Photo: opensourceway

LCF’s Your Voice, Your City programme is running a series of free events in March covering topics as diverse as philanthropy, commissioning, the GLA and neighbourhood plans.

Our Philanthropy in the Community Seminar on the 12th of March will look at some of the current philanthropic initiatives and organisations happening and working in London and will offer guidance to organisations on how to engage with donors.

Our Health seminar on the 26th March is for anyone from the voluntary and community sector, health service or local authority who wants to learn more about how working with the voluntary and community sector can result in long-term benefits for users.

Our How Neighbourhood Plans Work event on the 3rd March comprises of resident activists, community organisations and community development workers who are interested in finding out more about more Neighbourhood Plans and the practicalities involved in developing one in their area.

As part of our work in the run up to the Mayoral and London Assembly elections we are holding a How GLA Works event for anyone who is interested in finding our more about the role of the Mayor and London Assembly and why it is important to cast your vote on the 3rd May. More details on this event will be available shortly.

Photo: Tim Green aka atoach's photostream

2.00pm – 4.30pm, 12^th March 2012, Dragon Hall Trust, Covent Garden, 17 Stukeley Street, London. WC2B 5LT
(Registration and lunch from 1.30pm)

Philanthropy—the effort or inclination to increase the well-being of humankind, as by charitable aid or donations.

London Civic Forum and London Funders invite you to this free seminar: Philanthropy in the Community.

With severe cuts to public sector funding, London’s voluntary and community organisations find themselves in a precarious financial position at a time when there is growing demand for their services and support.

At the same time there is a lot of buzz around giving – some new campaigns to encouraage people to donate more money and time alongside specific initiatives to build new resources for London’s VCS.

This seminar will provide an opportunity for community organisations to learn about:

• What are the current philanthropic initiatives and organisations working in London at both local and London wide levels e.g. London Community Foundation, Islington Giving, Local Giving
• Identify what resources and skills are needed to be able to access funding
• How to make the best use of these funding opportunities
• How to build a relationship with funders

If you would like to book a place please go to: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2926875363

or if you would like to find out more information, please contact Deirdre McGrath at Deirdre@londoncivicforum.org.uk or call 0208709 9774

Tweet to Deirdre and join the discussion Follow @DeirdreLCF

A event organised by London Funders and London Civic Forum

Funded by London Councils

http://news.biglotteryfund.org.uk/pr_020212_tli_eng_local_charity_support_services_?regioncode=-uk

A number of organisations in London were awarded funding – for a full list click here  http://biglotteryfund.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/transforming-local-infrastructure-awards2.pdf

• What principles and priorities will be applied in selecting commissions to start from 1 April 2013?
• Which of the 105 current commissions should be funded beyond the end of their fixed funding agreements and until the end of the 2012/13 financial year? (Their current budget will allow them to fund approximately 80% of the current commissions)

The consultation exercise:

• focuses on the choice of principles and priorities for 2013/14.
• invites views on their initial assessment of the equalities effects

Closing date for consultations is 5pm 23^rd March – for further information and link to the consultation survey can be found on http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/services/grants/consultation/default.htm

Voluntary Sector Forum, the network for London Councils funded Voluntary and Community Sector Organisations (VCSOs), has produced a briefing paper on the consultation

http://www.lvsc.org.uk/networks/vsf/london-councils-consultation.aspx

Photo: Www.CourtneyCarmody.com/'s photostream

FREE ALL DAY EVENT
26th March 2012
Venue: Directory of Social Change, 24 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2DP

This event is for anyone from the voluntary and community sector, health service or local authority who wants to learn more about how working with the voluntary and community sector can result in long-term benefits for users.

There will be talks from organisations demonstrating best practice in the field, information about support available for this work and a keynote speech giving an overview of the field.

To book a place, please e-mail policy@lvsc.org.uk.

An event organised by LCF, LVSC and London Funders

View Larger Map

Photo: Tjflex2's photostream

Saturday 3^rd March 2012
10.30 – 3.30pm

FREE EVENT

Arlington Conference Centre
220 Arlington Road, Camden, London, NW1 7HE

Are you interested in finding out more about Neighbourhood Plans and the practicalities involved in developing one in your area?

London Civic Forum, the Just Space Network and Community Development Network London would like to invite you to this free event aimed at resident activists, representatives from community organisations and community development workers (from across the voluntary and statutory sectors).

This event will support participants to:

• gain a greater understanding of the legislation relating to NP in the Localism Act
• identify the potential and practicalities of developing Neighbourhood Plans in their areas
• develop links with other communities and activists who have an interest in Neighbourhood Plans and planning

How Neighbourhood Plans Work Invite (pdf)

To book a place go to http://hnpw-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=1 or if you want to find out more contact Deirdre McGrath at Deirdre@londoncivicforum.org.uk or call 0208709 9774

—

It is always daunting to write about a city that has defied and inspired us for centuries and which – as the Dickens anniversary is reminding us – has already fomented so many words. Yet, ever evolving habitat that it is, London ceaselessly provides us with novelty and challenge, and Londoners – extraordinary assembly that they are – are more contrary and creative than ever they were.

“The people of London deserve something better than the categories we

generally use to describe them.  London is unprecedented.  Never before have so many people from such diverse backgrounds been free to mix, and not to mix, in close proximity to each other. At first this was described in terms of Londoners and others; the multiculturalism of the Greater London Council; the recognition of specific populations from the Caribbean or South Asia.  But London today has moved well beyond ethnic minorities. Indeed, it was even then the case that the Londoner next door might have been from Greece or the United States. Yes, there is a huge increase in people from Eastern Europe, but the neighbour today might also be from South Korea, Brazil or South Africa as well as Irish, Pakistani or Jewish.  Maybe it is better to see the typical London household as a Norwegian married to an Algerian?  What, then, is typical?”

Photo: h4rrydogs photostream

“London seems to be a place where people can confound and confuse expectations, and for me, observing London, perhaps the healthiest option is to acknowledge generalisation and categories when they emerge, but to at least try and not to start from these.  Because it may just be that the generalisations emerge best, not from place of origin or gender, but around an orientation to science or celebrity, gardening or church.”

The Comfort of Things, Daniel Miller, Polity Books 2008

As we head towards the Mayoral elections, at a time of deep economic uncertainty and not inconsiderable anxiety about the future, it seems to me that a caring respect for Londoners – or, perhaps, a respectful caring – might be the most appropriate over-arching policy stance for a politician to take.  I would prefer it if, rather than enduring the promotion of ‘grand projets’, we heard of steady repair and maintenance; if, rather than hearing about ‘competition’ we heard a little more about ‘collaboration’; if, rather than giant ego-edifices and absurdist sculpture, we had a little more decent housing.

Perhaps I’m being a little too idealist in these straitened times, but I’m sure there’s a way of developing and conducting Mayoral policy which not only assists the millions of Londoners who need help today, but which also sets us in the direction of a more just and sustainable London tomorrow.

Here’s my suggestion for five policy initiatives that, were I to see them in a manifesto, would swing my vote:

• Walking & cycling – moving around under your own steam is a win-win-win-win-win solution: it’s good for your body, it’s good for your mind and it’s good for the planet.  It contributes to “social capital” and it’s either free or cheap.  Let’s make sure it’s safe, by making it a priority for the police, and then ensure that housing design, traffic management, road safety, public health policy and town centre management are all focused on enabling and encouraging Londoners to move about without using fossil fuels.

• SMEs – most businesses in London are small, yet most of the talk is about the big boys and girls.  Rather than worrying about whether yet another bank is going to come to London, let’s worry instead about supporting yesterday’s start-ups, the entrepreneurs of tomorrow and all the other little businesses that can create the jobs we’ll need.  Let’s make sure we steer Business Link to help social enterprises.  Let’s use planning powers to encourage sectors that create the kind of jobs that Londoners need rather than the ones that internationalised finance wants.  Let’s focus as much on the quality of employment as the quantity. Let’s stop spending money on ‘inward investment’ – they’ll come if they want to; and they know where we are – and spend the money instead on fostering micro-businesses among traditionally disadvantaged Londoners.

• Alcohol – the biggest single health challenge facing Londoners is alcohol.  The cost in broken bodies, broken lives and hospital bills is truly shocking.  Through licensing and planning, in partnership with public health and the police, using awareness campaigns and social marketing and citizen-led interventions and gallons of tap water at football matches, it’s the kind of issue where a Mayor could make a genuine difference within a four year period.  Londoners by 2016 could be happier and healthier: who wouldn’t vote for that?

• Food – Londoners, collectively, have unprecedented access to food, and access to a cuisine that in its breadth and affordability is astounding.  Yet too many do not eat well – many eat too much, and many eat too little – while the environmental cost of the eight billion meals we eat each year is staggering.  A twenty first century city needs much smarter food solutions, and while we already have a Mayoral strategy and dozens of exciting and innovative food projects underway around the capital, it is time to crank things up: let’s really sort out public procurement, support street markets, demand local sourcing and tackle food ignorance.  We can create jobs, improve health and help to save the planet, all at the same time!

• Community assets – the ‘green tech’ revolution is underway, and London over the next few years is going to have to accommodate a great deal of small and medium-sized infrastructure to deal with its waste and to generate energy.  Putting this infrastructure into the hands of communities, rather than profit-oriented corporations or electorally-oriented Ministers, could reap huge dividends in terms of community resilience, social cohesion and a sense of civic responsibility.  Meet the environmental challenge; create jobs and investment; and promote the well-being of Londoners simultaneously.  What’s so scary about that?

If Daniel Miller is right, there is currently only one city quite like London.  There are others that are bigger, but none, it would appear, quite so diverse.  If there’s one thing about the future about which we might be more rather than less confident, it is that the world’s cities will become progressively more diverse over the coming decades.  Population trends, the effects of climate change and the blurring of boundaries brought on by the internet will all conspire to make more and more cities more and more like London.

London is thus trailblazing for the world, not in the sense of being a priapic centre of macho finance, but in having the potential to be a just and sustainable city appropriate to the twenty first century.  It would be wonderful to see some of that potential reflected in the electoral debates over the next few months.

Photo: State Library of South Australia's photostream

This might be an admission of professional inadequacy, but it was only yesterday that I became aware of our newest potential future Mayor. Flicking through the Evening Standard on the way back to Queen’s Park from Brixton (busy at 6 in the evening, but very rapid – thanks TfL), I saw that Siobhan Benita had announced her candidacy, and has received prominent backing from Peter Jones (one of the most fearsome of BBC 2′s dragons, and, because he doesn’t have enough already, the televisual face of Moneysupermarket.com). A cursory search engine enquiry this morning revealed that Siobhan in fact announced just a few days into January.

According to her website, “Siobhan is the modern, credible alternative to Boris and Ken.” Our very raison d’être at London Civic Forum is to broaden and deepen civic participation, so to see another hat tossed into the ring for one of the highest offices in the land is something we welcome, particularly given that the three highest profile candidates all contested the previous election. Siobhan claims credibility from the fifteen years she spent as a civil servant in central government, with some of the news reports I have read indicating that she progressed rapidly and was tipped to become one of Whitehall’s youngest high-ranking mandarins. Clearly a talented operator, Siobhan states that she is not a politician, presumably in order to evade the kind of jibes which pain politicians as selfish careerists with little experience of the real world. I take some issue with this, mainly on the basis that, from what I can gather, all of her professional life has been spent oiling the cogs in Westminster. We should welcome her vision of ‘people not politics,’ but let us not forget that the other candidates have lots of ‘people experience’ too, with Brian Paddick having risen through the Metropolitan Police, and Jenny Jones having previously worked in as unusual a field as archaeology. What’s more, she herself states that she knows how the Treasury works and how to get the best out of it.

It is Brian and Jenny who might be most upset with Siobhan’s description of the “two horse race.” As I’ve previously mentioned, Brian Paddick and Jenny Jones both offer different approaches to Boris and Ken, who in turn differ quite markedly from each other on a number of issues. On policy matters, Siobhan’s lack of party machinery may be both a help and a hindrance. On the one hand, there is no reason why she will not be able to produce coherent ideas stemming directly from her formative experiences in post-election central government, when her concerns over the governmental rhetoric around the public sector were sharpened. On the other, she will likely have more work to do on the kind of issues for which the political parties will already have (possibly sensible and coherent) policies. When Jenny Jones wants to challenge the sanity of the proposed ‘Boris Island’ airport, she only needs to raid the big Green filing cabinet for a wealth of research. Siobhan won’t have that luxury. Nevertheless, Ken won as an independent in 2000, and the Mayoralty isn’t only about flash new policies; the ability to get the best out of existing legislative structures and bureaucracies is vital too, exactly the kind of skill which is furnished by a civil service career.

London elections are no strangers to personality politics (exhibits (a) and (b)), but what is slightly surprising is that a serious candidate with serious motives and aspirations would choose to run as a “Mum for London.” Transport for Mumdon? The Metropolitan Parents? Whatever, it’s great that the diversity of Mayoral possibles has been widened with the entry of another candidate.

Photo: Micah Taylors photostream

Home Secretary, Theresa May, delivered a speech on Monday 31^st January targeting the ongoing problems with antisocial behaviour across the country. Concerned that residents have an ever declining level of trust in the police force, “a community trigger” has been proposed.  Five pilot schemes will adopt this approach in the summer, tackling antisocial behaviour if it is reported by five separate households. According to Mrs May, local authorities have already been working with the government to test the “community trigger”. However, Shadow Home Office minister, Gloria DePiero felt it sent out the message that antisocial behaviour is only worthy of complaint if reported in greater numbers, thus not taking more isolated incidents seriously.

This information also came with the announcement that there would be changes to police pay, which would be dependent on individuals skill sets. Mrs May said there would be savings of about £150m a year but that the reforms were not occurring for the sole purpose of saving money. This comes at a time when gang crime could be on the rise and police numbers have dropped significantly in the last year.

In other news, from Tuesday a website mapping areas hit by crime and police responses will be available to the public. The aim of this is for data to be more transparent, to make the police more accountable for crime hotspots and “reduce public fear”.

Further Reading
Police must take action if neighbours complain – The Telegraph
Anti-social behaviour: Police ‘will be forced to act’ – BBC News
‘What are the police for?’ – Mark Easton, Home Editor, BBC
Gang expert and police commander warn of ‘toxic’ expansion – The Guardian
Crime map website to reveal hotspots – BBC

Photo: Quito sometimes Marco’s flickr photostream

Since 2004, our Take Part Learning Programme has helped Londoners gain skills, confidence and knowledge for active citizenship through community-based activities. We have supported a wide range of organisations across sectors and across the capital to adopt, adapt and embed Take Part Approaches in their work with communities.

The need for Take Part learning in London has never been more urgent. With the Big Society, Localism and Decentralisation high on the political agenda, the poverty gap widening across the capital and signs of social discontent evident in the recent wave of riots and protests, Londoners should be encouraged to take up new opportunities to articulate their views, have a voice in decision making and lead social change. It is clear that the most disenfranchised will need support to do so.

With support from the Transition Fund, LCF has developed a new programme, Take Part London, to meet this urgent and evolving need.

This report details our review of the latest evidence, research, policy and provision around active citizenship learning needs. It includes:

• A policy review identifying key opportunities and risks for Londoners.
• A review of evidence of active citizenship learning needs in London, bringing together LCF’s community-led action research with recent research by other agencies.
• A mapping of engagement opportunities offered by Local Authorities, the NHS and other agencies, on LCF’s interactive Participation Map.
• A mapping and gap analysis of active citizenship learning opportunities available to Londoners.
• Evidence-based recommendations for best practice in active citizenship learning to meet the needs of Londoners in the coming years.

We are pleased to share this digest of our findings, which should prove a useful tool for anyone developing evidence-based strategies for supporting active citizenship in London.

Read the report: Take Part in Londons’ Big Society