Big Noise is 10

A couple of hundred people were gathered for the 10th birthday bash for Big Noise, a project that had taught music to over 2,500 children in Raploch and three more of Scotland's less advantaged communities in Glasgow, Aberdeen and, most recently, Dundee. In each location, there has been a partnership between Sistema Scotland, the Council and local schools. The event was a celebration of a remarkable project that had flourished through the determination of one man in particular. Richard Holloway had been the Bishop of Edinburgh, a lifelong campaigner for social justice and an undeclared polymath. He was inspired by the work of the Venezuelan youth orchestra that had helped shape and inspire the lives of underprivileged children in Venezuela. He brought the concept back to Scotland in 2007 and began a search for somewhere to start a similar project in Scotland.

Sistema Scotland has targeted communities by drawing a line under the past and nurturing a new generation of children who grow up in an environment saturated with intensive and immersive music making. We work with children from birth through to adulthood. While our most obvious triumphs are musical our purpose is to use that music-making to equip children with confidence, resilience, ambition, and a multitude of transferable skills to support them across all areas of their lives. The ultimate goal is to boost educational performance, health and well-being so that children grow to achieve their full potential, contributing to positive communities with fewer costly problems.

Richard Holloway founded Sistema Scotland with the backing of the Scottish Arts Council, an organisation that he has chaired. He set out in 2007 to search for a disadvantaged community in Scotland that could benefit from its primary objective of providing children with an educational environment through sustained music-making. It was happenstance that Stirling Council was approached to work with Sistema Scotland to host what became Big Noise in Raploch. At the time the Council had commissioned a new community campus in the Raploch that would bring together three primary schools, a nursery, a further education facility, and a sports hall in a single building that would act as the focal point for the community. It was a significant capital investment for an area stigmatised for decades by its high levels of social and economic deprivation. When Richard Holloway came calling we thought that the Sistema Scotland concept could provide an extra dimension of activities that could amplify and consolidate the health and well-being of the community. The arrival of Sistema Scotland compensated for the Health Board's decision against relocating a health centre on the campus.

The funding allowed the appointment of professional musicians and together with the partnership with the primary schools that had transferred to the campus and the ready availability of rehearsal space, the project began to flourish. A generation of children have taken part in Raploch so far and 107 musicians, both paid and volunteers, have provided the tuition and leadership. It has impacted many lives, not just the children involved but their parents and the wider community who expressed their appreciation during the celebration.

In his brief but eloquent summary of progress over 10 years, Richard Holloway passionately endorsed the need to provide opportunities and inculcate ambition amongst all children. He explained how when he was responsible for drilling soldiers during his national service in the army he realised that soldiers always marched better when there was a band at the front. Music inspires and creates a collaborative culture. He had just watched and listened to children from the ages of 4 to 18 years demonstrate the skills and self-confidence that they had acquired through their involvement with Big Noise. Several of the older teenagers explained how the project had shaped their lives as they were about to enter further and higher education or take up jobs. For the first time, his voice trembled and the emotions of a man whose humanity has no bounds were shared with the assembled children, parents, teachers, workers and others who had witnessed the delivery of this remarkable project.

An Evaluation of Sistema Scotland was carried out in 2015 by the Glasgow Centre of Population and Health This evaluation strongly endorses Sistema Scotland’s approaches to delivery: the impacts of the programme evidenced at this stage of the evaluation are clear. What is also certain is that Sistema Scotland’s 'Big Noise' programme has the potential to significantly enhance participants’ lives, prospects, health and wellbeing through a variety of identified pathways in the long term. Any endorsement of Sistema Scotland is also an endorsement of a range of local partners who contribute to the delivery of Big Noise; the schools deserve considerable recognition for their commitment.'

Big Fall

Cold comfort

After the prolonged frosts of early January, we finally had a big dump of snow, about 20cm., over the weekend making travel almost impossible. Even a short walk became a stern workout and there were few people venturing into the white wilderness. The grey skies were peppered with smoke from wood-burning stoves, it could be Scandinavia.

Overnight the thaw began and for the first time in over a fortnight, we had temperatures above freezing this morning.

Snow 1 Gritting 0

White Out

Shetland Ponies

Lochan Spling

Cool Runnings

Bridge over the Forth

I normally enjoy running in the snow, it provides soft ground, a serene quietness, spectacular scenery and chance to observe the tracks of the wildlife. Today the forest trails had had an overnight dump of 8-10cm of snow on a hard frozen base. Every step became a whole body experience as I kicked steps through the snow. Apart from a couple of buzzards circling for food, there was no sign of fauna. The deer, foxes, squirrels, small mammals and cyclists had left the trailblazing to deranged runners.

My regular 6-mile route that normally takes 44/45 minutes, or maybe 48 minutes wearing winter gear, became a 58 minute run in the snow and extreme cold. I spent all morning recovering first from numb hands caused by peeling off gloves to take photos and then just the deep exhaustion of cool runnings.

Deep stuff

Point of no return

Cool at minus 4°C

No chance of going off-piste

Last legs

Home straight

Der Spiegel lampoons Trump

Der Spiegel's cover image of 12 January 2018 sums up the inexorable descent of President Trump with true Teutonic efficiency. The cover was designed by New York artist Edel Rodriguez and illustrates the regression of humanity through Trump.

"Fire and Fury" is Michael Wolfe's devastating critique of Donald Trump's first year in the White House. Der Spiegel asks "Can the world's most powerful man really be dumb, senile and addicted to television as the book claims? He spends his early evenings watching three televisions in his bedroom? Eating a cheeseburger and tweeting all the while? An entire White House teetering between hysteria and chaos?"

It explains "how 'Fire and Fury' came to be and whether, and the extent to which, it approaches the truth. It delves into the consequences for an America and a world that have been confronted with a nuclear-armed fool, who is neither mentally nor psychologically suited for the job - apparently also not physically, either, given how late he starts the working day and how early he ends it. Humanity as a whole is being set back just because of one single person. The achievements of decades - the fight against a climate disaster, against the nuclear threat, for equality between men and women, between blacks and whites and so on and so on."

I'm not sure that I shall bother reading the book, the story of Trump's year is so absurd that it is probably best told by cartoons.

Presidential Inauguration

Syrian bombing

Charlottesville white nationalism

Revenge of the Chief Strategist

Another billion for Carillion

The Carillion Values

The news this week has been about the crash of Carillion, one of the half-dozen big facilities management conglomerates that feed on public services that have been outsourced by government departments and its agencies. It is no surprise that Carillion has gone into liquidation. As austerity has squeezed public expenditure and reduced the number of capital projects and inflation has spiralled, the price of successful bids and contracts are no longer the cash cows they were previously. Carillion has long been notorious for subcontracting to smaller companies and only paying them after 120 days if they are lucky.

The government, the opposition and the regulators are falling over each other to divert the blame for the collapse. The easy targets are the management with excessive pay to senior executives. Whilst not disputing that management has been guilty of maladministration, politicians and most of the media are not prepared to analyse or acknowledge that their decisions have led to this state of affairs.

Carillion was formed by the merger and acquisition of some formerly well-respected companies such as Tarmac, Mowlem, Alfred McAlpine, and part of the Laing Group that had expertise in construction. They were corralled into Carillion which expanded rapidly by acquisitions and leveraged into debt that allowed hedge funds to make short-term financial gains. They had targeted PFI contracts introduced by the John Major government and continued by Blair and Brown as they sought to reduce public expenditure by the expedient of private finance. This gave the government the excuse to claim financial prudence at the same time as creating significant increases in long-term costs for the government and its agencies. Health authorities and Councils were also forced to adopt this method of capital funding.

Carillion is led by Phillip Green, no, not the already disgraced one who stripped the retail sector of its profits and pension funds. This one has yet to be disgraced. He was David Cameron's adviser on corporate responsibility. This was a strange appointment because the pensions ombudsman had found him in breach of trust in mismanaging the coloroll pension fund when he was the Managing Director.

There is nothing strange about a hedge fund selling short the company's shares in the expectation of making a sizeable profit when the share price collapses. They simply kept the dividends flowing and loss-making work was sidled off to subcontractors. Then they reduced the terms and conditions and extended the pay dates and abracadabra, the workers and subcontractors could bear the costs, and consequences and become the scapegoats whilst the hedge fund scurried away with the cash.

Carillion had extensive experience and technical management who had worked for successful construction companies and many of its big construction contracts were carried out with positive outcomes. Unfortunately, they had many important public works contracts (costing the government over £100m) that have been sacrificed on the altar of financial hedgery-pokery. The dark arts of British capitalism are not dead. However, it is the government that has failed to regulate the city and its crypto bandits. With Brexit dominating the life and death of this government and its total disregard for tackling real issues, this is not going to be resolved soon. The treasury and ministers have transferred too many public services into the responsibility of companies like Carillion and, at the same time, reduced the capacity and accountability that were vested in democratic bodies. The problem is that the risk remains with the government. They are trapped in a financial catastrophe of their own making.

Strathclyde Regional Council, ashes to ashes

Strathclyde Regional Council - India Street HQ, 2018

I was walking to the Charing Cross station after spending some time with ex-work colleagues and veered off to see the site of my former offices in India Street where I had worked for 16 years for Strathclyde Regional Council. 

Strathclyde Regional Council was inaugurated in 1975 as the largest local authority in the UK serving a population of 2.5 million. It was formed following a Royal Commission of Local Government in Scotland, chaired by Lord Wheatley. Like any Royal Commission, the proposals had been meticulously researched with much evidence behind the proposals to create 9 regional councils, 53 district councils and 3 island councils to replace the 33 counties, 4 cities, 21 large burghs and hundreds of small burghs and landward districts that preceded them. The proposals had been subject to lengthy consultations that were transparent and generally accepted as a necessary reform. The existing muddle of councils with different sets of functions had failed to tackle the social and housing conditions, schools were understaffed in poorer areas and there was endemic corruption within some councils. 

In Strathclyde 103 councillors were elected in 1974 to serve on the council. The council was led by two outstanding councillors from the majority Labour Party: the Rev Geoff Shaw, a Church of Scotland minister who worked in the Gorbals, and Dick Stewart, an ex-miner from Harthill. They were chalk and cheese. The eloquent and erudite Geoff Shaw with his passion for social justice and the pragmatic and brutally principled Dick Stewart who was no orator but a disciplinarian equally determined to deliver social justice. 

They melded together a diverse group of councillors, not tolerating any form of corruption and providing a clear agenda for the 100,000 staff to follow. The west of Scotland was in a state of meltdown as mines closed, shipyards ran out of work, factories were closing and 60,000 people a year were leaving the region. The former Glasgow Corporation had engaged in a programme of the demolition of older tenemental properties to accommodate the building of urban motorways and the construction of huge council housing schemes lacking the range of facilities required by the residents. Jobs and people were moving to the New Towns of East Kilbride, Cumbernauld and Irvine. Stonehouse had been designated as the fourth new town in the region to continue this exodus. 

There seemed to be little recognition by the Scottish Office or by the existing councils that this was eroding the social and economic fabric of not only Glasow but also towns like Clydebank, Dumbarton, Paisley, Greenock, Motherwell, Hamilton, Airdrie, Coatbridge, and Kilmarnock. The West Central Scotland Plan had called for a radical shift in urban policy to regenerate these older urban centres along with Glasgow. This was not well received by the many in the business community who were enjoying the subsidies, low rentals and new infrastructure in the new towns. Nor did the majority of existing councils welcome the Plan; the exceptions being Clydebank, Greenock, Motherwell and Coatbridge, which were more positive about the need for a radical shift in policy to create opportunities for their citizens and reduce the loss of young people.

The Scottish Office had in a 1962 White Paper planned for rapid population and economic growth but the collapse of traditional industries meant that the opposite was happening. The outcome was social and economic turbulence in the region, which the 1971 census identified as containing the worst concentrations of urban deprivation in the UK. Strathclyde Regional Council recognised this and made its two overarching objectives the need to tackle multiple deprivation and economic development. 

These objectives were pursued with a missionary zeal that included recruitment of more teachers to eradicate part-time education in deprived areas, reallocation of staff to areas of greatest need, community engagement including the encouragement of house modernisation through the creation of 29 housing associations, support for threatened industries and investment in rail electrification and underground modernisation rather than highway construction. The Council also persuaded the Scottish Office to establish an economic and environmental agency, the Scottish Development Agency. Whilst this was generally a positive initiative, the agency was largely staffed by professionals transferred from the New Town corporations who were more focused on development than regeneration. They did not have the skills to address community engagement nor were they inclined to address social justice issues.

Over its first ten years, Strathclyde achieved a remarkable transformation in the way that local government was run with an emphasis on community development, positive discrimination, urban regeneration, investing in public transport and renewing outworn infrastructure. It used its financial clout effectively and utilised its influence to gain both European funding and government grants like the urban programme for its poorer communities. The politics were dominated by Labour but there were also high calibre and principled politicians from other parties and they worked collaboratively on many issues. 

There were also some charismatic senior officers such as Fred Edwards, the buccaneering Director of Social Work, who measured his performance by the number of times his photo appeared in the Evening Times. The Stalinist Director of Education who was committed to giving priority to education but shunned popularity. He was supporteded by able deputies such as Dan Burns, whose performances at Committee could be comedy gold. The Chief Constable was held to intense scrutiny by a Council committee before being recruited  as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and thereafter the face of TV tyre adverts. The larger than life Depute Director of Finance commuted in from the Isle of Bute every day and on being informed at a Council meeting by a councillor that his suit jacket was covered in white paint replied: "no. its just seagull shit from the morning ferry". 

 

Strathclyde Regional Council acquired a reputation for radical policies that were adopted by other Regional Councils and there were strong limks with the Metropolitan Counties in England. In the 1980s it worked in partnership with other European Regions and was an active player in the European Union. Its elected members and its officers had a sense of pride in working for a progressive authority.

Scottish Conservative politicians such as Secretary of States, George Younger and Malcolm Rifkind, were slightly in awe of Strathclyde Regional Council and its leading politicians and supportive of many initiatives. The same could not be said of Prime Minister Thatcher who, after disbanding the GLC and Metropolitan Councils in 1986, saw Strathclyde as the last bulwark against the neo-liberal policies she was pursuing. Her distaste for Strathclyde was shared by some of the District Councils, notably Cunningham, Kyle and Carrick, Strathkelvin and Eastwood who objected to the influence of the all-powerful region and its emphasis on urban renewal. Despite the significant benefits of these policies to Glasgow, Glasgow District Council resented the loss of its municipal muscle and that the Regional Council, despite its size, worked far more effectively with its communities than the more paternalistic District Council. The tense relationship between region and district was further aggravated by the preciousness of their respective chief executives and the leader of the District Council. 

Strathclyde Regional Council was understandably seen as being overly dominant with almost half of Scotland's population and its policies had been adopted by other regions such as Tayside, Fife, Lothian and Central. The Scottish Office was far less influential not only because it was seeking to impose Tory UK policies on a largely Labour-controlled Scotland. It could have addressed the issue of size by setting up Ayrshire as a separate region. Whilst Ayrshire looked to Glasgow as its regional centre, it was the least integrated part of the region and was a similar size to other regions such as Fife, Central or Tayside. Alternatively, the Scottish Office could have re-examined the distribution of functions between region and districts and strengthened the powers of local communities to deliver some services. But this assumed that there was such a thing as communities and that was anathema to the prime minister and her cohorts. 

Instead, the Scottish Office, encouraged by PM John Major describing Strathclyde as a monstrosity, decided to reorganise local government for the whole of Scotland. There was no Royal Commission this time, just a hastily drawn up set of proposals for unitary authorities with four options ranging from 15 to 63 units. There was a cursory consultation period before initially 25 and eventually, 32 unitary councils were designated in October 1994. The new councils were elected in April 1995 and became operational a year later. 

What is often forgotten in describing the shift to unitary councils, in itself a generally positive step, was the transfer of many functions: water, sewerage, police, fire, transport, colleges, careers, children's panels, assessors and various other functions to either joint boards or national bodies. The new unitary councils were in many ways less able to deliver services and shape development in their areas than was possible under the two-tier system of local government. This soon became apparent and precipitated the introduction of Community Planning in 1999 as a means of coordinating the activities across the illogical tartan of administrative boundaries that the Scottish Office and subsequently the Scottish Government seemed to determined to create. In practice, the centralisation of public services in Scotland and the multiplication of quangos was a severe dilution of local democracy and harbinger of the downward spiral of public services in Scotland.

Glasgow became a unitary Council again after 20 years. Although it no longer included Rutherglen, and its suburbs were spread across East Renfrewshire, East Dunbartonshire, South Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire Councils. The politicians from these councils and from the City of Glasgow adopted an anti-Strathclyde stance on many issues including an unwillingness to adopt its policies. The new councils gave short shrift to many of the staff who transferred from the regional council and this institutional memory was sacrificed on the altar of parochial pride. This extended to the use of buildings, which were sold or renamed, as with Strathclyde HQ in Glasgow that became Nye Bevan House for no obvious reason other than to bury any reference to Strathclyde. The eventual demolition of Strathclyde HQ buildings is a physical manifestation of the way that the many accomplishments of Strathclyde Regional Council have and are being erased from the history of local governance. 

It is maybe that Glasgow City Council lacks the vision of its predecessor or the confidence to deliver public services without resorting to outsourcing many functions, which it has done with a flourish. By almost all performance measures it lags behind most other Scottish Councils in its delivery of key services like education, social work and environmental issues. Try finding a public convenience in Glasgow, recycling bins or an affordable parking place. The Council has complained constantly about its lack of resources but it has been slow to modernise or streamline services in the way that other Councils have achieved. This has led to much mutual resentment with Glasgow leaving COSLA and, more justifiably, complaining about the huge resources that Edinburgh has received following the location of the Scottish Parliament there in 1999.

Strathclyde's significant contribution to the revitalisation of Scottish public services, not only made a difference but initiated policies and initiatives that were adopted by other Councils in the way that innovation and progress had always been propagated by local democracy. There was a constant stream of visits from Councils in England and Wales as well as from regions in European countries to study the Strathclyde approach to social and economic regeneration. In many ways, Strathclyde Regional Council left a far more successful legacy than the Scottish Government is achieving with its centralising tendencies and blind faith in its own judgement since its formation in 1999. 

Unfortunately, Strathclyde Regional Council preceded the onset of the internet and there has been no desire by either Glasgow City Council, as the holder of its public records, or the Scottish Government to acknowledge its achievements. Search engines are blind to Strathclyde's vast array of initiatives on social justice, economic development and community engagement that could help shape effective policies by both Councils and the Scottish Parliament. 

 

Unfortunately, local democracy has been a victim of devolution to the Scottish Parliament and this has been amplified by the press and media largely abandoning their coverage of local affairs unless there is a scandal involved. Donald Dewar in stating that 'there will a Scottish Parliament' had never intended this, he always spoke eloquently about devolution being about subsidiarity. Thus it was just as important to transfer power from the Scottish Government to local government as it was from Westminster to Holyrood. His successors as First Minister have not followed his promise, they have seen devolution as a one-way street leading to Holyrood.

St Vincent Street facade as was

India Street, now home of Scottish Power

Happy Days

Where does this connection come from?

Good Reads 2017

A few friends have listed their best reads as they reflect on the year gone by and the year to come. It prompted me to examine my frugal reading of the past year. I managed a mere 15 books as a result of spending more time reading news and articles on the internet. Undoubtedly the John Bew biography of 'Citizen Clem' Attlee stood out. Attlee was the PM when I was born and shaped the environment that I grew up in. The NHS, council house, new school, university education and scholarship and the profession that I joined were all products of the progressive and mainly enlightened post-war government that he led. He had no great ego, little time for the press and despised corruption. He cared deeply about the conditions of working people and had the courage and nerve to begin the dismantling of the empire.

He was not a heroic figure, nor did he have the charisma associated with his peers, most notably Churchill. What he had was the vision and determination to eradicate the worst excesses of class and privilege and the provision of better conditions and services for all the citizens. Yet he remains a largely uncelebrated man in a country that satiates on celebrity. I lent my copy to a friend who was a former History teacher who was moved to tears on completing the book. "Why do we no longer have politicians like this?" His conclusion was understandable during a year when UK politicians reached a nadir in the esteem of the electorate after the mess of Brexit and their inability to address the burning issues of housing, community care, children's services, transport, tax evasion, corporate negligence and the lessons of Grenfell Tower.

Tack forward seventy years and the political changes have been equally dramatic but in a less clement way. Mrs May has presided over the most disruptive and useless cabinet in my lifetime and has then made things worse by her inability to make decisions or direct change. Two books have captured this with differing effects. John Crace's collected diary of articles was published in I, Maybot, the term he coined to describe her robotic behaviour and the failure to have 'a plan' or to be 'strong and stable'. His starting point is factual but he drifts into a fantasy that is believable as fact and creates some comedy out of the tragedy. It was an easy read if a bit repetitive.

More disturbing was the excellent Fallout by Tim Shipman, the political editor of the Sunday Times. He dissects the outcome of the Brexit referendum in forensic detail with the help of dozens of insider interviews. In its way, it is far more critical of Mrs May's government than even the John Crace diaries and leaves you thinking how much longer can this charade continue.

As for novels, well this was a poor year, I am finding it increasingly difficult to find good reads as we are overwhelmed with books from traditional publishers as well as throngs of self-published works. Given that I have spent many months in Orkney and Shetland since retiring it is no surprise that two books set in these remote wild places became my best reads. The Outrun by Amy Liptrot was probably the highlight telling the story of an Orcadian girl who moves to London, subjects herself to various addictions in Hackney before returning to the solitude and life-affirming lifestyle of Orkney on one of its most remote islands. Cold Earth is the seventh novel in the Shetland series by Ann Cleeves. Her writing conjures up familiar haunts and I can visualise almost all the streets, buildings, beaches and locations described in the book. She captures the brutally wild environment, the cold weather, the warmth of the people as well as strong links to the rest of the UK. The regulatory murders are almost incidental.