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six - Communities at the heart? Community action and urban policy in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2022

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Summary

A recipe for violence: Promise a lot: deliver a little. Lead people to believe they will be much better off, but let there be no dramatic improvement. Try a variety of small programmes, each interesting but marginal in impact and severely under-financed. Avoid any attempted solution remotely comparable in size to the dimensions of the problem that you are trying to solve …. Get some poor people involved in local decision-making, only to discover that there is not enough at stake to be worth bothering about. Feel guilty about what has happened to black people: tell them you are surprised that they have not revolted before: express shock and dismay when they follow your advice. Go in for a little force, just enough to anger, not enough to discourage. Feel guilty again: say that you are surprised that worse has not happened. Alternate with a little suppression. Mix well, apply a match, and run. (Wildavsky, quoted in Moynihan, 1969, p ii)

Introduction

As the chapters of this volume show, many commentators have welcomed a new willingness to listen to and involve local people in area-based regeneration policy in the UK (Atkinson, 1999a; North, 2000; Purdue et al, 2000). To take one example: the Single Regeneration Budget Round Five (SRB5), 1999. Among the plethora of funding regimes, SRB has a particularly poor reputation as a bureaucratic, inflexible process that emphasises number crunching rather than ‘real’ results or innovation (see Chapter Eight of this volume). Many of its processes are opaque to those who have not cracked the mysteries of its specialist language and style! Its management and reporting requirements assume that participating organisations have the administrative structures to handle the voluminous paperwork involved. Funding is normally paid in arrears, which again assumes that participating organisations have extensive financial back-up. There is little support to involve small community groups in developing schemes. As a result, few voluntary organisations have been successful at winning these funds, despite encouragement from Government Offices.

Single Regeneration Budget Round Five was the first round held under rules written by New Labour. It was supposed to be different; it claimed to have learned from criticisms.

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Urban Renaissance?
New Labour, Community and Urban Policy
, pp. 121 - 138
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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