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Govan Community Council Conference Poverty, deprivation and development in working class communities The Pearce Institute, Govan, Glasgow Monday, 22 November 2004

The Pearce Institute

Economic development & local communities

Professor Mike Danson, Business School, Paisley University

When I came to Glasgow in the 1970s, I settled in its East End.  At that point something like 100,000 jobs had disappeared over the previous decade.  But the basic industries that had defined the economies of Glasgow, Clydeside and Scotland from the early part of 19th century - coal, steel shipbuilding, heavy engineering and textiles - were still dominant. And at that time in the 1970s there were plans for future.  A massive integrated steel plant around Ravenscraig, new coal mines, a deep water harbour on Clyde with petrochemical works and oil refineries, innovative ships, steel and concrete oil rigs.   It was a time of hope as well as change.

What was it like in those days - thirty years ago ?  Housing in the old industrial areas of those days tended to be based on the traditional family.  The man/father at work.  The woman/mother looking after home and family and children.  And all lived in council housing.  Usually there was one adult working in each family once the first child had been born. There were little opportunities for savings because these industries were highly cyclical, owner occupation was exceptional and there was no spare money - no collateral for loans to start new lives.

Within just ten years, by the late 1980s, there was a very different picture.  All the deep mines had gone, only one steel works was left, most engineering was in decline and hardly any textiles remained.  Unlike previous recessions these industries were now gone for good. It was an unprecedented collapse of industries, and of the communities they depended on and which depended on them, over a very short period. These were dominated economies: one industry towns and villages and neighbourhoods. Once the jobs in these industries had been taken away, there were often no local alternative jobs.  Large areas of land were left derelict by this - with half of the 1985 derelict land still unrecovered in 2004.

This decline was achieved through redundancies - mass job losses, with thousands at a time being told they were no longer needed, their skills rendered useless.  Men and women were thrown on the scrapheap. And so were their communities.

I dwell on this because it is important that we do not forget how we ended up with poverty and deprivation on such a scale in so many Scottish communities and why it is we have high and rising levels of inequality.

History and context need to be stressed.  First, because we need to learn.  At this moment on the other side of the European Union Silesia in Poland faces just the same kind of de-industrialisation.  But more importantly for today's discussion those who make policy and implement programmes must remember what has caused the problems we face today.  If they do not recognise and remember how we got here, they are in danger of blaming the victim.  

Too often they forget that the individual who is on incapacity benefit used to be a  worker with highly prized skills, someone with the dignity of creating much of the wealth on which our generation depends.  These are the people too often blamed for lacking enterprise, being dependent on the welfare state and not getting on their bike and leaving the community in which they grew up and in which they worked. The path we followed to get here is important.

The past 25 years have seen many initiatives to address the impacts of this deindustrialisation and worklessness. They started in my own area of the East End in 1976 with GEAR - the Glasgow Eastern Area Renewal - to tackle the worst mass poverty in Western Europe.   Twenty-eight years later we have lower life expectancy in Shettleston than in 1976.  Death rates for men are no better than some of the former republics of the Soviet Union such as Moldova. If there is no other statistic which should make us demand a reappraisal of redevelopment efforts, then it should be that one.

Today we have greater segregation within society than ever before.  We have single class estates.  There are job rich and job poor households and communities, areas of multiple deprivation where poverty is endemic. Glasgow has six times the levels of poverty that exists in Scotland as a whole (as measured by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation SIMD).

This is totally different in kind from where these communities were twenty years ago. There are now concentrations of people and families with problems in particular communities - in peripheral housing estates, mining and fishing villages, old inner city communities. Each has its own characteristics, histories and difficulties.  Old communities such as Govan, Gorbals, Springburn and the east end of Glasgow tend to have an ageing population, with particular problems and needs different from the peripheral estates and poor areas elsewhere.

Amongst working age households across Scotland, 85% of households where no-one works either has someone who is long term sick or disabled, or no-one has qualifications or they are headed by a lone parent. The old industrial communities such as Govan have many who are on incapacity benefits or lack qualifications, while many older people have no occupational pension scheme and must rely on the old age pension and means tested benefits. SIMD shows how communities like Govan have high concentrations of households facing such difficulties.

But we also know that many of those not in work locally face multiple barriers to getting a job. There are therefore especial reasons for helping these communities in particular to get a fair share of jobs.

What have been the initiatives?   They have taken three forms.

There have been actions and activities to change the image of the area or the city.  The first was the Mr Happy logo Glasgow's Miles Better ~ than it was ?   Then there was the Garden Festival - where they literally air-brushed out from the publicity material the communities behind the site itself.  Then the City of Culture - only whose culture?

These and similar events along with increased consumer spending on the back of tax cuts for the rich were meant to trickle down to poorer communities and households. Job opportunities were created in retailing, wholesaling, hotels.  These were low paying low skill part-time, which would be taken up by the low skilled. But there is no evidence that these schemes worked for the old industrial communities where there were significant numbers of skilled workers.  Many of the jobs were taken by women returners to the labour market, students and others looking for such work.

The second approach was to improve the balance of the communities by more housing associations, owner occupied housing and high quality private rented stock. There was some success for this approach in Easterhouse and the East End for instance.  But it requires significant and committed efforts to invest in sustainable development and quality houses with sufficient numbers of new build so that isolated ghettoes are not created.

The third approach was through what were called 'supply side policies' - training and education for the young people and the unemployed; better infrastructure and workshop and business parks to accommodate new and expanding companies; the creation of more enterprise and new businesses through a whole host of measures.  But evidence from various sources is that many of the jobs being created are not open to the long-term unemployed and inactive, those on Income Benefit or lone parents.  An academic study was undertaken on job creation programmes in the GEAR area.  This found that very few had actually been taken by local people.  The estimated total was nine jobs.  Many jobs in the new service sector economy are low paid, part-time, insecure, high turnover and without opportunities for progression.  They are therefore unattractive to those without jobs in areas like Govan and their casual and temporary character poses big economic barriers to the move from benefit to wages without loss of income. Local people do not have the contacts, the capital or the skills to set up own businesses and so the self employment and enterprise route is not available to most.

Faced with the failure or limitations of this trickle-down approach, we need to be sceptical of promises that Govan people will be beneficiaries of a media and science cluster being established on Clyde. How will local people get access to these jobs when they are competing with the thousands who are already in the labour market? Glasgow has created more jobs since 1995 than any other UK city.  The number is up 17 per cent compared with 12  per cent in Great Britain and 10 per cent in Scotland.  But 100,000 working age people are not in employment in the city but on Job seekers allowance and other benefits.  Govan itself has 51 per cent of its people of working age workless.  Many of the new jobs, probably most, have been taken by those commute into the city.  These are the people with qualifications and existing relevant job experience.  How can local people compete more effectively?

What needs to be done ?

First, there needs to be a more balanced housing strategy.  Communities are being adversely affected by stock transfer and by demolition of high flats and multi-storeys - with the construction of new owner-occupier houses being on periphery of the area, facing out and encouraging residents to go along motorway to Braehead, city centre for jobs, shops and other services. Statistically this may result in Govan having a reduced proportion of poor people.  But the core remains poor and excluded. So there is a strong case for housing to be re-examined as element for change, and in detail and not in simple aggregates. 

Second, supply side policies and programmes need to be managed to ensure that the long term unemployed and those who were directed to the sick and disabled benefits have access to appropriate training, support and jobs. Too often schemes exclude those on income benefit, older workers retired before their time and condemned to poverty before and after pensionable age. A most important consideration is the barrier posed by self esteem/confidence.   Attacks on community facilities and environment do not support  a positive self image for individuals or the community.  The construction of new premises, workshop and business units needs to be considered within an overall economic and social strategy for the community. What businesses will be attracted ?  Is there market failure and will companies come anyway?  It is likely that among business that do come there will be a high level of displacement from elsewhere in the city so that they will bring their own workforce and probably not recruit many locals. Commercial property market at the lower end has been facing lower occupancy, rents and so returns - does this augur well for local developments? If the new businesses do not come and the development is not sustainable, will the owners be allowed to relax the agreements to promote local residents, to offer appropriate jobs and training etc? Is the heart of the community being neglected in terms of social capital and community facilities - schools, swimming baths and sports grounds, libraries and Pos and halls ?  These are the facilities that bind the community together and  make it a place where people want to live, play and work.  The theory and practice elsewhere that underpin the policies of SEP, UK and Scottish governments, Scottish Enterprise and Glasgow City Council stress such factors.

Finally, how are local communities to be involved in making decisions about their futures? Are they merely informed or 'consulted' ?   Or, as the academic work and good practice suggest, are local communities actually to be made full participants setting the agenda?  How can Community Planning Frameworks be used to change all this?