Search: food ( 60 Results )
Be brave when times are tough
This article originally appeared in the Municipal Journal, where our Chief Executive, Sarah Longlands, writes a regular viewpoint column.
Inflation may have eased, but there are tough times ahead. Sarah Longlands urges local authorities to step outside their comfort zone and reimagine economic growth
Early in my career, I worked as an economic development officer at Barnard Castle, with the objective of marketing the town to visitors in order to support local businesses and jobs. Little did we know at the time that all we needed to put this vibrant historic town back on the map was a certain person’s eye test.
Building Community Wealth in Scotland
Our response to the Scottish Government’s consultation
As Sarah Longlands shared at the end of March, we have been delighted to be able to work with partners and friends across Scotland over the last few months to understand their views on the Government’s proposals for a Community Wealth Building Bill.
This legislations would be a powerful step forward in enabling the democratisation of our economy and would be progressive global first – that it could happen so close to home is immensely exciting. The government’s consultation closed on Tuesday this week and below we share our responses to the questions posed. We would be delighted to hear your thoughts too – please do get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspects of our response, the items under consultation or the development of community wealth building in Scotland or anywhere else.
Oldham Energy Futures
(2021 – 2022)
Oldham Council partnered with CLES, Carbon Co-op, URBED and UCL on a project funded by ICLEI to explore a community-led approach to the energy transition in two low-income neighbourhoods. As well as producing community-owned action plans, the project led to the development of a toolkit to allow other places to replicate the approach.
Context
- This work was enabled by Oldham Council’s pre-existing commitment to community wealth building, and a local green new deal which includes a focus on community-led and -owned solutions to the energy transition (e.g Oldham Community Power).
To forge a “New Britain”, Labour must rethink our economic system
The party pledges to unleash growth in its report on the UK’s political future, but it has missed the point about where financial power rests.
This article originally appeared in the New Statesman.
Five practical ways to kick start your community wealth building journey
Over the last week – in the build up to today’s Community Wealth Building Summit – my colleagues Lauren Bond, Charlie Murphy and I have been running a series of webinars, taking delegates through the fundamentals of a community wealth building approach.
It’s testament to the journey we have been on since the last “in person” Summit, held in the summer of 2019, that this “getting people up to speed” is now an adjunct to the main programme, as opposed to making up much of the bulk of it, as it did three years ago. In 2022, so many places are getting on with the business of building community wealth that they are looking to the Summit as a chance to get even deeper in their conversations, to go further in their journeys.
A new progressive economy is being built locally
This article originally appeared in the New Statesman.
The disastrous Spring Statement demonstrated that the Treasury is still tied to its old ways, but an alternative economic strategy is emerging in regional and local authorities all over the UK
As energy, food and fuel prices continue to soar, there is mounting pressure on the Chancellor to go further than he did in the much-maligned Spring Statement to ease the increasing burdens on consumers. The Treasury’s paltry measures to relieve the biggest squeeze on household incomes in decades were met with consternation from Rishi Sunak’s critics, as substantive interventions such as a windfall tax on oil and gas firms were notably missing from his mini budget.
Local government at the heart of a just transition
As the energy price cap rises today, CLES Senior Researcher, Ellie Radcliffe, reflects on her recent visit to the Apse Big Energy Summit and considers the role of local authorities in balancing climate and economic justice.
Nearly three years since three hundred local authorities began to declare climate emergencies, the removal of the energy price cap today arrives as the Big Six energy companies have recorded over a billion pounds of profits. This is just part of the picture, with oil and gas giants BP and Shell spending over £147 billion in stock buybacks and shareholder dividends since 2010 – seven times more than what would be needed to keep households’ energy bills at a manageable level.
“we need an approach to decarbonisation which changes the fundamental building blocks of economies”
Such profiteering hits to the heart of why we need an approach to decarbonisation which changes the fundamental building blocks of economies, making them work for ordinary people and our places, as well as the planet. At CLES, we advocate for community wealth building as a pathway towards this just transition, with local government at its heart.
Post-pandemic social value in Manchester
”They return the love around here, don’t they?” – Guy Garvey
In its recently published Levelling Up White Paper, the government argued that the power of public procurement should be used to deliver support to communities and pledged to put social value at the heart of government spending. The forthcoming Procurement Bill will, the government argue, provide the means to realise this ambition. In this, there is much that can be learned from the work of Manchester City Council.
Making financial power work for local places
This article originally appeared in Responsible Finance.
Recent years have seen a growing number of local councils across the UK, including Birmingham, Sandwell and Wigan, as well as the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales adopting community wealth building to develop collaborative solutions to local social and economic problems. In contrast to the UK Government’s much-touted levelling up agenda, community wealth building is a tested method for people-centred local economic development that brings real change to local places.
Community wealth building is about a more progressive form of local economics. It helps to increase the flow of wealth back into local communities enabling people to start businesses, develop skills and access jobs. One of the ways in which it does this is by harnessing the economic power of “anchor institutions”, such as local authorities, NHS trusts, colleges and housing associations, to strengthen the economic resilience, social cohesion and environmental health of local places. Through the strategic use of their spending, hiring and asset use anchor institutions can deploy their economic power to support the development and growth of local businesses. Ensuring that all businesses and social enterprises have access to fair and ethical finance is a key component of community wealth building.
The brave
Four lessons from Scotland in delivering community wealth
At the close of the 2021 Community Wealth Building Summit, we reflect on remarks by our opening keynote speaker Tom Arthur MSP and the work that CLES has undertaken with the Scottish government over the last 12 months. The lessons learned should resonate with governments of all scales in Scotland and the wider community wealth building movement.
In his opening remarks to this week’s Community Wealth Building Summit, Tom Arthur MSP argued that community wealth building provided an “opportunity to approach economic development in a new way” in order to help create “common prosperity”. As the Scottish Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, Mr Arthur has put community wealth building at the forefront of his agenda arguing that it needs to sit across government, providing a “whole system approach” to an inclusive economy. He also confirmed the Scottish government’s intention to introduce a Community Wealth Building Bill during this parliament, to consolidate changes in practice and enable local anchor organisations to use their economic leverage to deliver more for local people and communities.
Raising Council Tax won’t fix local government
This article originally appeared in Tribune.
A decade of austerity has decimated local authority funding and left many councils in crisis – but hiking regressive Council Tax isn’t a real solution. Ahead of the today’s budget statement, CLES’s Rachel Bentley and Victoria Bettany have written for Tribune explaining why.
This week’s Budget will be make or break for councils across the UK. It’s set to be a true test of whether the government really cares about the poorest in our society, or whether it’s content to continue passing off responsibility entirely to local authorities, whose capacity to help has been diminished by a decade of austerity.
Welsh Government
(2019 – ongoing)
CLES has been appointed as community wealth building partner to the Welsh government. Our role is to support anchor institutions in selected Public Services Board (PSB) areas across Wales to explore community wealth building approaches, with a focus on progressive procurement. This project is being delivered by CLES and the Wales Co-operative Centre.
Context
- The progressive national policy context in Wales provides a supportive framing for community wealth building approaches.
- The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act means there is a specific legislative focus on improving the economic, social, environmental, and cultural well-being of people and communities in Wales.
- The Welsh Government also prioritise strengthening the foundational economy – those sectors which deliver the everyday goods and services that people across Wales depend on.
Hywel Dda University Health Board
(2020 – ongoing)
Health spending has the potential to be a core economic driver in local economies, helping to mould the local economic architecture of places to address the social determinants of health and tackle some of the core drivers of avoidable demand into the health system. CLES, with Hywel Dda University Health Board (HDUHB), are exploring how a progressive health board can maximise the impact of its spending power for wellbeing in Wales.
Context
- Health spending has the potential to be a core economic driver in local economies. However, this has yet to be realised at scale by health institutions in the UK.
- In England, many health institutions are keen to explore their role as local economic agents, but this can be hampered by a muddled national policy context and a tendency towards centralised systems.
- In Wales, the national commitment to a wellbeing economy and the prioritisation of the everyday, foundational economy, provides a progressive policy frame within which the scope for health spending as a core economic driver can be fully explored.
- CLES is supporting HDUHB, which provides healthcare services to a population of around 384,000 throughout Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, to pioneer this approach.
Lauren Bond
Senior Researcher (West Midlands Lead)
