Beyond provision: civic life is lived by people

Beyond provision: civic life is lived by people https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_we-need-an-industrial-strategy-for-civic-activity-7468566750004064256-VOMG

Beyond provision: civic life is lived by people

Polly Mackenzie’s piece is trying to solve an institutional-capital problem. I think we also need to solve a system-seeing problem.

Too often we start from the assumption that the ‘provision’ of ‘services’ is the point, even when talking about the ‘civic’, or about a state that ‘accepts that it cannot (and should not) be in control – instead it wants to create the enabling environment’.

Martin Routledge picks up mention of ‘residential care’ without a comment on how people might enable themselves and others to live gloriously ordinary lives, under their control, in a place they call home.

I ask: stand back enough to see that we’re looking at one part of a complex system (arranging state provision against demand), from one perspective (provision). That locks us in to ‘how do we deal with all this ‘demand”? And that’s what creates these wicked problems.

Yes, we must build hospitals and provide services to asylum-seekers and businesses. But to support the conditions where people can act well together (‘civil society’ that does more than fill gaps in provision), we need to see the shifting, living landscape of relationships, strengths, histories, incentives, identities and practical support.

When Burnham wanted to deal with street sleeping in Manchester, procurement of ‘beds’ or ‘housing’ was part of it. But street homelessness isn’t a bed shortage, it’s a collapse of several life-supporting systems. So dental care, drug and alcohol support, family reconnection, enabling people to meet the needs met by street drinking were all part of it. And that’s dealing with *acute crisis* – the longer-term solution is never ‘choosing sclerotic public or extractive private provision’, it’s always enabling human connections and learning so people can thrive together.

Our free ‘commissioning compass’ https://link.redquadrant.com/commissioningcompass tries to practically help, with eight lenses:

1. Is this a space that generates and supports sustainable wellbeing?

2. Are the people involved in good relation?

3. Is the capacity, capability, and confidence of people, communities, providers, workforce, markets to help people live well growing?

4. Are people in charge of their own outcomes, is success measured by their experience of whether they can live the life they want?

5. Is what’s important known to the people who can make a difference? Are curiosity, learning, creativity, and experimentation at play?

6. Are we making room to make a difference? Are we convening change?

7. Do we have good arrangements to plan interventions?

8. Are delivery models, interventions, contracts, partnerships, grants, alliances, and other interventions fit for purpose?

There’s a role for people who can help deal with the most expensive things a society needs to function. But they should never be in charge, or we end up organising our society around those things.

So stop asking who provides. Ask what helps people live well.

In response to https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pollymackenzie_we-need-an-industrial-strategy-for-civic-activity-7468346661929549824-c_WV