With the new coalition government in place, and the promise of public spending cuts looming, communities, more than ever, are facing an urgent question: Can we find ways of doing more for less?
Central to answering this question will be Total Place studies, where public sector agencies come together to assess how to deliver better services for less money.
As Total Place is rolled out across the country, there will be opportunity to look with fresh eyes at the contribution others, including third sector organisations and social enterprises can make.
- Are there particular kinds of organisation, community anchors, community enterprises, for example, which have potential to drive forward positive change in a time of spending austerity? If so, how can their contribution be maximised?
- Can they - should they - be part of the Total Place solution? Should we be aiming for a Total Community approach - if so waht would that look like?
The event brought together leading policy makers, investors, government officials and community practitioners to address these questions and identify practical ways forward.
Download the event programme
Private sector community heroes awards The DTA Policy Symposium was followed by an evening reception and Awards ceremony to celebrate "Private sector community heroes". This was a celebration of individuals from private sector organisations who have supported their local community enterprise. For more information and to find out the winners of the awards click here.
Speaker biographies
Peter Holbrook (Chair of the opening session)
Peter Holbrook is CEO of the Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC), the UK's national body for social enterprise. As CEO of the Coalition, Peter is working to promote social enterprise as a model for changing both business and society.
Prior to taking on this role Peter was CEO of the Sunlight Development Trust. He established ‘project sunlight’ as project manager and developed it, from inception, to become one of the country’s most high profile ‘community anchors’ and one of the regions most rapidly developing and diverse social enterprises.
In 2007, as a result of his successful leadership of Sunlight, Peter was appointed one of the UK’s Social Enterprise Ambassadors – a scheme supported by the Cabinet Office and coordinated by the Social Enterprise Coalition. In this role he advocated for social enterprise through lobbying politicians, speaking at events and representing the sector in the media.
Peter has previously worked for a number of Non Governmental Organisations such as Oxfam, Greenpeace and various disability charities and has experience of working in overseas development, community development, public health and social enterprise. Peter started his career with Marks and Spencer PLC and also spent time with Body Shop International.
Glenn Arradon (Cultivating community enterprise)
Glenn Arradon is the Enterprise and Policy Manager for the DTA. He coordinates a number of national programmes, around enterprise development (Cultivating Enterprise programme), inclusion (reducing re-offending) & and capacity building (Knowledge & Skills Exchange Programme), as well as being involved in supporting the delivery of the Communitybuilders programme alongside the DTA's partners. He is also involved in developing our policy and research functions.
Glenn joined the DTA in 2004, having previously worked with an international human rights organisation in Indonesia; he has since learned a lot about the community sector and he continues to draw inspiration from the practitioners he meets.
Karen Butigan (Cultivating Community Enterprise)
Karen Butigan is the Chief Executive of St. Peter’s Partnerships; a community owned and led Development Trust. She joined the Organisation in 2006 and has led the transformation of culture and services away from traditional straight line project delivery to become a local platform for the development of enterprising solutions. She is also is a Director of Tameside Learning Consortium and Chair of the North West Regional Committee.
St. Peter’s Partnerships was identified in 2005 as the exit strategy for the 10 year regeneration programme for the area which came to an end in April 2008. It prides itself on being community led and in developing creative solutions, removing barriers and providing a 'step up' for local people who need support. The Partnership has recently won a national workforce development award for its “Grow our Own” recruitment and employment initiative and was a 2009 winner of the BURA Best Practice in Community Regeneration Project in the British Urban Regeneration Association’s Awards.
St Peter's Partnerships currently employs 65 staff and has 80 volunteers, 87% of the workforce comes from the local community. The forecasted turnover for 2009/10 is approximately £2 million. The Trust supports around 2000 adults each year of which 500 enter into education and training initiatives, over 100 into first stage employment in community enterprises and provides more than 700 children and young people with and average of 62 hours of out of school activities each week.
Annemarie Naylor (The Asset Effect) Annemarie Naylor is the DTA's Asset Programmes Manager and is responsible for supporting delivery of the national Asset Transfer Unit, together with having oversight of the Advancing Assets for Communities demonstration programme and support for Community Asset programme participantsPrior to joining the DTA in June 2008, Annemarie worked for the East of England Development Agency and Regional Assembly to support social inclusion policy development and programme delivery. Latterly, she managed the delivery of the RDA’s Building Communities Fund – supporting asset based development across the region to promote social enterprise through capital investment.
Priya Thamotheram (The Asset Effect) Priya is the Head of Centre at Highfields Centre. Following a £4.5million major building redevelopment programme, the Centre’s floor-space has expanded by 350%. Highfields Community Association, a full member of the Development Trusts Association (DTA) and a company limited by guarantee and with charitable status, is in the final stages of a near 14 year journey to bring Highfields Centre back under community governance. The Centre is located in the heart of a predominantly BME populated inner city area of Leicester and it provides a wide range of early years, youth, adult learning, arts, sports, advice and community development services. Priya has over 35 years’ experience of working in a lifelong learning and community development service context, initially in Brixton and for the last 29 years in Highfields. He is also the Vice Chair of the Highfields Area Forum, Chair of Leicester Civil Rights Movement, an ex-member of the CLG’s Racial Equality Advisory Group (REAG) and a DTA Board member, as well as being actively involved in a number of other local and regional partnerships and networks.
Priya’s particular contribution in all of these arrangements has been to champion and articulate the concerns of those third sector agencies and communities that do not have ready access to the levers of power, and especially those from poor (BME) communities.
Micheal Pyner (Chair of the 3.30pm session)
Micheal is the Chair of the DTA Board of Trustees and the Chief Executive of London based development trust, the Shoreditch Trust. Micheal established the Trust in 2000 coming from award winning Mile End Park, a sustainable people’s park for the 21st Century. Speaking nationally and internationally Micheal champions collaborative approaches to regeneration solutions.
Whether developing a multi million pound community asset base or social enterprises that underpin the income of Shoreditch Trust, Micheal is at the forefront of a new breed of third sector people – charitable but commercially aware. The enterprises that the Shoreditch Trust have developed include; the award-winning Acorn House London’s first eco-restaurant and its sister restaurant, Waterhouse in Shoreditch, the Shoreditch Community Maternity Centre and Shoreditch Festival.
Micheal is community driven but quality focused, environmentally aware, persuasive, not punitive. He believes this model is the future of the third sector and he regularly contributes to debate and discussion in articles and news media and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a lecturer in Urban Regeneration. Community led regeneration, the development of sustainable asset bases and the creative use of community social enterprise is at the heart of what he does and this good practice has been shared across the UK and Europe.
Micheal is also a founder member of ACEVO’s European Third Sector Network and co-founder and board chair of the Blue Marble Trust.
Phillip Blond (Reocalising the economy, recapitalising the poor, redemocratising power)
Phillip Blond is director of ResPublica, and a research fellow at NESTA. Phillip is an internationally recognised political thinker, and economic and cultural commentator.
Phillip has recently published a number of comment and analysis pieces in The Financial Times, The Independent, The Guardian, Prospect Magazine and The Sunday Times. His work has attracted considerable attention as an advocate of a radical, progressive Toryism. Prospect named him as the British thinker to watch in 2009, and The Times called his book 'Red Tory', which was published in March 2010, one of the highlights of the year to come.
Nick Hurd (Minister for Civil Society)
Nick Hurd is the Member of Parliament for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner in Middlesex.
The Minister was previously Shadow Minister for Charity, Social Enterprise and Volunteering (October 2008 – May 2010).He also served as an Opposition Whip and member of the Shadow teams for Justice, Communities and Local Government (2007-2008). In 2006, Nick successfully took through Parliament a Private Members Bill, the Sustainable Communities Act, which was supported by over ninety national organisations. He was awarded the PRASEG Parliamentarian of the Year Award in 2007 in recognition of his work on the Act.
The Minister previously served on the Environment Audit Committee. He was on the Board of the Conservative Party’s Quality of Life Policy Commission, chairing the Climate Change group (2005-2007) and served on the Joint Parliamentary Committee that scrutinised the draft Climate Change Bill.He has also served on cross party enquiries into the adequacy of epilepsy services and the link between childhood leukaemia and high voltage power lines, several Bill Committees - including the Criminal Justice Bill, Housing and Regeneration Bill and NHS Redress Bill – and the All Party Parliamentary Groups for Small Business, Penal Reform and Brazil.
Before his career in politics he spent 18 years in business including five years representing a British bank in Brazil. The Minister is the fourth generation in his family to enter the House of Commons. He has been a Trustee of the Greenhouse Schools charity; and currently serves as a Governor of Coteford Junior School and as a Trustee of the Hillingdon Partnership Trust.
Dr Ade Adeagbo (A community view)
Ade Adeagbo is Chair of the Community Alliance and Interim CEO of African HIV Policy Network (AHPN), an umbrella body of African-led community based organisations that enables Africans in the UK to speak with a collective and representative voice on matters of well being, HIV and sexual health, whilst influencing international debates and issues.
Before joining AHPN, Ade worked as the Interim CEO & Director of Organisational Development of National Voices, worked as operations director in social care and international development and chief executive of various health and social care charities.
Ade is currently a Non Executive Director of NHS Greenwich – as Vice Chair and Chair of Audit, Executive Council member of the NHS Alliance and the Chair of Non-Exec Network of all NHS organizations in the UK. Ade has academic and research interest in governance, leadership and social economics with focus on corporate strategy and organisational development and design. Ade is a leadership ambassador of the Third Sector Leadership Centre, hosted by the Henley Business School. He had just been recently selected as one of 20 fellows to work with the Prince of Wales' College of Integrated Health where he leads on the strategy for patients and public involvement/engagement.
