Active learning for active citizenship: The policy context

In this paper the UK civil servant directly responsible for managing the action research programme Active Learning for Active Citizenship (ALAC), sets out in brief the policy context within which the programme developed. He explains how concepts of active citizenship and community development were brought together in the early 21st century by the British Government, in a programme of 'civil renewal'. As this has spread across Government as a commitment to 'community empowerment', the role of learning in building the capacity of both citizens and communities, and also public servants, has become increasingly recognized. Action research proved a very cost effective way of informing the development of a new approach to this kind of learning for adults. Introduction In the last half century, the political recognition given to concepts of citizenship and community in Britain has varied significantly. Official acceptance of the role that community development can play in building participation and strengthening communities seemed to reach a peak in the 1970s, with the establishment of the Home Office Community Development Project in a number of deprived communities. However perhaps the state was not ready for the political challenge that the projects brought, and they were abruptly discontinued. In the 80s, the pendulum swung fully in the opposite direction as political developments were centred on 8 individuals and families pursuing their own interests in the context of the market. When the present government came to power in 1997, David Blunkett reasserted the concept of active citizenship, but set it in the context of 'civic republicanism', a political theory dating back to ancient Athens, and developed in the Ital ian city states of the Renaissance, and subsequently by others such as the American President ThomasJefferson, and byJohn Dewey and L T Hobhouse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Central to this tradition is the idea that the freedom of citizens can only be truly realized if they are enabled to participate constructively in the decisions which shape their lives. David Blunkett started, as Secretary of State for Education and Skills, by introducing citizenship education into secondary schools, as a mandatory part of the National Curriculum. This was soon followed by pilot projects in citizenship education for 16-19 year olds in a range of settings from colleges to youth clubs and work places. Civil Renewal It was when David Blunkett moved to become Home Secretary that his ideas found a broader practical expression, which he christened 'civil renewal' for want of a better description. As he wrote inJune 2003, 'we must aim to build strong, empowered and active communities", In December 2003, he amplified this commitment in the following way: "Civil renewal can only be attained through communities of different shapes and sizes, of interest as well as geography, becoming engaged in defining and solving the problems they face. To bring this about, there are three crucial ingredients: • Active citizenship: CItizens should be given more opportunities and support to become actively involved in defining and tackling the pro blems of their communities and improving their quality of life. • Strengthened communities: communities should be helped to form and sustain their own organizations, bringing people together to deal with their common concerns. • Partnership in meeting public needs: public bodies, within the established democratic framework, should involve citizens and communities more effectively in improving the planning and delivery of public services."! None of these elements were new as strands of public policy; in themselves. Active citizenship in its more limited and philanthropic form of volunteering had a long and honourable tradition. In more recent years, the role of individuals as social entrepreneurs had been given much greater prominence, for instance in the Policy Action Team 16 report'" which contributed to the development of the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal in 20001V • Meanwhile after the debacle over the Home Office Community Development Project in the 70s, community development continued to be practised in local communities up and down the country. Here and there it benefited from considerable investment from local authorities and other public bodies, though with very little explicit political recognition at national level of its effectiveness, or even of its existence as a coherent method of working. 9 Partnerships had for a while been an essential ingredient in regeneration, a trend which culminated in the idea of the Local Strategic Partnership, a partnership of partnerships, bringing together public, private, voluntary and community sector representatives at local authority level, which was established as a centrepiece of the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal. What was new in the brief given to the Civil Renewal Unit in the Home Office, set up in 2003 to carry David Blunkett's civil renewal policy forward, was the aspiration that the three strands could be woven together in a single coherent Government policy. It was not an easy task, but eventually it found expression in the deceptively simple concept or 'brand' of 'Together We Can people and government working together to make life better'. Together We Can became the cross-government umbrella for a number of significant developments. The most comprehensive was the Together We Can action plan, published inJune 2005v, which brought together in one government document 65 policies, programmes and initiatives from 12 different government departments, which collectively illustrated the government's commitment to empower citizens to work with public bodies to set and achieve common goals across a wide range of policy areas. A review of progress was published in June 2006V1, in which 12 government ministers expressed their belief in the efficacy of the 'Together We Can' approach in their sphere of influence. Implicit in the Together We Can approach was the recognition that it was necessary both to create opportunities for greater engagement, and also to build capacity; both in citizens and communities, and in public bodies, so that those opportunities could be fully exploited. One would not be successful without the other. Two major policy developments in particular addressed these dimensions of the Together We Can approach. In December 2004, the Civil Renewal Unit published Firm Foundations: the government's frameworkfor communipy capadpy huildi"gnz, based on the results of a lengthy and wide-ranging consultation process. Firm Foundations set out an agenda for action to strengthen the resources and opportunities available for capacity building. One of the four priorities for action it identified was to ensure the availability of a 'menu of learning opportunities', both for citizens and communities and for public bodies. The other, part of the government's local vision review of local government policy; focused on neighbourhoods, and examined ways in which power and responsibility could be devolved to people in neighbourhoods through policy or legislative reform. Throughout 2005, a crosssector Neighbourhood Projects Board led by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister considered such topics as community management and ownership of assets (that is, land and buildings), devolved budgets, promoting and strengthening parish councils, and bottom-up mechanisms for triggering action by local authorities. The process was given a further fillip when, in May 2006, the functions of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister were integrated with the former Home Office responsibilities for civil renewal, community cohesion and race equality (aswell as women equality issues from DTI) into a new Department for Communities and Local Government. Conununity Empowerment The new Department had as its first major task the publication of a Local Government White Paper, which took as one of its primary aims 'to give local people and local communities more influence and power to improve their lives'. The White Paper Strong and Prosperous Communitiesvm, which was published in October 2006, explained why after a period when 'the improvements in our public services have been driven largely from the centre', the government believed the time was right to show 'confidence in local government, local communities and other local public service providers by giving them more freedom and powers to bring about the changes they want to see'. Chapter 2 of the White Paper Responsive Services and Empowered Communities translated the work of the Neighbourhood Projects Board into practical policy proposals. By this stage, in early 2007, the term 'civil renewal' was gradually giving way to 'community empowerment' In central government parlance. Though partly just a matter of terminology; the use of empowerment for the first time acknowledged that government was officially in the business of sharing or devolving power, or, as some would have it, enabling people more effectively to exercise the power they already possessed. The size of the task was clearly illustrated by the results even of the most recent Citizenship Survey (2005), which showed that 61% of people in England and Wales felt they could not influence decisions affecting their local area, and 79% felt they could not influence decisions affecting national affairs'", Government at the highest level recognised that taking steps to counteract the widespread sense of powerlessnesswas crucial to building a better society. Summarising the position we have reached in spring 2007, there is a strong and explicit shift in government policy which recognises the importance and effectiveness of a devolution of power from central to local government, and from local government to communities. This policy commitment is being translated into practical opportunities for the exercise of devolved power particularly through the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Billx, currently in Parliament. At the same time, there is also a growing, but still much less widespread realization that real empowerment requires culture change in institutions and confidence building in individuals to ensure that the opportunities are taken advantage of This is the challenge for the next period.