One of the most prominent phrases I’ve come across when looking at local funding models is ‘people in communities’. It is a strange phrase that implies some of us live in communities, and some of us don’t. I think there is a danger of othering both sides, reinforcing the idea there are ‘citizens of nowhere’ and people whose lives and horizons are bound by their immediate neighbourhood.  You can see this dynamic in the views of one panel member:

I think our panel is a strange one because it was split over two separate areas. Most of the representatives were from [one]. it would have been good for each area to have their own panel or a more even split. There was more community spirit in [one community]. With [the other community’ it’s all new houses, so people are coming, not getting involved and keep themselves to themselves.”

It is interesting that different panel members suggest either equal representation on the same panel or splitting off the other area entirely. Are the people in the “new houses” keen to “get involved” and are they personally experiencing negative effects from “keeping themselves to themselves” or is it the rest of the community that suffers from their absence?

We do not know enough about who made up the panels. What sorts of people put their hands up to sit on panels and make decisions for their community? The tireless volunteers, the people who can ‘make things happen’, connectors, trusted, authentic. Or gatekeepers. Is there a risk that we devolve power from our national organisations to reinforce it at a local level? As a funder, we can request demographic information and encourage grantees to think about fair representation, but it is difficult to really get under the skin of this issue.

In fact, diversity was a dynamic that the panels themselves were very mindful of. Several mentioned that they would have liked to make their panels more diverse, particularly attracting more younger members. Foundation Scotland ran an open expression of interest process, branded ‘you’re welcome’ for people to put themselves forward for the panel. Other areas thought carefully about whether to secure local authority and Councillor participation, some concluding this would be a strength and others that they dominate. The research found that there had been a “desire for cross-representation….with the existing demography of the community reflecting the nature of representation required.”

Our research, however, concentrates on speaking to people within the project, and so inevitably this impedes their ability to give an objective critique as to how representative the decision-makers were in each community. There are of course limits here – no small group of people is ever going to speak for an entire community. However, if the trend to devolve money more locally continues, we must not fall into a trap of thinking that automatically makes it wise and fair but continually challenge ourselves about who is in and who is out of these decisions.