In her conference speech last month, shadow deputy prime minister and levelling up secretary Angela Rayner listed a strong community as one of the ‘simple things in life that are crumbling’.
One person deeply committed to doing something to fix that is key proponent of community power Katie Kelly.
Ms Kelly, who recently retired as depute chief executive of East Ayrshire Council, has been appointed as the new chair of New Local, taking over from her friend and mentor Donna Hall. She arrives at the organisation following a decades-long career in the public, health and communities’ sector.
She developed and led the Vibrant Communities approach in East Ayrshire, delivering whole system transformation with a focus on community power and community-led regeneration. Vibrant Communities was established in April 2013 and was greatly influenced by Cormac Russell’s groundbreaking work on asset-based community development.
East Ayrshire has had more than 60 successful community asset transfers, including the biggest one in Britain – a high school building now being run by a local social enterprise and theatre company.
Speaking to The MJ, she radiates utter belief in and enthusiasm about the importance of this agenda. She says of the community asset transfers: ‘The communities are running things for themselves and they’re running them better than the council ever could.’
Why is she attracted enough to this role to decide to break her retirement? She says: ‘Some people are saying it’s what Katie did next. I suppose from my point of view I’ve been involved in serving communities and the public for well over 30 years.
‘My passion is about service and about the incredible power in communities that people kind of overlook’, she continues. ‘Over the years we’ve seen dependency cultures develop and the state and the people they serve becoming more separate. I’ve always been delighted to be part of debunking that and remembering that we’re all the community – we’re not anything different.
She adds: ‘I think there’s just something about people and the interdependence between public servants and communities. If we didn’t have a community to serve we wouldn’t have a job. There is something about the equalisation of power.’
Having spoken to Donna Hall and colleagues at New Local she says the more she thought about it the more she realised she could add value. ‘I’ve been working with them for a long time. I’ve a lot of respect for them.
‘I want to do things that make a difference and make my heart sing. But also ‘[things that] make change happen.’
She’s firmly of the belief that UK society ‘is at a crossroads just now – I think we’ll all agree with that. It feels a bit like Beveridge’s time. I feel we might be at that same point in history.’
It is about councils entering into a different relationship with their communities, she believes. What would she say to councils which may feel too mired in concerns about short and medium-term financial sustainability to fully embrace community power? The ‘big headline here is that community power costs less’, she stresses. ‘For me all councils in the UK are under pressure. The models councils are running by are in my opinion is no longer fit for purpose. It’s not affordable in its current format.’
She adds: ‘The message I would give to councils in England, in Scotland, in Wales and Northern Ireland is get involved with New Local and we’ll help you to see a way to do this. It isn’t rocket science. But it takes a change in your workforce culture to become more enabling in what you do.’
Her striking metaphor to emphasise the need for a new way involves a dog and a helicopter. ‘If I was doing a presentation just now to you about this I’d have a helicopter in the air taking a dog for a walk. Basically the dog is getting its outcome, it’s getting a walk, but how much does it cost to put the helicopter in the air? For me we’ve over-engineered solutions in public services. We’ve been well meaning but it’s so hard to change your operating models when you’re not getting the chance to step back and be strategic and do things differently.’
She says this is all eminently doable. It takes time, and councils need to convince the politicians and bring communities with them. ‘But when it’s done employees are happier…their jobs become better, but this costs less.
Returning to Beveridge, she quotes him saying ‘this is the time for revolutions and not for patching’ when he argued for social progression. Her own concluding mantra is that what New Local is offering as part of this movement of transformation is space and capacity to make that radical change happen.
