Regeneration

The Presiding Officer (Tricia Marwick): The next item of business is a debate on the Local Government and Regeneration Committee’s inquiry into the delivery of regeneration in Scotland.

14:22
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15:37

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP): I congratulate my former colleagues on the committee on the excellent report that they have produced.

The convener’s foreword defines regeneration as being

“aimed at reducing poverty, inequality and decline with a clear focus on people in the most disadvantaged communities.”

It is hard to disagree with a single word of that, but there is something missing. In the long run, we must make the communities self-sustaining. If they continue to depend on outside support, regeneration is a non-ended task.

I take a rather iconoclastic view of the debate that is a bit different from those of colleagues around the chamber. However, I do not disagree with what I have heard—indeed, the genuine passion that Duncan McNeil just contributed is exactly the sort of thing that we should be hearing. He has perhaps got closer to the issue than almost anybody else.

As has been mentioned, the committee visited the Seaton backies project in Kevin Stewart’s constituency. What was inspiring about that visit was that the excellent things that were going on in that community were nothing whatsoever to do with any centrally brought regeneration activity. They were grassroots changes that were inspiring people in that community who were so disconnected from any of the organisations that were involved in regeneration that nobody had ever told them that what they were doing could not be done—so they just got on and did it, and they succeeded.

With people like that, we must not use the word “regeneration”, because it is not their word. The moment we use a big long word with multiple syllables that people are not familiar with, we are saying, “This is someone else’s responsibility, not yours.” We must use language that means something to the people who will make the difference—the Seaton backies enthusiasts.

I will take an example from another area entirely—that of Kip Keino, who won a gold medal in the 1,500m at the Olympics in Mexico City in 1968. He also won a gold medal in the 3,000m steeplechase at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and a gold medal at the Commonwealth games in Edinburgh in 1970. He grew up in a rural part of Kenya and his parents died when he was a youngster. When he rose to his feet to take his first steps, nobody knew that he was going to be a world champion. Nobody told him that it would be difficult. He did not know how difficult it would be; he just got on and did it. He was not surrounded by people who said, “Don’t worry, son. It’s our responsibility. We’ll take it away.” The people who are involved in the Seaton backies project are in exactly the same position that Kip Keino was in.

Sarah Boyack said that she wanted a more joined-up approach to be taken—no, we want the opposite of that. We do not want a joined-up approach, because a joined-up approach means waiting for someone else. If we do it ourselves in a granular way, we will succeed or fail in small steps, and then the little grains can join together and build their successes from the community upwards. The joined-up approach is the enemy of effective community regeneration.

Of course, I am exaggerating for effect, as members know perfectly well, but we must look at the issue in a slightly different way. I want space to be left for happenstance—for accidental success. I want things to be done on a small scale, so that no failure cripples the person who failed but, instead, encourages them to go and find a new solution.

John Mason (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP): I agree with much of what the member says, but would he accept that there are some issues, such as dealing with big areas of contaminated ground, that have to be addressed on a top-down basis?

Stewart Stevenson: Of course there are. Is there a role for the top? Yes, but only at the command of the bottom. That is the point. It is not that there is not space for the big things; the issue is who says that the big things get done.

In his wonderful book on project management, “The Mythical Man-Month”, Fred P Brooks talks about the non-commutativity of time and effort. That is garbage, isn’t it? We cannot understand a word of it. What it boils down to is that, if there is a hole that it would take six hours for a man to dig and you put six men on the job, it will not get done in one hour, because they will have to collaborate and co-operate, which is an overhead. One person will often do a job far more effectively than a team.

Fred P Brooks poses a second question: how do you make a late project later? His answer is that you add staff. When staff are added, the staff on the project have to train the new staff and stop doing the job that they are supposed to be doing. The corollary is to take away the people who are causing the problem and slowing things down and let the remaining bare handful get on with it. That is the recipe for community action.

The whole business of community regeneration is not new—far from it. Two and a half thousand years ago, Hippodamus the Greek was the inventor of town planning. His regeneration involved a different system. Aristotle criticised him and said that his ideas were loopy. In Scotland, Sir Patrick Geddes came up with terrific ideas. Of course, his mother was Janet Stevenson, so he was bound to be a good guy. He was actually a sociologist, not an engineer or an economist; he was a person who looked at people. If we do not look at people, we will not succeed.

We must not take those people out of their area of success. The Peter principle is that people get promoted until they have been promoted to a senior position where they are no longer capable of being promoted; in other words, they are no longer capable of doing the job into which they have been promoted. We must leave people in the communities where they can make a real difference.

I am delighted to advise Mr Stewart that my wellies have survived the visit to Cumbernauld and continue to prosper. They are available to other members, if required. We politicians are often guilty of saying “Think big”, but I am here to say “Think small”—indeed, think very small. There is enormous capacity out there, and we have just not allowed it the space. There is one word that the people in our communities must never hear—it is, of course, particularly relevant this year—and that word is no.

15:45