After years of struggle to create social enterprise and jobs in one of the UK's most deprived urban communities, the residents of the Marsh Farm Estate in Luton have this week become amongst the first to test the rhetoric behind the Government's flagship “Big Society” policy.

Marsh Farm Outreach. a team of long-term unemployed residents of the estate took it upon themselves to address the issues of long-term worklessness that afflict the residents of the area by developing what will be the UK's first “Organisation Workshop” (O.W.), funded by less than 2% of the overall £50m New Deal For Communities (NDC) grant awarded to Marsh Farm in 2001.

The Organisation Workshop is a tried and tested approach to stimulating entrepreneurial activity in deprived communities, used for the last 40 years by people living in poorer communities to self-generate jobs and enterprise, transforming their lives and their communities at the same time. It is an intensive, pressure cooker kind of approach to learning - people learn to create and run businesses by having a go, by learning to support each other, and by sharing their skills.

Using the OW approach, Marsh Farm Outreach will create at least 67 jobs in 7 social enterprises providing goods and services to Marsh Farm residents and beyond.

Despite opposition from local councillors, Government Office bureaucrats and even the local NDC management trust, through years of unpaid work Marsh Farm Outreach managed to assemble a coalition of experienced partners to deliver the project, including the Job Centre, the local University, training providers and support services, even turning Luton Council's position around from one of opposition to one of generous support.

You might think that all of this was a shining example of David Cameron's “Big Society” in action. After all, he said “We know that the best ideas come from the ground up, not the top down. We know that when you give people and communities more power over their lives, more power to come together and work together to make life better – great things happen. ”

Well that's the rhetoric, this week Marsh Farm discovered the reality.

The application for funding the OW was rejected by officials at DCLG and GO East, on the direction, we are told, of junior Minister Andrew Stunell MP, citing unevidenced concerns over financial risk, despite exhaustive analysis carried out by CLG's own Social Enterprise experts at the Development Trusts Association, and similar analysis undertaken by experts at Luton Council.
They also deemed that there was no evidence of a similar successful approach in developed economies. This is largely because it has never before been tried in a developed country. Following this logic, nothing novel could ever be introduced by this Government.
Finally, they cited a “lack evidence that the delivery body (Marsh Farm Outreach) has the skills and capacity needed to set up and deliver social enterprises and businesses listed”.
The implication is clear. It does not matter how “ forward-thinking, entrepreneurial, and community-minded” (Cameron's words) you are – if you are poor and unemployed you've got no chance. Is that really what was intended by the “Big Society”?

Glenn Jenkins of Marsh Farm Outreach commented: “Before the election Nick Clegg came to Marsh Farm to meet the Outreach team and commended the years of hard work we have done to bring the OW to the UK. Nick went on the record saying that it was the exactly the kind of project the government should be encouraging and supporting nationally”

We don't believe that Andrew Stunell has been provided with the information needed to make this decision. It's clear to us that the intervening layers of bureaucracy, so disliked by the Conservatives, have failed in their duty to properly appraise this project. If the minister was in possession of the full facts we are confident that he would not have made this decision.

Therefore we will be mobilising the Marsh Farm community to bypass the civil servants and take our message directly to Mr Stunell, to ask him to honour Nick Clegg's commitment and reverse this decision (with love and respect as our guide of course)....so watch this space. This will be the first acid test of how the “Big Society” will work in practice. Government Ministers have an opportunity to show us that they mean what they say, or to confirm the view of those who think the “Big Society” is just BS.



Other Comments
Stewart Hollis – Executive Director, New Economics Foundation
“We have been tremendously excited by what the team at Marsh Farm Outreach have managed to achieve over the years. It is a rare genuine example of the Big Society in action, and in a major entrepreneurial way. This is emphatically not an example of officials imposing their own brand of regeneration on a reluctant community. It is one of the most successful examples we have seen anywhere of tenaciousness, of local people trying to claw back some kind of control over their lives – setting up businesses and heading in the direction of independence from hand-outs and grants”

Rob Goodwin Marsh Farm Outreach
“To fund the Marsh Farm OW costs just £839,000 from the NDCs overall budget of £48 million.
A forecast of the Social Return on Investment shows that after 5 years at least £12 in value could be realised for every £1 invested now, a real example of “doing more for less”.

Jess Steele Development Trusts Association
“The OW is an intensive development process that changes the way participants approach business, which is probably the most important lever to generate enterprise in seriously deprived communities. It is part of an NDC succession strategy that deliberately seeks to generate enterprise in a place where start-ups are low and unemployment high. We would like to see the OW tried and tested - both to attack the high and rising levels of chronic unemployment in Marsh Farm and to learn the lessons for communities all over the UK.”

Caroline McBride Marsh Farm Outreach
“The government says it wants to encourage social entrepreneurs, and that unemployed people should find work instead of sitting at home wasting away on state benefits. This is exactly what we have been doing on Marsh Farm so we urge the government to reverse this disastrous decision immediately as it creates meaningful jobs which will be of massive benefit not only for the individuals involved but for the community as a whole”.


For more information about Marsh Farm Outreach and the OW, see  http://www.marshfarmoutreach.org.uk/about-ow.html