a consensus about what matters locally. This is community empowerment in action, but activity isn’t placed evenly across every community and, where it does exist, it can be vulnerable to changes in funding or support.

In response to the reductions in local support, Scottish Government has stepped in to provide a set of national resources such as SCDC’s Supporting Communities programme. Whilst helpful, it’s often the better networked and more confident community organisations that can source this support, leaving a concerning gap in some of our communities who struggle the most and where there is a need to invest in long term community building. 

It also begs the question: as our public sector and budgets shrink, is it right to place more expectations on communities to achieve better outcomes through services that public services can no longer deliver?

If so, we need to invest in a plan of action to ensure that we can collectively provide the kinds of supports communities tell us they need.

Ambitions into action

Now more than ever there is a need to develop a coherent, sustainable and long-term approach to community development – where communities in every part of the country have access to a consistent, trusted and flexible source of support when and where they need it.  

Scotland is often seen as ahead of the game in community development – we have a history of innovative thinking and we have well-placed ambitions for addressing inequality through community and citizen empowerment.

In the years ahead SCDC aims to work with others, across policy and practice, to turn these ambitions into action.

You can read more about SCDC in this piece detailing its history from 1994 - 2009.

What do the communities we work with tell us they need? 

• Early stage work to help them come together and mobilise around their common issues and aspirations.
• A reliable source of income to take forward local action and make their work sustainable.
• People on the ground tasked with helping them to:
  • access the information they need
  • build their knowledge about the legislative levers available to them
  • help them conduct their own research and develop their own plans and strategies for action
  • provide specialist expertise on areas such as community enterprise, community ownership and planning issues
• Basic administrative support to make the big stuff easier!