19/06/2014 Scotland 2014

Is it time we started doing it for ourselves?

Tonight we're looking at taking control of our own lives.

Do we really want to? And will the state let us?

On the programme tonight, it's all about Power to the People.

On the programme tonight, it's all about power to the people.

We're talking about whether government services could

Be transformed by giving citizens more control over their own lives.

And we're biking across Harris to see how whole

communities can take greater control of their own destiny.

And why has golf membership in Scotland slumped?

There has been a 17% drop in membership over the past ten years.

I've been on the golf course asking why that is the case. And just how

far is President Obama prepared to go as the violence in Iraq reaches a

critical point? What has

the government ever done for us? We may rely on the state

for healthcare, welfare and education but are we

really getting what we need? And how might it be

delivered better? One new approach could be

for the government to simply That's according to the man used to

run the Scottish government, who thinks that the welfare state

will keep failing those who need it most unless it allows them more

control over their own lives. William Innis used to talk about

booze and bookies. Now, it is broad beans and beetroot. All outside a

community centre in Alloa. This is the man up project. My wife was

getting up in the morning, watching a bit of telly, going down the

bookies. -- my life. No cash. Just sitting there, looking at the

screens. Do you think you have skills now arguing the job market?

We all have skills now. A bit of gardening, do some help for the old

folk. There had been a community centre here for years, but it was

hardly used and was about to close. With a bit of help, but not a huge

amount of money, people here are being helped to help themselves,

which is what the latest report says needs to happen, because 30 to 40%

of people are being consistently failed by the government. Today's

report sets out steps to change the way the state helps people, the

first of these is actually to say to government to get out of the way,

when it prevents people from doing things for themselves. Instead, they

want people to be given help to do more. This takes us to the buzzword.

They want enabling to become the way forward. What does that mean,

exactly? People feel dependent, because we treat them as dependent.

30 or 40 years of evidence tells us that doing things to people does not

work as well as enabling them to do things. So, step aside, we'll do

that for you, is something that we can see very clearly does not work.

Saying, here is something to get started with, that will enable you

to do something, again, the evidence tells us that that works really

powerfully. The idea was, let's try some chickens. That was quite a step

forward. But not everywhere has an inspector Keith Jack Dee get them

started. So what makes this different to all the other

initiatives they have had? People have become a bit de-skilled,

because we are so reliant now want someone else to solving our

problems, whereas this is much more about seeing two people, what can we

do as ourselves as a community. A community is a great network of help

and support. So they have been enabled. But now, the community

centre has been told their funding from the council might not be

renewed in the autumn, so instead of the government getting out of the

way, people are fearing it is just getting out.

Joining me in the studio is the retired director of

the Violence Reduction Unit, John Carnochan.

And in our Dundee studio is Dr Stuart Waiton, who specialises

in sociology and criminology at the University of Abertay.

First, tell me, you have your own experience of enabling programmes.

Added that work? We got to the stage where we seems to rely on leaders

and plans to do everything, and it's come to the stage where even the

leaders, like communities and police and the rest, think they are the

people who are responsible for these things. We have got to the stage

where people rely on it so much, we fail to deliver, and we are in the

same position we have been" for the last 30 or 40 years. This is just

about trying to say, the first people we should be listening to the

ones experiencing this everyday, not the professionals who are involved

and paid to do these things, but those who experience it everyday. It

all sounds good, and it makes perfect sense that we should listen

to the people who need these services most. Can it work? Well,

you have to bear in mind, words like enabling and empowering, in my

experience, as a community worker in particular, are weasel words. The

state is generally happy to empower you to do what they are happy for

you to do. If you decide to do something else, that generally isn't

the case. This is an important question, though, because I think

today, the state we have is a disabling states. It is a state that

treats everybody as being vulnerable or at risk, and John himself, at the

Violence Reduction Unit, there was what you could almost describe as an

obsession with things like early intervention, and we now have a

named person for every child in Scotland, so the state doesn't

really even trust people to parent their own child's today, let alone

run their own communities. So I think there is a serious problem in

terms of the state having any sense that people can and should run their

own lives and be free to do so. It sounds like we agree what the

problem is, but not necessarily the solution, because some of what John

is talking about, I have to say, sounds a bit like the big society

and the happiness index, and David Cameron's ideas that never came to

pass. I think it probably is, and we need to start a discussion. That is

important. I absolutely agree in relation to how difficult it will

be, because as Machiavelli said, the most difficult thing to introduces a

new order of things. The power is not where it should be, and people

will not give up power very, very quickly, but I think we need to

start the discussion. We need to start somewhere, and I think the

issue is that we are always looking for a great big plan that will fix

everything, and the truth is, little things that work in different ways,

at different times, in different places, scare cars. We are not

confident enough. And would not get called a postcode lottery? You can

access services in Glasgow that you can't in Dundee, people will start

complaining very quickly. Absolutely. And another thing, we

evaluate the think they will just be uplifted be uplifted, planted

somewhere else and work. We don't take into account the people and the

personalities involved who made it happen. So, John is hardly an

anarchist. He spent a lifetime working in government. Do you think

he means to deliver this? You don't think this is a means of duping

people into thinking they are being empowered, when the state is keeping

control? I don't think he is duping, I just think today, very few people

in positions of power really understand what freedom means any

more. I made a list. I don't think there is agreement, certainly not

from me. The happiness index itself, that is the state basically trying

to work out how to make us happy. How interventionist can a state be

when it actually wants to get involved in my emotional feelings?

But I made a list, in terms of things we are protected from today.

So, neighbours are protected from each other from as close. Football

fans are protected from each other from singing songs, we are protected

from drink by wanting to increase the price, we are protected from

bereavement in schools. They want to teach kids how to deal with

bereavement. Protected from cigarette, protected from fatty food

adverts. That is the next one. Children are protected from adults

by all the betting legislation, and now they are almost going to be

protected from their own parents by the state giving them a named

person. There is no sense of people having the capacity to be free and

deal with each other so the idea that we are suddenly going to have

an enabling state that gives us more freedom, well, I await with bated

breath. The conversation about the enabling state has at least begun

today, even though it has not been answered for top thank you very much

for joining us. Now, on a similar theme -

here's the second part of our series of films made by our Referendum

Correspondent Laura Bicker. As a triathlete in her spare time,

we took advantage of her good nature and sent her off

to the Outer Hebrides to swim, run Tonight she got on her bike

to investigate land reform. I'm on a quest through Healy Harris

to look at what for many is at the heart of this independence debate,

what happens when you give power back to the people. Half of all

private land in Scotland is in the hands of 432 people, but not this

bit. North Harris has been owned and managed by the local community for

over ten years. David Cameron was one of the trustees. He now helps

others through the buyout process. There is something magic that

happens. I don't know what it is, but speaking with us earlier today,

when the community took over the land, it reinvigorates it, changing

from a can't do society into one that at least tries. It releases and

energy that is not apparent when it is under private land ownership.

Perhaps it is some thing to do with confidence, perhaps something to do

with building capacity, but it works, I guarantee you. The North

Harris trust is like a mini development agency. In this small

corner of land alone, it has found her funding for new housing, a

hydroelectric station, and wind turbines, all to generate money to

put back the community. Further south, I travel through the

Bay of Paris, where they are watching their neighbours closely.

This land is owned by a private landlord, who lives elsewhere.

Scotland has one of the most unequal patterns of land ownership in the

developed world. It is something the Scottish Government is trying to

reform, but a few powers still lie with Westminster. People here are

holding about on whether to find funds to buy out the landlord. John

Maher believes it could make all the difference. It is right that the

people who actually live here should have a say in what happens here, as

opposed to somebody sitting down south, and again, I am not doing

this is a personal date at the current landlord. By accident of

birth, that might have been me. I might be sat down there talking

about this patch of the Outer Hebrides that I own. And you think

as a community, you will manage to work together? That is the

interesting thing. There are people who are dead set against the

buyout. The phrase you often hear is, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

My response to that is, it has been broken for generations. Community

ownership can be a bumpy ride. Not everyone will agree on how things

should be done. That has already happened in parts of Harris. Moving

forward was an uphill struggle, and politics came into play. So wouldn't

it be better to find a way to work together? We are not far from North

Uist, and the community there seems to say that they are happy with how

the land is managed, and the delivery of public benefit is there,

but they have been made to feel almost like failures because they

are not issuing the community ownership grew. I think what you

have to do with land reform is little the objectives you are trying

to deliver, the best outcomes for that community. The community has to

be allowed to decide that, including businesses and private owners, as to

what is best for them. It might not be ownership.

So far on my travels, I have found many who want more of a say on how

Scotland is governed. Could Harris be the story of this referendum?

Competing visions of land ownership and a struggle to find a way

forward. But changing the constitution is far more complete

bated than managing this piece of land. -- complicated. Could a

country with so many divided opinions come together if things

went wrong, or would we accept the consequences of our decisions?

Joining me in the studio this evening is the Scottish

And the author of The Poor Had No Lawyers, activist Andy Wightman.

Thank you for coming in. Can I ask you first, Mr Whiteman, the Land

Reform Review Group that has come up with a lengthy number of proposals

to reform land usage in Scotland, would it be a very dramatic change?

Worded address some of the problems we saw Rebecca talking about there?

The review group has produced a very broad, detailed report covering

rural, urban areas both, and I don't think anything in it is terribly

radical. It is quite modest, and it modernises Scotland's laws relating

to land, bringing us up to date. That is a good thing. Scotland has

some of the least equitable land distributional in Europe, doesn't

it? Half of the country is owned by 500 people. It is time we had some

significant reform. I den thing that is important in itself, it is how

the land is used. -- I don't think. In my experience, there are a few

bad for the indeed a role, but the majority of Scottish estates are

well run and well managed. They provide community benefit. It's not

just about economic output is, it's about self-determination and whether

the people are happy. We can all remember a time when the land was

clear because it was more economical to put sheep on it and people. It is

not just an economic argument. When you approach this from an

ideological basis, saying large areas of land owned privately is a

bad thing, it's not necessarily so. It is confrontational that we should

have Corporation. I was a bit disappointed in that. Half the

report covers urban issues. This is sensible staff. This debate is about

power. It is about how about power is derived, distributed and

exercised. The report is trying to get more people involved in how the

land in Scotland is owned and used. Anthony Eden said in 1947 that

everyone should own their house. The way to achieve that is to

Corporation. Not to save to one group of people, we don't like the

fact that you own this and we are going to take it away. The way that

Scotland is owned is up to us. We own the system. We need to change

it. There is a fundamental problem with this system, but I don't accept

that. There are people with derelict land who can't do anything with it.

It is a huge agenda. It is not about bigger states. In many ways they are

the least important. Thank you for coming in to talk to us. Laura will

be back next week with a final part of her adventure when she is on the

Isle of Skye. Now to Jonathan. Golf club membership levels are in

decline, with some clubs closing. What is the problem and what is

Scottish often to stop the rot? Scotland, the home of golf. There is

a problem - club ownership is on the way down. Over the last two-year is

we have lost 17.4% of adult members, men and women. That is common across

Europe. It is not unique to Scotland. Having said that, there

are still 230,000 people who are members. But this drop in membership

means some clubs are closing down. Not all that long ago this golf club

was thriving, but as sharp slump in membership in recent years has

changed all that and today their ways and greens are dormant and

evergreen. Nine or ten years ago we had in excess of 800 members. When

we close the doors that number had dropped to around 200. You are

talking about two thirds of a drop. So, is the sport losing its appeal?

I am not a offer. I have never touched a golf club in my life. I

have been slightly put off by it in the past. But today, I am going to

get my first ever golf lesson, thanks to Scott. So where do we

start. -- start? I didn't quite mastered golf, but knocking a ball

around with a stick in an idyllic setting on a beautiful day, how

could that not be enjoyable? I was pleasantly surprised by my

experience. Some golf courses are intimidating. There are walls and

regulations on what you should wear and what you should do when you are

swinging a golf club. It can be intimidating and we need to cut down

some of those barriers. The image of golf is evolving. 30 years ago you

would not have seen Sandy Lyle on MTV. But now people like Bubba

Watson spend their time making amusing music videos. There is a

real lost generation of young to middle aged men, the skies who pay

for fees that keep clubs going. Because of lifestyle now, there is

no time to play golf and because of that they can't justify the cost of

memberships and that has caused a row problem. The relationship

between club and the average golfer is changing. They are looking for

golf on their terms, not necessarily on the club's terms. That presents a

challenge to us. The biggest challenge is the economic model that

golf clubs are based on. It's traditionally around membership and

if that is changing, we by definition need to change the

economic model that golf clubs work. Someone joining a club or played

most at their home club where they are member. Now there is more of a

desire to experience golf on a number of courses. There are a lot

of rounds of golf that can be purchased at keen prices. Over the

last ten years the Scottish golf union have brought in golf for

younger players. A new economic model is needed to make sure clubs

stay open for now and for the future generations coming through.

With us now to talk about some of the other stories is the political

correspondent for the times and the actress Eunice. President Obama has

said he will send 300 military advisers into Iraq. Lindsay, what is

your reaction to how he is managing this rush to mark is this a

diplomatic, not a military issue? The emphasis is on the language. He

seems to be saying the politicians in Iraq need to be reaching out

across sectarian divide. What you have to remember about President

Obama is that when he launched his 2008 presidential campaign he

stressed his opposition to the original war in Iraq in 2003. Now to

be going in and making a military case would not sit well. He is

looking for regime change in Iraq. He does not want Mourey al-Maliki to

stay as Prime Minister and their wad be a solution to this if he does. He

is not a supporter of the regime and he is looking for a change to

diplomatic efforts. Eunice, David Cameron reminded us that this is

something to do with written. There is a terror threat when ices take

control of a country like Iraq. Everyone is going to be concerned

about something like this and whatever we do, it is targeted and

we take into account the government and people in that country to make

sure what we do does not escalate the problem. How impressed have you

been with Barack Obama's foreign policy? The approach he has taken

has played up quite well. He has distinguished himself from his lead

assessor. Let's touch on domestic politics. Ed Miliband saying that if

they got into power they would cut benefits for 18 to 21-year-olds

unless they got key training skills. Is this an unwelcome lurch to the

right, or a clever move to chime in with the electorate? I do think it

is a lurch to the right. What was interesting is the language he used.

He said it is tough love. He appropriated the language of the

right of centre to get those voters on board. In Scotland we are told

there is a difference in attitude towards benefit. It has been said

that it seems Ed Miliband is tweeting Tory rhetoric. There is an

attractive policy. The most important thing is that we ensure

what ever services are offered, they appealed to old and young people. So

making sure there is enough of a spread of different types of

traineeships. Vocational, trades and so on. It is important to have that

available. And if the right training is available, is it right to refuse

benefits to those who refuse training? It is a difficult thing.

It is important to make sure people get what they are entitled to. It is

important to address why he bought don't want to take on the training

because they could be underlying issues. Eunice, you are a model.

ChildLine are saying that selfies can feel body image issues. Parents

need to check what their children are doing. It does not make sense to

control what young people are doing in real life and not what they are

doing on the Internet. Difficult when you have kids and you have pop

stars who are always taking selfies. It must be difficult for

parents when their children are fans of pop stars. What is worrying is we

have seen a rise of websites where kids can put their pitch out there

and ask questions like, do you think I am attractive? The responses that

you get are really horrifying and have had tragic consequences in a

number of cases. The breast Cancer awareness campaign where people work

tweeting self is -- selfies with no make-up on with interesting. Did you

do it, Eunice? I do often post pictures like that. It is important

that in society as a whole that we place more importance on other

things themselves beauty and self image. We have to leave it there.

That is it from us this week. You can contact us on twitter. I'll be

back at the same time on Monday. Good night.