Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
17 SEPTEMBER 2003
PAUL SHEEHAN,
RODNEY GREEN
AND BEN
BROWN
Q160 Chris Mole: We have been struck
by the geographic separation of communities here in Oldham. How
widespread is the problem of parallel lives in Leicester?
Mr Green: It is considerable and
it can be also within communities. Intra-community parallel lives
can be issues around attitudes to women and to children. The major
challenge for us is to break down those parallel lives and create
these cross-links in our schools and in culture and so on. However,
the report which Ted and his team did for us—compliments
to them—following the major national Cantle report is one
of the most sensitive, stimulating, constructive, pungent reports
that I have ever read on local authority matters. What we discovered
in the research for that report was that if you speak to minority
communities and ask them about their choices they will say they
want unfettered choice. This is the evidence in Leicester. When
it comes to issues like housing, "We want to live with people
that we know and understand, next to our granny and cousins and
so on. Don't call that a ghetto. That is our choice. We do not
want to have that changed". If you take an issue like education,
"We actually want the best school. We hope that it is nearby
and it is within walking distance, but we are prepared to move
and travel to a high quality school in the best interests of our
children". Take a different issue like leisure and art and
culture, "We want as much mix as possible. We want to be
integrated and have cross-links and we actively want to promote
those ourselves". There are these differentiated ways of
looking at parallel lives and cross-links. It is not a homogeneous
picture. Housing is quite different from sport and art and leisure.
Q161 Chris Mole: Turning to Haringey,
does the London experience differ in any way from the northern
metropolitan areas?
Mr Brown: Looking at what might
be an issue about cohesion, we see the problem as being not geographical
but fragmented in terms of what is going on with communities,
so that in fact you have a variety of communities living in the
same area but very fragmented and very much about their own particular
needs at any given time, not necessarily in a negative way but
again in terms of what one feels comfortable with. There are real
issues around how we pull them all together and how we get them
to understand that we will not go out of our way to give one without
the other, that we really do believe in treating people equally,
but also recognising and trying to hold on to the fact that people
have different cultures and people have different needs in terms
of their cultures. We must recognise that and work with that in
terms of providing for them and providing for the groups as a
whole. It would be wrong to say that there are not problems and
those problems are intensified at the moment in terms of many
new groups that we have got coming into Haringey and in trying
to fit them in. At the moment we are at a point where there are
real tensions within the communities and it is quite interesting
to note that if you talk to black and minority ethnic groups who
have been within the community now for many years about asylum
seekers, they will say, "Send them all home". That is
coming from black groups, not just white groups, so some of that
is permeating throughout. They all see these asylum seekers as
a big problem and it is an issue that we have to address and it
is causing real concerns in terms of trying to knit the communities
together.
Q162 Dr Pugh: To what extent does
the way a local authority is run affect social cohesion?
Mr Sheehan: I think it makes a
huge difference. If the authority is open and listening, self-challenging
and self-critical, then it will fairly quickly realise that we
do not have all the answers as local authorities; our stakeholders
do not have all the answers; central government does not have
all the answers. We are constantly searching for ways to address
the issues that are arising and changing all the time. The way
that they are run makes a difference.
Q163 Dr Pugh: How big a difference?
The problems could be insuperable, could they not, for any local
authority, however enlightened?
Mr Sheehan: I would suggest to
you that there is no solution for a local authority alone to the
issue of community cohesion. I would echo something that Rodney
said. This is not only a problem, if one sees it as a problem.
It is also an asset to a community and it is also something that
we should welcome. Local authorities are not going to fully address
the community cohesion and social cohesion issues on their own.
This is a vertically integrated issue. It is one which central
government is just as much engaged in, and should be, but it is
not wise to be prescriptive because the differences between Haringey,
Calderdale, Oldham, Leicester and everywhere else are such that
local solutions are needed. What we need is local authorities
that are wise enough to look for examples of good practice and
constantly learn. It is not a solution for a local authority.
Oldham will not solve Oldham's issues; Calderdale will not solve
Calderdale's, nor any other, on their own. If they are not open
to ideas and persuasion then the problem is going to get worse,
not better.
Q164 Dr Pugh: Would you differentiate
between the role of yourself as chief executive of the local authority
and that of the political leadership of the local authority? Do
they have different roles and responsibilities in this process?
Mr Sheehan: I think we do. It
is very clear. I have never stood for election and never will.
I will never have the direct mandate of the people. I am a servant
of the people in a different way from the way in which politicians
are servants of the people, so my authority comes from there.
I have no direct authority myself. Their role in leading communities
is absolute. My role is to support that. I know it is a textbook
answer but sometimes the textbooks are right. It is a danger zone
for officers to tread in.
Q165 Chairman: But you have got it
cushy, have you not, because you are able to say that you represent
the whole of the local authority, whereas any political person
in your authority actually represents a ward, do they not? Is
there not a temptation for them to end up feeling their ward representation
is slightly more important than their representation of the whole?
Mr Sheehan: On election elected
members are there to serve the community as a whole with particular
focus on their wards, and wise ones do. I would never describe
the role of the chief executive as a cushy one, but it is one
step removed from the harsh reality of an election. In fact, it
is completely removed from the harsh reality of election and therefore
we have a role in continuity and in ensuring a moderating influence,
I suppose, in that sense, but it is different from authority to
authority.
Q166 Chairman: I shall turn to Mr
Green.
Mr Green: My answer to your question
is that the local authority is the single biggest player in this
issue. It is the single most decisive factor in leadership on
community cohesion. I will give you two political examples and
then two more rounded examples, if I can use that phrase. A political
example is that a democratically elected leadership has an enormous
symbolism in a community which no officer can replicate. If your
political leadership does not reflect the community, the messages
that that is sending out will be very powerful, so Leicester for
much of the last two decades has reflected its local community,
has always had in the cabinet black and ethnic minority leaders
and reflects about 25 per cent of the community on the council.
That is an enormous symbol. That really communicates to the local
electorate. The second issue—and this came out in the research
that we did—is that if the leadership that members offer
in their wards is partisan: "I am leading those who voted
for me; I am leading those who are my colour, my race, my background",
that is extremely divisive. There were criticisms in the report
that we did of all three parties and of the majority as well as
the minority community leadership, that it was not wholehearted
enough. It was too partisan, so that is a real challenge to political
leadership. Once elected you represent the whole ward, all the
interests in there, and there is a powerful opportunity there.
A more rounded answer, as a very judicious answer has been given
by my colleague, is that the truth is that in a very well run
authority the division between chief executive and the leadership
should be relatively seamless unless it gets to very critical
key issues which are very clearly political or professional. There
are not many of those. It works best when there is a seamless
collaboration. Leicester City Council spends about £650 million
a year. If you understand that community cohesion is about housing,
it is about culture, it is about economic performance, it is about
faith issues, it is about housing and so on, the way that money
is spent is bound to be extremely significant. That is why the
city council is the biggest key player. The second issue is to
do with partnership. We are the key link to police, the voluntary
sector, the private sector, the local strategic partnership, and
if we are working well in partnership with them it is not just
the £650 million spent; it is the orchestrating of the other
spend that can be done in a way that promotes cross-community
links or inhibits them. We have a heavy responsibility.
Q167 Mr Clelland: Quite rightly the
local authority is the main player in all this, but how can a
local authority engage the other partners in the voluntary, community
and private sectors in this whole social cohesion agenda?
Mr Sheehan: I do not think organisations
do these things; I think people do these things. Where partnership
works well it works because the individuals in those organisations
trust their peers and their colleagues in other organisations.
If you looked for Calderdale Council you could not find it; it
does not exist. There is a town hall, there are elected members,
there are officers. It does not live and breathe. People make
relationships that stand. How we approach our partners, how we
approach stakeholders in the community is the way that makes things
work well or otherwise. You simply have to do that from something
like a common agenda and that is the trick. The health sector
in Calderdale probably spends more than we do as a local authority
combined in all of its manifestations, so we have to have common
agendas to make sure that the vast sums that we are spending are
being used in a way that we all think is right. Organisations
do not do that; people do that, and it is about trust between
individuals.
Q168 Mr Clelland: Is the LSP the
right place to do it?
Mr Sheehan: We are not a neighbourhood
renewal authority so we have an LSP because we think it is a useful
tool, not because a minister said we should do. We have had 22
years of community partnership working, the first community partnership
authority in the country, so we do this because we think it makes
a difference. When we recruit senior people in all of the organisations
in Calderdale we do not look for people who are territorial in
the way that they do these things because the boundaries between
our organisations are falling all the time.
Q169 Mr Clelland: You talk about
the importance of people; that is what it is all about, so how
do you ensure that the balances and strategies which are worked
out at the organisational level are translated into action on
the ground?
Mr Sheehan: What we would seek
to do is to thrash out simple and common aims, and from common
aims action plans that mean something. Simplify and simplify again.
That is often very difficult with between 70 or 80 plans required
of a metropolitan authority from central government, 19 alone
in education. Putting the local flavour, that trust thing, into
a framework which is so heavily regulated is a challenge but it
works because people are prepared to do it.
Q170 Chairman: Do not a lot of people
turning up to these partnership meetings actually think it is
a chance to go and have a rest from doing the real work and are
rather cynical that they do a lot of talking but nothing really
happens? How do you convince them that things happen as a result
of these meetings?
Mr Green: Can I give an example
of presenting this report to the Leicester partnership? The Leicester
Partnership said that this was the single most stimulating report
they had received since they had formed three or four years previously
and we now have an action plan that we are trying to develop with
the partnership. Of course, what you have said is true of some
partnerships some of the time. This is just part of the life of
partnerships. I would not want to convey the impression that these
formal, very visible partnerships are what partnership is all
about. They are part of what partnership is about, so, to answer
the question that you were asking earlier: how do you know it
has been translated into practice, I would want to be able to
cut into any part of the life and services that Leicester produces
and satisfy myself that here in this small operation of housing
or education there is evidence of partnership working in engagement
here on the ground as well as across the city, and in the business
plans and strategy documents there is an overt and explicit commitment
to trying to promote community links and community cohesion. That
is the starting point. If it is not there you are not going to
see it on the ground.
Mr Sheehan: Your point is well
made. There are too many partnerships. They are being required
of local authorities for unreasonable reasons. Eighty-five thousand
pounds a year community facilitation fund requires that the council
form a new partnership. We have got partnerships coming out of
our ears. The people who can do this could have done it through
existing vehicles but there was a requirement to create a completely
new partnership, to spend £85,000.
Mr Brown: Can I say on behalf
of our chief executive that what he would want to say is that
we are very much a corporate authority in terms of the way in
which we approach things. Internally we must be seen to be working
with each other and actively produce something from working with
each other. That is a key theme that goes right through. He believes,
to use the jargon, in walking the walk and talking the talk to
make sure that we get out there and meet with people. He does
it himself. He is there, he meets with staff, he meets with the
communities.
Q171 Mr Clelland: What does the mainstream
community cohesion mean in the context of your local authority?
Mr Sheehan: Putting it at or near
the top of all our planning processes, that it is interwoven into
everything we do.
Q172 Mr Clelland: How is it working
out?
Mr Sheehan: With larger or lesser
degrees of success in different parts of the enterprise.
Chairman: It is difficult for me to get
it on record if you shake your head one minute and then nod the
other to imply ambiguities, so if we could have a few words that
helps a little bit.
Q173 Chris Mole: Mr Sheehan, what
could be done to reduce segregation in schools?
Mr Sheehan: Seven per cent of
our community is black and ethnic minority. They live predominantly
in two wards and are served predominantly by one high school.
People tend to want to go to a school that is near them, but we
have found increasingly that the success of a school determines
where people will want to go. Interestingly, we have got something
that is working counter-intuitively. For quite a while our black
and ethnic minority communities have wanted to move out of Halifax
for their education into the more leafy areas. The single most
successful school in terms of its improvement over the last three
years has been a school that is 96 per cent Asian in its catchment
and people now want to use that school. Asian parents want their
kids to go to that school because it is a successful school and
increasingly so. Segregation is an issue and the whole issue of
parallel lives is potentially a problem. Choice is also an issue
and if people vote with their feet to go to a school that is near
them and is successful, I do not think I am going to be the one
who says that that is inappropriate. What we are trying to do
is address how people may interact in other aspects of their lives
and also (a point that has been made earlier) that people have
a desire to live together. My own family came from another part
of the world and wanted to live where people of their like were.
That is right today, it is proper today, but there have to be
other ways in which people exchange and interact and we are trying
to do that in a whole range of different ways. Segregating schools
is not something that we do but it has happened historically and,
interestingly, it has been successful.
Q174 Chris Mole: So you do not think
there is a role for looking at schools admissions policies and
merging catchment areas and that sort of thing?
Mr Sheehan: We constantly keep
that under evaluation but the degree to which schools make their
own decisions in these things is quite significant. It is about
brokering and understanding those things. We have an excellent
relationship with our schools, all of which are improving. We
keep it under review but we are not proposing substantial change.
Q175 Chris Mole: Do you have sufficient
powers and flexibilities if you feel you need to do something|
Mr Sheehan: It is about influence
and brokering rather than power.
Q176 Chris Mole: | through the admissions
formal process?
Mr Sheehan: Yes. We could bring
about change if we needed to.
Q177 Chris Mole: Coming back to what
you were saying in the first part of your answer, how does the
community cohesion agenda fit with the desire to improve standards
overall?
Mr Sheehan: It is not at odds
with it. We have not identified any specific issue which says
that improving school attainment, improving opportunities for
children is something that is challenged by what we are doing
or runs counter to what we are trying to do in terms of community
cohesion. They are consistent. We are trying to give young people
opportunities to meet people from different communities. We do
that in a range of different ways, but we are still giving people
choice in the schools that they would want to go to. There is
not a conflict in this thing if it is planned carefully. They
are consistent and contribute to each other's objectives.
Q178 Dr Pugh: We are moving on to
regeneration now. There is a lot of competitive bidding for different
regeneration funds. We have received some evidence that this leads
not to competition between communities but exacerbates tensions
that are already there. What is your view on this? Do you think
this situation has got better over the last two years or not?
Mr Green: I would say that it
has got more complex and more challenging and therefore tends
to generate more conflict between different communities. We are
now wrestling with this issue, and the research that we have done
in Leicester indicates that over the last ten or 15 years politicians
have been quite wise in spreading across all the different communities
over a period of time the various pots of money that come on stream
that we have to bid for and win. The community do not believe
this. Wherever you go in the community they are absolutely convinced
that another area has been favouritised for many years and this
area has been underplayed, and so we have a constant backcloth
of criticism, negativity and self-pity that regeneration has favoured
all the other communities. This works particularly badly in the
white working class outer estates which see community cohesion
as something that has an unfortunate bias towards more recent
arrivals of persons from abroad and see their own white working
class culture being taken for granted, and I think if we are not
careful both in the substance of deployment of regeneration resources
and (just as importantly) the communication about the fairness
of it to change the perception, this can turn itself into being
a problem.
Q179 Dr Pugh: Do you think it would
be possible to adopt a more thematic approach to regeneration
which would improve matters rather than this very geographically
based distribution of funds?
Mr Green: Thematic would help.
I am biased, of course. I would say routing it through the city
council which knows the area and understands the local politics
and understands the wider picture is best. This is just one source
of funding, so if you make decisions which are rational just in
this one source of funding without taking into account many other
fundings you could end up putting all the resources in a particular
period in one area and that would create enormous social tensions.
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