Transferring British Community Entreprises to the Dutch Context
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1) The document discusses transferring the British concept of community enterprises (CEs), which are locally-run organizations that provide services, to the Netherlands. 2) There are some opportunities to adopt the CE model, but also significant challenges due to differences in organizational cultures and the role of government between the two countries. 3) Key questions remain about whether a policy of "forced active citizenship" in the Netherlands will be effective, what the proper role of government should be, and how to ensure all community needs are met and interests represented.
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Transferring British Community Entreprises to the Dutch Context
- 1. 1Challenge the future Transferring British Community Enterprises to the Netherlands Context: Sense or Nonsense? Dr. Reinout Kleinhans Delft University of Technology, OTB – Research for the Built Environment
- 2. 2Challenge the future Context • Prolonged crisis, budget cuts, and retrenchment of welfare states • Searching for alternative ways to regenerate neighbourhoods and combat social inequality • Looking for innovative ways to realise important goals in service provision without spending large sums of tax money • Stimulating active citizenship and promoting citizen self-organisation is high on the political agenda • UK: Big Society -> community empowerment • NL: Active Citizenship and self-responsibility
- 3. 3Challenge the future A Cross-Channel Interest • Strong Dutch interest in the British concept of Community Enterprises • UK: more than 600 community-led organisations which are supported by Locality • NL: national program of experiments with a presumably Dutch equivalent of community enterprises (bewonersbedrijven) • Two-year program initiated by LSA (Netherlands Organisation representing residents in Priority Neighbourhoods) • Support by Ministry of the Interior (BZK) • Also commissioned our two-year monitoring study • Will CEs truly ‘work’ in the Netherlands?
- 4. 4Challenge the future Defining Social Enterprises (Pearce, 2003) 1. Having a social purpose or purposes; 2. Achieving the social purposes by, at least in part, engaging in trade in the marketplace; 3. Not distributing profits to individuals; 4. Holding assets and wealth in trust for community benefit; 5. Democratically involving members of its constituency in the governance of the organisation; 6. Being independent organisations accountable to a defined constituency and to the wider community. •CEs define their social purpose in relation to a defined population or sub-group living in a spatially defined area (Bailey, 2012).
- 5. 5Challenge the future CEs Aims and Activities • Many CEs arise from a particular local demand, need or service deficiency not taken up by government or commercial entrepreneur • Activities and projects undertaken by CEs (Bailey, 2012: 28): • Provision and management of workspace, or even property management • Out of school education, training and advice • Provision of nurseries, childcare, play space and community facilities • Provision or facilitation of social and affordable housing • Provision and enhancement of parks and open spaces • Health and healthy living programmes, • Sports, leisure, recreation, festivals, theatre and the arts • Income generation and welfare benefits advice, • Programmes for sub-groups, e.g. young people, pensioners, BME groups • Potential for ‘new’ forms of neighbourhood regeneration
- 6. 6Challenge the future Critique on the Big Society (UK) • CEs may take a crucial position in the Big Society Agenda, but … • “The Big Society is nothing more than funding cuts in disguise, hitting those in deprived neighbourhoods hardest.” • "Big Society rhetoric is all too often heard by many therefore as aspirational waffle designed to conceal a deeply damaging withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities to the most vulnerable.“ (Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, 2012)
- 7. 7Challenge the future Source: http://cowlingreport.blogspot.nl/2011/02/friday-facts-uk-big-society-is.html
- 8. 8Challenge the future Active Citizenship in the Netherlands • No ‘Big Society’ but the term citizenship has increased in popularity since the late 1990s. Now a key policy tool to address many issues. • ‘Active citizenship’ entered the public spotlight on the back of two developments (Hurenkamp et al. 2011): • Fear that rising self-centeredness handicaps civic engagement. • Fear that growing diversity is putting an end to social cohesion and leads to a lack of shared language and solutions. • New momentum by the Social Support Act (2007), promoting: • Participation and active involvement of vulnerable groups within society • Active citizenship: participation of able-bodied citizens and their associations in the development and implementation of local social policy.Source: Lub, V. & Uyterlinde, M. (2012). Evaluating State-Promoted Civic Engagement and Participation of Vulnerable Groups …
- 9. 9Challenge the future Can the British concept be copied to the Dutch context …..? (1) • Ample opportunities for “bottom-up” self-organisation • However: it takes decades to establish sound CEs • Acquiring long-term assets is a slow and difficult process • Crisis lowers value creation of many assets (land and properties) • Difference in organisational and civic cultures • UK has a long tradition of co-operative and mutual organisations • NL: government as main provider of public services • Dutch residents groups inevitably face a cultural transition to a more entrepreneurial form of governance
- 10. 10Challenge the future Can the British concept be copied to the Dutch context …..? (2)• Netherlands: Government calls upon the responsibilities of people. It is your duty to help. Citizens should not get more power… only more responsibility. It is OK to be negative about citizens who are not responsible and help others. • UK: Government aims to empower people. You are invited to take action, show initiatives. In the UK moving responsibilities and power from national to local governments and local communities is seen as necessary to give citizens more power. • In UK there seems to be more energy, optimism, and funding. In the NL, policy may instrumentalise citizen action at the cost of the intrinsic motivation of citizens to help each other. Source: Verhoeven, I. & Tonkens, E. (2013). Talking Active Citizenship: Framing Welfare State Reform in England and the Netherlands
- 11. 11Challenge the future Can the British concept be copied to the Dutch context …..? (3)• Paradox: localities with the greatest need to solve social problems, usually have the lowest capacity for self-organisation • Well-equipped citizens may develop activities to the benefit of their own interests, but not to the interest of other community members • Exclusion from CE benefits • Self organisation can thus lead to selection and more inequality. Issues important to the most vulnerable might not be taken up. • Governments torn between self-responsibility discourse and fear • Officials have difficulty in behaving supportively (“affectionate neglect”) • What if residents’ initiatives fail …..? • Citizens not necessarily do what the government thinks is good for them
- 12. 12Challenge the future Some BIG questions remaining • Does the Netherlands approach of ‘forced’ active citizenship work? What role should the government play? • Do citizens have time for all of this? Do they all want to participate and take action themselves? What if not? • Are citizen initiatives allowed to fail? • Who looks after the interests of those who cannot successfully organise themselves? • Who is responsible for our key services (education, health, housing)… and the liveability of our neighbourhoods?
Editor's Notes
- Citizenship new buzzword since the early 1994s. Key policy tool to address issues of social cohesion. Citizenship entered the public spotlight on the back of three developments. First, there is the fear that rising self-centeredness is putting an end to civic engagement, for which a communitarian idea of citizenship is billed as the solution. Second, there is the fear that growing diversity is putting an end to social cohesion. A republican idea of citizenship, stressing nationalism as the new uniting force, is presented here as the answer. Third, growing diversity requires another aspect of republican citizenship: the debating of differences to find a new shared language and new shared solutions.
- Citizenship new buzzword since the early 1994s. Key policy tool to address issues of social cohesion. Citizenship entered the public spotlight on the back of three developments. First, there is the fear that rising self-centeredness is putting an end to civic engagement, for which a communitarian idea of citizenship is billed as the solution. Second, there is the fear that growing diversity is putting an end to social cohesion. A republican idea of citizenship, stressing nationalism as the new uniting force, is presented here as the answer. Third, growing diversity requires another aspect of republican citizenship: the debating of differences to find a new shared language and new shared solutions.
- Citizenship new buzzword since the early 1994s. Key policy tool to address issues of social cohesion. Citizenship entered the public spotlight on the back of three developments. First, there is the fear that rising self-centeredness is putting an end to civic engagement, for which a communitarian idea of citizenship is billed as the solution. Second, there is the fear that growing diversity is putting an end to social cohesion. A republican idea of citizenship, stressing nationalism as the new uniting force, is presented here as the answer. Third, growing diversity requires another aspect of republican citizenship: the debating of differences to find a new shared language and new shared solutions.
- Citizenship new buzzword since the early 1994s. Key policy tool to address issues of social cohesion. Citizenship entered the public spotlight on the back of three developments. First, there is the fear that rising self-centeredness is putting an end to civic engagement, for which a communitarian idea of citizenship is billed as the solution. Second, there is the fear that growing diversity is putting an end to social cohesion. A republican idea of citizenship, stressing nationalism as the new uniting force, is presented here as the answer. Third, growing diversity requires another aspect of republican citizenship: the debating of differences to find a new shared language and new shared solutions.
- Netherlands already has high level of informal care and voluntary work. The Government says we need to do much more. The government prefers informal care, but citizens indicate that they prefer help from professionals. Almost 50% of all adults are already doing some form of voluntary work, mostly sport clubs, followed by schools, informal care, and religious organisations. Most participation in 35-44 age group and pensioners Rural areas Higher educated people http://www.rotterdam.nl/nieuws:winnaarstadsinitiatief2013bekend Citizens of Rotterdam could vote on initiatives in the city for which 2,5 million Euro was available. Only 41,000 people voted out of 500,000 adults.
- Citizenship new buzzword since the early 1994s. Key policy tool to address issues of social cohesion. Citizenship entered the public spotlight on the back of three developments. First, there is the fear that rising self-centeredness is putting an end to civic engagement, for which a communitarian idea of citizenship is billed as the solution. Second, there is the fear that growing diversity is putting an end to social cohesion. A republican idea of citizenship, stressing nationalism as the new uniting force, is presented here as the answer. Third, growing diversity requires another aspect of republican citizenship: the debating of differences to find a new shared language and new shared solutions.
- Citizenship new buzzword since the early 1994s. Key policy tool to address issues of social cohesion. Citizenship entered the public spotlight on the back of three developments. First, there is the fear that rising self-centeredness is putting an end to civic engagement, for which a communitarian idea of citizenship is billed as the solution. Second, there is the fear that growing diversity is putting an end to social cohesion. A republican idea of citizenship, stressing nationalism as the new uniting force, is presented here as the answer. Third, growing diversity requires another aspect of republican citizenship: the debating of differences to find a new shared language and new shared solutions.
- In the UK there is a similar movement called the Big Society, but according to Tonkens there are large differences: Tonkes analased government reports and speeches on … 4 Contradictions: 1.The view in the Netherlands is that the citizens behaviour has caused the welfare state to get out of hand. Consumers of government services instead of citizens. In the UK the government is blamed. Centralistic, top-down… this stops the citizen from being responsible 2.In NL the citizens should not get more power… only more responsibility. It is ok to be negative about citizens who are not responsible and help. In the UK moving responsibilities and power from national to local governments and local communities is seen as necessary to give citizens more power. 3.In NL all is about duty… You MUST contribute to society, social cohesion, stability…. Be active. In UK there is more energy, optimism, government tries to lure (verleiden) citizen to do more and get more power. 4.NL there is a lot of emphasis on own responsibility, individual responsibility. Using the vehicle of voluntary work. YOU YOU. In UK there is more emphasis on community and source of hope for the individual. WE WE. In the Netherlands there is emphasis on budget cuts, responsibilities, necessary. In UK more emphasis on making a difference, change, energy, more power for citizens. NL government is as a parent telling a child what to do. In UK more emphasis on empowerment. BIG QUESTION is which approach works best and works best in the Netherlands? The Netherlands citizen might not feel that the government message is for them, but for others in society…
- Citizenship new buzzword since the early 1994s. Key policy tool to address issues of social cohesion. Citizenship entered the public spotlight on the back of three developments. First, there is the fear that rising self-centeredness is putting an end to civic engagement, for which a communitarian idea of citizenship is billed as the solution. Second, there is the fear that growing diversity is putting an end to social cohesion. A republican idea of citizenship, stressing nationalism as the new uniting force, is presented here as the answer. Third, growing diversity requires another aspect of republican citizenship: the debating of differences to find a new shared language and new shared solutions.