No place for technology in UK Civil Renewal?

The UK Government launched a consultation document on Building Civil Renewal last week listing key components of community level infrastructure... a community association or network, a physical 'hub', capacity building workers, small grants. However, I couldn't see any mention of how new information and communication technologies might contribute through community networks as promoted by Communities Online and others, or indeed the deployment of social software systems to build social capital.

The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, press released the consultation with strong references to 'can-do' individuals (often know as social entrepreneurs), and also announced a £1 million Active Citizenship Centre. The centre will have a substantial web site - but that's it on technology so far as I could see. I couldn't find anything either in the new pamphlet Mr Blunkett published last week: Active Citizens, Strong Communities - available here.
I can think of two possible explanations:
1 Civil Servants in the recently much-expanded Active Communities Directorate in the Home Office simply aren't briefed on community technology. Seems unlikely.
2 Or perhaps Mr Blunkett had enough of community technology at the Department for Education and Skills, when he was Education Secretary and so responsible for the £10 million Wired Up Communities pilots and UK online centres. As I suggested earlier, the WuC programme isn't going to be extended by Government, and had some flaws (evaluation here). But as Martin Dudley pointed out in his comment there were many useful good lessons and models relevant to civil renewal.
It's worth reading the full Building Civil Renewal consultation document, but here's a taster.
The introduction to the consultation document says: "The Government is concerned to promote civil renewal, that is: “…a way to empower people in their communities to provide the answers to our contemporary social problems.” Civil renewal depends on people having the skills, confidence and opportunities to contribute actively in their communities, to engage with civic institutions and democratic processes, to be able to influence the policies and services that affect their lives, and to make the most of their communities' human, financial and physical assets. Individuals play an important role in this, both in neighbourly action, and in generating ideas and stimulating new activities. However the development of sustainable activity in the end depends on people acting together – in groups, organisations and networks."
It adds: "Identifying these key components is not to suggest a 'one size fits all' approach. Local circumstances and local decision-making must determine the form they will take. The four key components outlined in the Review are:
1. At least one representative and inclusive forum or network (e.g. a network of community groups, a broad-based community association, a neighbourhood regeneration organisation or development trust with a majority of community representatives, area forum or tenant management organisation)
2. At least one physical ‘hub’ or base for individual and collective community activity (e.g. a community centre or village hall, community flat, shop, development trust premises)
3. Access to generic community capacity building workers (e.g. long-term community development workers or others with an explicit capacity building brief )
4. Easy access to small grants to stimulate and support grass roots community activity and capacity building."
I hope organisers of the forthcoming Community networking conference invite some of the civil renewal people along to add to their list.

Comments

[Louise Ferguson]

I'm inclined to think that Derek Wyatt - chair, All-Party Internet Group - was correct in his assessment of government and online last Monday (10th anniversary Mosaic breakfast seminar at The Work Foundation) when he condemned the silo mentality of central government: David Halpern, Performance and Innovation Unit, who wrote an extensive paper on social capital, knows and has spoken on the same platform with Will Davies, who wrote iSociety's SC & SS paper. But I suspect that the Home Office - and other ministries - and David Halpern are not best connected.

[Martin Dudley]

Just to follow up on the WuC comments, the evaluation mentioned by David also appears on the wired up communities toolkit at http://www.intelligentcommunities.org.uk that contains also a summary of the entire programme in the form of a report produced muchmore recntly (Decemeber 2003)that tries to capture what was done and to some extent achieved.