6 people stabbed / shot on Vassall Road last night - When we needed the Big Society, were you there?

It's slightly south of the SE11 area, but I was horrified to read the SLP report of 6 people shot/stabbed on Vassall Road yesterday at about 21:30 yesterday.  The SLP also state that the youngest victim was 14, but this contradicts the following from Stockwell Park Neighbourhood Watch.

Stockwell Park Neighbourhood Watch have stated that two of the victims were stabbed at about 20:41 on Cowley Road.  An ambulance was called, and whilst the crew were attending, two youths on bikes cycled past and firde several shots on a hand gun.  Consequently, four additional people were injured.  None of the injuries are life threatening and the ambulance crew remained unharmed.  After initial assessment, the police believe the incident was gang related and that none of the victims were "neutral".  (I take that to mean that they were innocent bystanders).  The victims are said to be within the age range of 16-18.  No suspects have been detained and police presence in the area will remain high to deter further violence.

I regularly defend this part of South London as a safe place to live against voices to the contrary.  Violence around here is sporadic and usually not against innocent bystanders, but that doesn't excuse it. Sometimes  the distance between Cleaver Square and Vassall Road seems huge.  Lambeth Council currently spend money on youth and anti-gang activities, and yet such funding is at risk in our new Big Society.  Does the funding make any difference?  After each stabbing or shooting, I always ask, "what can we do?".  And I'll keep asking it because I don't want us to stop being shocked. 

As residents, bloggers, commuters and workers, what are our options to prevent young people from turning to crime?  What do we do about the disparity between the haves and have nots?  Is it disparity that is the problem here?  Are the residents who live in relative poverty having a chance to meet the residents who are affluent?  Where is the forum in which we can discuss these issues?  We have neighbourhood groups and residents associations, blogs, and newspapers, but how often do we meet people who are different from us?  Is our response to stay in after dark and to keep our heads down when we walk along our streets?  Do we know the young people in our midst, and how might our neighbourhood be a community that shares its gifts?

I maintain that these stabbings and shootings are not what define our area.  We're defined by our friendliness and our openness to celebrate and share cultural differences.  We're defined by the number of community groups and "friends of" groups that are regularly set up in our midst.  And then something like this happens, and we talk of youth, gangs, drugs, opportunities and education, but I'm not sure if we're seeing any change.  When we needed the Big Society, were you there, were you there?

For an 18th January update on this incident, please continue reading at Stockwell News.

The controversial closure of Offley Works and Starlight Academy's move to Peckham

In March 2009, the Guardian's Dave Hill published a piece on the potential closure of Offley Works, an LDA building in Oval.  Offley Works is in the middle of Offley Road and it housed, amongst other projects, the Starlight Academy, a non-profit youth programme designed to provide young people with skills in performance and drama, and potentially enable them to build a career in the music industry.  The closure of the site for redevelopment would have meant that Starlight and similar groups were without a home.  Fortunately, the Starlight Academy gained a reprise in 2009 (mostly due to an unfavourable economic climate, which put off impending building works) and were granted permission to stay for another year.  In February 2010 (just as the lease was up), a new lease was offered, but it was felt that this did not grant the Academy or Code 7 (a gang intervention project) enough security so they refused to sign.  The projects held fast in the Works until October 2010, when the LDA filed for possession, payment for continued occupation building at £878 per day(!) and court costs.  Starlight claim that by the time the LDA had got their act together to help them move, there was not enough time to raise necessary funds to finance their move.  It seems that on Friday 7th January 2011, the repossession order was enforced.  Rather worryingly, the judge also upheld the decision to regain the huge occupation costs against Starlight and Code 7, which threatens (from what they've said) to leave them bankrupt.

I received an email to say that the building was boarded up some time over the weekend.  Happily the Starlight Academy have found another home in Southwark, down at Peckham Settlement in Goldsmith Road (it doesn't mention Code 7, and there's nothing on their website, so I hope they're ok).  Starlight's new site needs repairs, and they're seeking help from the LDA, Southwark Council and the public to raise money.  What's not so clear is where any of the other projects housed within Offley Works might have gone.  Perhaps they've just faded away, or maybe they gave up some months ago.  I'll update this post if anybody can supply additional information.

Small local charities are part of Our Leader's Big Society vision, but they struggle to get a hearing.  Watch one of Boris Johnson's finest moments, caught on camera by Code 7, here, as he refuses to enter into discussion and brushes Code 7 off on to James Cleverley.  Mr Cleverley agreed to meet Code 7, but was later uncontactable.  I wish I'd heard news of the possession order prior to closure, since I believe these small projects are vital for promoting social cohesion, building the confidence of young people and providing them with a constructive space, instead of the streets, to  learn new skills.  I don't know whether our hyper-local blogs influence decision makers, but I can tell from various Lurking about SE11 stats that people from the LDA, London Transport and even the Houses of Parliament do visit, and we've seen encouraging progress on other matters by campaigning from local organisations such as the Kennington Association.  Please do email me if you are aware of other organisations under threat so that we can share local knowledge and work together to sustain our community.  Through sharing news, I hope we can figure out who is worth supporting. In the interests of fairness and balance, I should note that the Evening Standard published a damning piece on both Code 7 and Starlight back in June 2009 when it alleged:

"Starlight claims it has provided arts outreach training for young people at risk since 1997, and in Lambeth since 2006. However, there are no current courses shown on its website. Its listed telephone number is a mobile which was switched off, and it failed to respond to emails from the Evening Standard posing as a would-be student asking about outreach courses"

I don't have any insider information on this matter, and it should of course be noted Starlight and Code 7 came under Ken Livingstone's remit, so it's not surprising that the new administration under Boris are reluctant to give them air time.  Whatever the truth of the matter, it's clear that Starlight have a strong enough project that they've been given a home in Southwark.

The LDA have their own plans for Offley Works.  Apparently it will be redeveloped as "an employment-led mixed use scheme".  I'm unclear on whether that means residential live/work unit flats (which usually end up just being converted into flats) or some type of business park (a strange use since Kennington Park Business Centre and the Co-op centre in Mowll Street have available units).  The buildings are in a considerable state of disrepair and do need work, but this possession order business does not seem to be the best start for this LDA project.  Design for London have a good photo of the building (and surrounding area) from above.

Is Mutuality privatisation by the back door? Co-operative Council Q and As - (KOV meeting update - Part 3b)

This post is a commentary and write-up from the KOV meeting that took place on 1st November at Vauxhall Gardens Community at which the Council Officer, Mike Wiltshire, was present to explain the purpose and end of the proposed co-operative Council for Lambeth.  The first post (which is basically the Council's elaboration of what the Commission have been reviewing) can be found here.  This post is a compendium of questions that were put forward by bemused Kennington, Oval, Vauxhall forum audience members (otherwise known as the Kennington Massive) to Lambeth Council about how the co-operative council might eventually appear.

Questions are often unclear and mumbly, and like in all public meetings, consist of the half-baked views of some quite strange people.  I've ruthlessly cut, summarised and de-waffled so that broad summaries are in single quotes, and direct quotes are in doubles...

Qn: 'I'm concerned... There was a lot of jargon....  You're consulting on things you should really be doing any way... You're looking at spending money on consultation on answers that should be relatively obvious...'

Mike Wiltshire:  'I wouldn't disagree that we should be doing this as a matter of course.  When we speak to people from different parts of the Borough, the ways they want to be consulted are different.  The point of this piece of work is to find the ways that people want to work.  Some prefer using area forums. Others want something more innovative eg. a local community group to come and manage a process.'

Questions: 'It would be useful to have more information about how this will run in practice and how we could contribute to the ideas about how it could be run... Could we hear about how local people get involved?' and 'We can organise collectively in neighbourhoods, but what does the council think we can personally and collectively contribute... What sort of interaction do you want between the public and yourselves?'

At that stage, you can see that the questions above (and more) concerned what a co-operative Council might look like, with all of these services effectively sub contracted-out, and poor Mr Wiltshire, who had suffered at the hands of the Kennington-massive was looking a bit drained, so Cllr Jane Edbrooke jumped to the rescue...

"These Co-op ideas were in our Labour manifesto.  This officer is taking a lot of questions, and I hope to come in with some answers... We're trying to say that we don't assume that services are run in the best way that they can be run.  We know that there's some great expertise out there.  We're saying that if you can run a service better, we'd like to catch that... It's about making people realise that services might not be run by the Council any more or that they can run them themselves...."

And then, controversially, Cllr Edbrooke went on to note that we have an excellent co-operative venture in our midst, at the heart of the Oval Ward...

"I know that people have been speaking to those that run the [Triangle] Adventure playground.  It's a controversial subject at the moment, but the playground is run very well.  How can we run that elsewhere?"

Controversial subject?!  Well, yes.  For those that don't regularly read this blog, you ought to know that Lambeth Council are currently taking legal action against the Triangle Association to evict them from the site, in order to make room for a school expansion.  So, that might not have been the best example to choose re. co-operative working!

But before anything further could be said, Mike Wiltshire grabbed the reigns again:

MW: 'At the moment, we provide youth services through youth clubs in the Borough.  The new process would be to review available funding and decommission the service if it's ineffective.  We'd then begin a new commission process and say to residents; "This is what's currently provided.  This is how it's working and these are the problems with it.  What expertise and what knowledge do you have to improve youth services, and how would you like youth services to operate in this area?"'

And then a question about whether any of our services are protected...?

Qn: At what point would the Council welcome applications?  Are there any no-go areas, or is any Council service open to that?

MW: Lambeth Council are currently drawing up a list of pilots to commence in February 2010.  The mechanisms of applying haven't been worked out in detail, but each year the council should be looking at specific service areas as part of the Council's budgeting cycle.  The last word from Steve Reed was that there are no no-go areas, including social care.  If you have an idea as to how a service can be delivered better, the Council want to hear about it...

And then somebody raised the question about whether the Emperor was wearing any clothes...

Qn:  What if the community don't step up, and they say "we'd like to see the Council continue to provide the service they have been providing.  We don't think, on any given matter, that we can do any better".

MW: 'Then that's fine.  That's part of the conversation."

But I wonder... is it fine?  If the community don't step up, and the Council don't have any money, then we're not going to have any local services.  Could we end up, I wonder, in a position where 3rd sector organisations (or, more likely, the private sector) run everything with just a thin layer of accountability connecting them with the Council?  I'm astonished that this move is coming from a Labour Concil since I cannot see how it's any different from Conservative/Lib Dem central government policy.  Today's Financial Times notes Unison's position on public sector workers being given the "right to provide" by selling back services. "Unison, the health union, attacked the ideas as a route to 'backdoor privatisation', claiming big business was likely to take over mutuals that failed or move in as contracts were renewed".  Well, precisely.  Here's what I think will happen.  Lambeth Council will make all (or most) youth service (or whatever) employees redundant.  The employees will be invited to form not-for-profit mutuals and put together ad-hoc youth provision.  The on-the-ball types will form small organisations, sell their services back to the Council, but won't have to pay their workers anything like minimum wage, and will have to reduce their services to skeletal because the Council will end up under funding them.  If the mutuals fail to perform (or make a living), the Council will not be easily held responsible, but will re-tender and the service will privatise.  Naturally, larger providers will be preferred because they're better able to keep costs  low.  I hope I'm proved wrong.

Mike Wilkinson clarified that the move towards co-operative working is more complex for statutory services eg. education.  Non-statutory services such as arts, culture and sports services offer more co-operative flexibility.  One of the "big ideas" that the Commission undertook to review was "time banking".  Apparently, in Cardiff, you become involved in the local children's centre, health service or youth service and then, as a result of giving time, you accrue credits on discounts for leisure services, cinema and theatre, "so you can have a menu of rewards to choose from.".

Val Shawcross who was also present (not sure why, but we had no Hoey) stood to made a quick comment.  She acknowledged her membership of the Co-operative party, and added that she felt the word "mutuality" had been absent from the conversation. She added that the presentation had been wrapped up in traditional "officer style speak" about consultations (she was right there).  But then she amusingly noted, "There are lots of goods models of how people run things amongst themselves.  Some of them are officer models.  Greenwich Leisure, one of the most well known leisure providers in Lambeth was set up from amongst the staff of Greenwich Leisure Services department, and was set up as a co-operative..."

At that point, I couldn't believe my ears!  The second suggestion for a co-operative (after the Triangle, which Lambeth are trying to close) was Greenwich Leisure, who are not exactly flavour of the month at the moment.  A quick glance at their website reveals... the Astroturf in Kennington park is still not fixed.  The Onionbag was not happy, having bought their leisure card, only to find many GLL leisure centres closed.  It might not be GLL's fault, but leisure would not have been my first choice to illustrate how co-operativeness might work..

Val Shawcross finally added, "We've got some great models of co-operatives in Lambeth."

I think here that it might be worth highlighting a piece questioning the co-op that I glimpsed back in the Streatham Guardian in August.  I quote, "...Jeff Jeffers, chairman of Lambeth co-operative development agency, said of 49 co-ops formed in the borough in 1971, only three still existed."  I don't necessarily doubt Val's word, but we probably need to ask questions about longevity.  Perhaps 1971 is too far back, and institutions aren't meant to last that long.  Perhaps the co-op route is a reasonable option for short-term initiatives.  My fear is that co-operative groups and mutualisation is just privatisation by the back door.
I don't want to throw a spanner in the works.  I'm not against co-operative working or co-operative societies.  The Council may well be /opting in/ to a very positive model of working.  It would be great to have local people taking additional responsibility for the wellbeing of their communities, but...  I don't want the Co-op Council or Big Society rhetoric to prevent people campaigning against cuts.  I'm afraid that the word "co-operative" is being used to cover up a covert privatisation without even those who are passionately involved realising that they're on a hiding to nothing.  Take a look at the words of.the Chief Executive of the Co-op group, Peter Marks, who admitted to the Guardian last year that he was a capitalist...

"At heart I am a capitalist as we have seen that other systems don't work. But the trust in banks has gone. The Co-op was not deemed sexy - we were old-fashioned because we took deposits before loaning money. But old-fashioned is the new cool in banking."

With one breath, it seems that "old fashioned" is cool again, both in banking and in local authority government, but in the next breath (same Guardian article)...

"If another person says to me 'I can remember my granny's divi number', I could get arrested for physical violence.  That's old baggage, people are always looking back. We are a modern business now."

The question is, can Lambeth Council be "cool" and "old-fashioned" without "looking back" at "old baggage"?  Cam Lambeth be a modern co-operative Council, or will it end up ushering in a greater era of privatisation under the noses of an unsuspecting public, who think that co-operative means, well, co-operative.

Is the Council Opting-In or Selling out? The Co-operative Council - (KOV meeting update - Part 3a)

Several months ago, Jason Cobb, prior to his move, highlighted the risks of the co-operative council for the entire Borough.  Now that he's left for the wilds of deepest Essex, I'll try and keep tabs on how it will affect our hyperlocal patch, but trust me, this won't be the most exciting of posts...

I was hoping for clarification when I learned that Lambeth Council Policy manager, council officer Mike Wiltshire addressed was to address the KOV on the co-op proposition at the beginning of November.  Mr Wiltshire clearly knew his stuff, having been involved with the co-op council project since its starting point in February 2010.  After he had given a run-down of work performed so far, I'm not sure that anybody was more practically informed about what the co-op council might look like.  Question time proved a little more illuminating, but only a little...  Here follows a summary of what we heard (with my commentary added later in square brackets []):

The co-op idea was introduced due to Labour's desire to change the way services are provided and develop them more collaboratively, as well as being a way to provide quality services, despite the budget cuts from central government.  A white paper was published in May 2010 showing the Council's initial thoughts.  After that, a committee was set up chaired by Head of Lambeth Council, Steve Reed, which consists of residents, other councillors and members of national organisations. [I'd have said it's a little light on residents, but never mind...] They've received evidence from community groups, national bodies, private/public sector companies etc. to learn how the co-operative council should be delivered and are now deliberating on that evidence.  A final report, setting out the Commissioners' recommendations is due to be published in January 2011.  That report will start another 3 month consultation process.  At that point, they'll say, "when we talk about the Co-op council we mean these specific things" and see whether their recommendations are supported.  Lambeth Council will produce its response to the commission in May 2011 and will set out any recommendations it might want to accept, reject or amend.  [Any the wiser?  I wasn't.  But it seems to work quite well if you're involved in providing "consultation" services, something that's probably quite lucrative in these times...]

According to Mr Wiltshire, the commission has obtained evidence on 5 key areas, as follows...

1.  Leadership:  Two important questions have been asked: "What type of leadership should the council provide politically?" and "How can the Council be a better leader of civil society?"  The majority of people who have responded to the Commission have provided a clear message.  I quote...

"You're fine giving political leadership, but actually, you're not a particularly good community leader.  You don't listen particularly well...  If the Council are serious about this, there has to be some fundamental change to the way the organisation works... in partnership, as opposed to an organisation which attempts to consult, but doesn't do as well as it should do".  

It is thought that addressing such a matter will be a major challenge for the Council.

2.  Services:  At present, there are problems with the way services are commissioned.  Partnership is not handled well.  Commissioning and  procurement processes would need to be changed, so that the Council could be a "co-producer".  Questions arise about whether the council should be providing services themselves or whether they should be moving to different providers?  Might a social enterprise, charitable or 3rd sector organisation be more effective at delivering a service?

If an organisation shows they can deliver a service more effectively eg. youth services, under a co-op model, the council should support the organisations as opposed delivering it themselves.  To give an example, the Council has commissioned a gang intervention service named Exit.  Apparently, having a third sector organisation working intensively with children has been far more effective in drawing them away from gang involvement than traditional youth services, so the council are asking whether, if a 3rd sector group can be far more innovative, the council might commission such providers directly?  [It all sounds great, but one wonders what will happen to traditional youth clubs that are not "in vogue" at the moment, but are valuable because they're institutional and not fleeting.]

3.  Incentivisation:  People need to be encouraged to become more involved in local public service provision.  The Council want to know whether more citizens can be involved in such delivery and are trying to identify a "range of mechanisms" that would suit people.  Mr Wiltshire admitted this would be challenging because surveys so far have shown that a lot of people are already quite active in the community and the people that aren't have made the choice not to be involved for various reasons.  Consequently, it was acknowledged that trying to find a way to incentivise such people will be tricky.  [It does beg the question of whether, in the end, it might not be quicker, easier and cheaper for the Council to just run the services themselves.  But I suppose the answer to that is that there will be no money... I really dislike the idea of incentivising for voluntary work, as it seems to me akin to bribing.  Perhaps the Council would claim it's just a way of saying "thanks".]

4. Public service management:  How can the Council  manage services more effectively and enable front line officers to innovate and find new ways of delivering services?  At the moment, apparently, Lambeth Council  have "quite a controlling risk-averse culture".  The commisioners are looking at ways to try and change the culture.  They're also looking at joint-management, and asking questions such as; how can the Council more effectively join up services with the police or health providers?  Much work is already performed with Lambeth First partnership, but the Council seek to integrate services more widely.

5.  Financing:  At present, the Council try to co-ordinate budgets with other public service providers. The co-op council hope to try to centralise funding so that council, health services and  police don't just align budgets, but pool them centrally.  It seems that some of the ideas coming out of central government are broadly supportive of the notion.  [Which makes me wonder whether it's all just about cuts, cuts and more cuts].  The Commission is also looking at alternative way of funding/financing services considering a reduction in public sector funding. The Council are looking at ways of drawing in social and private sector finance to continue to fund services.  [All Council services will have to be financed somehow.  Note today a report that suggests Lambeth will consider proposals for an "opt-in" paid-for garden waste removal service and charges for bulky waste collection.  I fear a return to fly-tipping, so I'm hoping they've some kind of social finance scheme up their sleeves.  I've not a clue what "social finance" might be!]

I've split this post in two because despite editing, once I've added the question-time and some of my comments, we're looking at an essay-length write-up!  Continue reading if you want to see the questions that were asked as a result of this presentation....

Update on schools (and their websites) in Kennington, Oval and Vauxhall

Ever since I attended the Angry Parent meeting at St Anselm's church a few months ago, and compiled the list of schools and their recent Ofsted reports, I've been getting a lot more hits from people searching for local primary schools.  It made me wonder whether the subject matter of my area coverage was unbalanced.  I write a considerable amount on planning, but very little on the arts (community meetings seem to squeeze out theatre trips, but I've tried to address arts via the new calendar), and a lot on community groups, but very little on education...  I thought it might be worth redressing the balance every so often...

One particularly impressive part of the Angry Parents meeting was the fact that two members of staff from Henry Fawcett Primary School showed up and spoke about the measures that they'd put in place to bring their school out of Special Measures.  I thought it was a particularly brave move, at a meeting set up for parents who were concerned about their being enough places at "good" local schools to meet the needs of their children.  Consequently, it seems timely to note a document on the Henry Fawcett home page that demonstrates the steps they took to bring the school out of those measures in a very short time.  From that document, we learn that there's been a complete restructuring of staff, a new curriculum, the implementation of a database to monitor students' progress, report cards for misbehaving children, new sports coaches at lunch time, improved lesson planning etc. etc.  Wow.  Fantastic work!

Also, I wondered whether it was possible for parents and neighbours to learn what was happening at their children's schools locally.  St Mark's C of E school do have a rather slow website, but that doesn't look as though it has been updated since 2005!  Crampton Primary School have a website whose "recent" newsletter hasn't been updated since 2006.  [Edit 11/2/2011: Vauxhall Primary School have a new website.]  Walnut Tree Walk have a promising website with little content.  Charlotte Sharman share the same website host as St Mark's which is slow to load and hasn't been updated since 2007/8.  St Anne's Roman Catholic Primary appear to have no website.  Lilian Baylis Technology School have a site, but it's down (I'll check again in the morning).  Henry Fawcett have a bright website, which is only a few months out of date, and last updated approx. July 2010.  Archbishop Tenisons School have a website updated this month and Archbishop Sumner Primary School have a website that was last updated in October.  I wanted to make this post one about the positive news of local schools, but it will seem too biased if I do so without including a full range of schools.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Archbishop Sumner also have outstanding Ofsted results.  It's not true to say that the website makes the school, but it might be true to say that if you have within the school the resources (be that staff, parents or friends) to create and update a website, then you have the voluntary capacity required to run an outstanding school.  The problem is (and this is my uninformed guess), that many (not all, but many) parents with money and resources wish to send their children to Archbishop Sumner.  I'm not making this up, because this fact became clear at the meeting earlier on this year.  The parents at that meeting (95% middle class, professional, and, incidentally, white) wished to see that school expanded.  However, unless parents choose to run their own free schools (can't see Lambeth Council being excited by that idea), the likelihood of the school structure changing in its entirety is low.  The difficulty is trying to figure out how to share and spread levels of high attainment.

School staff (at least, according to the news) have to work longer hours, teach children with English as a second language in schools where multiple languages are spoken, provide discipline where parents fail, subject children to continual SATs testing, satisfy the demands of the National Curriculum and stay sane.  Maybe it's not their job to create and maintain websites.  There's a possibility that website are unnecessary when parents speak to teachers at the school gates, and newsletters always make it home in children's bags.  Should schools be producing websites and keeping the wider public informed of local education?  I don't know.  Is this the task of the Local Education Authority?  Maybe, but how will they know exactly what's happening in a school?  Is it their task, in an era of "shrink the state" governance?  It seems to me that maybe it's the task of school governors, but they have to ensure children are safeguarded, enable a school to support children with Special Educational Needs, decide on policies of exclusion and manage the staff in a school, all in an unpaid capacity.  It doesn't leave much time for managing a website.  It seems that perhaps it's the task of the parents, but when one IT-savvy parent's child leaves a school, the website could be abandoned.

School websites are a small and insignificant matter that simply demonstrate commitment.  Updating people with news is one of the ways that schools can appeal to the wider community and share their joys and concerns.  Sharing news and enabling local "ownership" of services is part of creating the Big Society, right?  The absence of up to date news from schools feeds into fears that I have concerning our impending Big Society.  The volunteer culture needed to update school websites is precisely the volunteer culture required to visit the elderly when the State is forced out through spending cuts.  Some people will argue that it should never have been the State's job in the first place.  I'm agnostic on that matter.  But even if it isn't the State's job, a sudden removal of  front line carers and visitors is not going to create a situation where volunteers are immediately able to fill the breach.  If that were the case, all of our schools would have up-to-date websites.