News

Community development ‘used’ for political gain

(9 May 2011)

Professor Gary Craig

The practice of community development is being hijacked by the Coalition Government to suit its own political purpose, according to the editor of a new book out next week.

Professor Gary Craig from Durham University's School of Applied Social Sciences says 'the Coalition Government has turned its back on the practice of community development as we know it' and makes the comments as the Coalition Government marks its first anniversary this week.

The book, called 'The Community Development Reader' published by The Policy Press in Bristol on 18 May, shows that whilst community development has struggled to remain true to its progressive values, it has often been manipulated to serve differing policy and political purposes, currently evident in the Government Big Society agenda, according to Professor Craig.

Professor Craig said: "Community development has a long history in the UK but its political future is very much up in the air given the extent of the public expenditure constraints, and there are major uncertainties as to its future role.

"The Coalition Government has removed its funding to the autonomous Community Development Exchange, which for years has been the independent voice of community development, and is severely constraining the ability of the Community Development Foundation, its own policy advisor, to act even as a critical friend.

"Those employing community workers might feel it is easier to think in terms of unpaid organisers at a time of great downward pressure on expenditure. If this is the case, an important and creative element in the struggle to protect the democratic rights of many vulnerable communities may be lost."

Professor Craig, who was the world's first professor in social justice when he was appointed at the University of Hull in 2000, now holds a chair in community development and social justice at Durham University. 

He continued: "Communities have come to feel manipulated by programmes which end up being more about top-down imposed 'solutions' to the problems of poverty and deprivation and concerned more with managing dissent than empowering local communities.

"These issues are coming to the surface again with the Coalition Government's talk of the Big Society, run, it seems, by volunteers who will impose government structures and targets on local communities.  Its community organisers appear to be trained not within the values of community development but as an adjunct to, rather than challenging, government policy, with both as a cover for cuts in public services.

"Will community development be promoted predominantly as a means of compensating for increasing gaps in public service provision, ignoring its historic role as an advocate for those in greatest need?   Will community development workers come to be replaced by David Cameron's army of community organisers, operating on a voluntary basis?

"Some have argued that there will always be a need for community development workers, to manage the tensions between governments and those that they govern, in democratic societies. But one has to question what forms this might take, if the welfare state, as we know it, is radically transformed, if not actually dismantled."

The book 'The Community Development Reader' is published by The Policy Press at the University of Bristol and is edited by Gary Craig, Marjorie Mayo, Keith Popple, Mae Shaw and Marilyn Taylor.