Post in FW: Windmill Hill

May 24 13:37 UTC

Hi,

Of course, the 'Windmill Hill Question' ought not to be one to be resolved
just at local level.   If there were better partnership working Bristolwide,
many of the anomalies would not arise.

For example, I understand that the police are organized into 17
neighbourhood policing areas across the city.   Neighbourhood Partnerships
are 14 in number.   Both the Parks department and the Extended Schools
Partnerhips (including Youth Service) are broken into 10 units.   But not,
of course, the same 10 neighbourhood clusters!!   Planning has just
published a map showing their 6 local units.   All of this increased
emphasis on 'neighbourhood working' springs from good intentions around the
twin goals of Better Coordination of Service Delivery Locally and Greater
Opportunities for Local People to Influence Service Delivery.    Nobody is
likely to come out against Motherhood and Apple Pie, but will it really
happen?

There's no magic number of units into which the city could be divided,
except that the larger the number the more local the service.   But,
ANYTHING between 10 and 20 is likely to work.   The problem is that we are
well on our way to EVERYTHING between 10 and 20.   This is because people at
the top of organisations seem reluctant to agree on how to group
neighbourhoods.   They prefer to structure their neighbourhood working
around their own administrative needs, thus helping to sabotage Better
Co-ordination and, by making the system complex and confusing, decreasing
opportunities for Public Involvement.   Thus the inadequacies of the past
are projected into the future.   The so-called new, bottom-up system, is
largely the old, top-down system in disguise.

Of course, if service leaders are not prepared to talk to each other and
come up with coherant proposals, how much less are they inclined to heed the
views of people living in neighbourhoods.   The message is clear, 'pay your
taxes and shut up: business as usual'.

Cheers,   Grumpy of Bedminster.