The Community Empowerment Act and localism under devolution in Scotland. The perspective of multiple stakeholders in a council ward

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-03-2018-0080
• Date: 08 April 2019
• Pages: 302-319
• Published date: 08 April 2019
• Author: Ian Charles Elliott,Violetta Fejszes,Mariola Tàrrega
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management

The Community Empowerment

Act and localism under devolution

in Scotland

The perspective of multiple stakeholders

in a council ward

Ian Charles Elliott

Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK

Violetta Fejszes

Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK, and

Mariola Tàrrega

University of Stirling, Stirling, UK

Abstract

Purpose –In Scotland, the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act represents a significant development

towards greater localism in the way public services are designed and delivered in Scotland. This also

represents a different approach to that adopted in the rest of the UK. The purpose of this paper is to explore

the stakeholder perceptions of localism within a council ward.

Design/methodology/approach –This paper is based on an in-depth exploratory case study of a single

council ward in East Scotland. The fieldwork involved 61 in-depth interviews with multiple stakeholders

including local councillors, public service managers and residents.

Findings –The findings highlight that, whilst the discourse of community empowerment represents policy

divergence, there remain some significant structural and social barriers to meaningful community

empowerment in practice. Finally, it is argued that there are three key factors to consider when developing

community empowerment: a shared strategy, shared resources and shared accountability.

Originality/value –The researchdraws on extensive data from anin-depth case study to explore the realities

of community empowerment within a single local authority ward. In doing so, it provides a rich contextual

narrative of how therhetoric of community empowermentis perceived within a council ward setting.

Keywords Community, Localism, Devolution, Austerity, Community empowerment, Local democracy

Paper type Research paper

The development of localism and community empowerment in Scotland

The localism agenda is often seen to be encapsulated by the UK Government’sLocalism

Act 2011. This agendaincludes a commitment to greater communityempowerment and local

control of publicfinance. Yet it is argued thatthis agenda has not been pursuedwith the same

vigour in Scotland (Blackburn and Keating, 2012) or rather that the approach in Scotland is

grounded in a different ideologicalposition (Painter and Pande, 2013).Importantly, there is an

explicit continuing commitment to tacklingsocial inequalities within theScottish approach to

community empowerment. However, there are some interesting commonalities between the

language ofthe Localism agenda in England,Communities First in Walesand the Community

Empowermentagenda in Scotland –even if the principlesand motivations differ. Whilstthese

commonalities and distinctions may be recognised within academia and at a policy level, it

remains unclear how they are perceived by stakeholders at a local level.

What is apparent is that it is difficult to draw comparisons between community

empowerment policies in different countries as the term itself can mean so many different

things. Whilst some have assessed the differences between, for example, asset-based

community development (as opposed to community empowerment) in the USA and

Scotland (MacLeod and Emejulu, 2014) and community participation in England and

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 32 No. 3, 2019

pp. 302-319

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-03-2018-0080

Received 15 March 2018

Revised 27 July 2018

Accepted 2 October 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3558.htm

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IJPSM

32,3

Scotland (Rolfe, 2016), these studies have also stressed the extent to which community

development, community participation and community empowerment can all be interpreted

in many different ways. As noted by Lawson and Kearns (2010):

The term “community empowerment”has become ubiquitous in policy terms, but there is little

articulation of what it means or how it plays out (p. 1459).

Thus, the focus within this research is specifically within the Scottish context and as such

builds on works which have explored related issues such as community planning,

community empowerment and local governance (Carley 2006; Sinclair 2008; Lawson and

Kearns 2010; Rolfe 2016).

Community empowerment within Scotland can be seen as a key component of the so-called

“Scottish Approach”to public services (Elvidge, 2011; Housden, 2014). This approach was

developed under the first minority SNP administration from 2007 and is underpinned by three

key principles: an assets-based approach; co-production of services; and an improvement

philosophy (Cairney et al., 2016; Coutts and Brotchie 2017; Ferguson, 2015). The development of

the Scottish approach to public services was significantly influenced by the findings and

recommendations of the Report on the Future Delivery of Public Services (Christie, 2011),

known as the Christie Commission after Dr Campbell Christie who chaired the commission.

The Christie Commission recommended that services should not be provided by

“top-down”administration but that people need to be directly involved in providing

opinions on their local service provision (Christie, 2011). It argued for a form of community

empowerment that would improve the quality of community participation in the design and

delivery of public services including integrated provision. This rhetoric is mirrored in the

language of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.

The significance of community empowerment and participation can also be seen in the

Scottish Government’s national performance framework (NPF). This was also created in 2007 to

align organisations across the public sector with the Scottish Government’s Strategic Purpose, 5

Strategic Objectives and 16 National Outcomes. This alignment is facilitated through single

outcome agreements (SOAs), which are agreed between the Scottish Government and public

bodies. SOAs are used to demonstrate how the NPF outcomes will be achieved and therefore the

central government’s goals are translated to the local level (McGarvey and Cairney, 2008;

Mackie, 2013). Thus, the whole of government has been adapted to an outcomes-focused

approach to performance (Scottish Government, 2007; Scottish Parliament Information Centre,

2012). The NPF underwent minor updates in 2011 and 2016 which did not make any structural

changes to the framework (Scottish Government, 2016) but did increase the number of National

Indicators to 55. There was a more fundamental review of the NPF in 2017/2018 and the

updated version included 11 National Outcomes and 81 National Indicators.

One of the strategic objectives of the NPF is “[o]ur public services are high quality,

continually improving, efficient and responsive to local people’s needs”(see NPF, p. 296).

Underpinningthis strategic objective arethe national indicators and targetswhich in the case

of the relevant objective include to “improve people’s perceptions of the quality of public

services delivered”and to “improve the responsiveness of public services”(see NPF, p. 297).

The Community Empowerment (Scotland)Act itself can be traced back to the Community

Empowerment Action Plan which was developed with the Scottish Government,COSLA and

third sector organisations in 2009. The Scottish Community Empowerment Action Plan

(Scottish Government, 2009, p. 8) described a “process where people work together to make

change happen in theircommunities by having more power and influenceover what matters

to them”. This “invigorating democracy”was considered achievable b ecause:

Scotland’s communities are a rich source of talent and creative potential and the process of community

empowerment helps to unlock that potential. It stimulates and harnesses the energy of local people to

come up with creative and successful solutions to local challenges. (Scottish Government, 2009, p. 6)

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