Soapbox: Local pound, budget flaws and Albion in the community

Local Pound could help city’s economy
Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas asks could a local currency work for Brighton and Hove?

At a time of record Government debt, reduced access to credit for small and medium-sized businesses and unprecedented cuts to public spending, action to protect and strengthen our local economy is more urgent than ever.

In Brighton and Hove, this means supporting local traders and independent businesses, promoting our tourism industry, and showcasing our pioneering creative and digital sectors.

It could also mean trying to keep more of the money spent locally circulating in our economy.

One increasingly popular idea designed to achieve these aims is a local or ‘complementary’ currency – building on the Lewes Pound, set up four years ago by Transition Town Lewes.

There are now local currencies in Totnes, Stroud and Brixton. And in September, Bristol became the biggest place in the UK to launch its own Pound – with more than 300 businesses signing up.

The Bristol scheme takes this idea to a new level, with an electronic element via mobile phone payments making it quicker than using a credit card and less costly for retailers.

The council even accepts business rates paid in Bristol Pounds.

Brighton and Hove has a well-deserved reputation as a dynamic and forward-thinking city – a place where bold ideas can take root. So could a local currency work for us?

A local Pound could help build a stronger bond between shops and customers.

This would help our economy through a local multiplier effect – retaining more of the wealth generated in the city for longer.

If enough traders and companies signed up, a new currency could energise local commerce.

There could be environmental benefits too. More demand for local produce would, in the long term, reduce demand for goods bought in from further afield.

Another option could be a mutual credit scheme, which would inject greater liquidity into the economy and build stronger local supply chains – allowing small businesses to trade services between themselves by paying each other in credits which could only be used in the city.

Complementary currency schemes are no silver bullet, but if they can help to build resilience into our local economy, they’re worth exploring further.

Plenty of questions need to be addressed. Yet despite these questions, there’s no doubt that local currencies are an interesting way to refocus on local trade.

I’m now seeking the views of residents, businesses and traders in Brighton and Hove to see if there is interest in the idea.

Please get in touch at caroline.lucas.mp@parliament.uk.

Back to work with Albion in the Community

Richard Kennedy found work through Albion in the Community’s Want to Work scheme and is calling on others to follow in his footsteps.

I’m a 21-year-old from Brighton who didn’t attend university and found myself unemployed after being made redundant from my last job.

The shock of being unemployed so suddenly and the state of the job market meant finding new work was tough.

I sent out countless CVs and application forms and only received rejection letters, which at the time felt truly demoralising.

During the struggle to find employment I found the Want to Work campaign which is run by the charitable arm of Brighton and Hove Albion – Albion in the Community.

Its purpose is to get unemployed people into work by running courses and offering work trials and work experience with local companies.

While with Want to Work I obtained free qualifications and was involved in group discussions among people in the same situation as me. I felt this helped boost my morale in the dreaded job hunt.

At the start of 2012, I was placed on a number of workday trials which allowed me to show potential employers my skill and ability beyond my CV.

The work trials were extremely flexible and were tailored to your background and skill set. This helped since I had an interest in finding work in an office but had no prior office experience.

I found a job after spending a trial day working for brightonandhovejobs.com. The team made me feel very welcome and I thoroughly enjoyed my experience.

I was tasked with doing administrative work and contributing to their website. During my trial the team were impressed with what I had to offer and brought to my attention an apprenticeship for an administrator with their other company ICP Search, which I secured.

ICP Search is a specialist recruitment company and I am now starting to get more actively involved in the recruitment end of the company by finding candidates for our Satellite and Aerospace division.

I believe that had I not taken the opportunity which Want to Work had to offer I would not have found employment so soon.

If you are unemployed and live locally, take the opportunity and get in touch with Want to Work and be part of their on-going success.

Visit www.albioninthecommunity.org.uk for more information.

Budget talks were flawed from start

Your money, your service, but not much say, writes Lorenzo Genito, a masters student at the University of Sussex.

Last month, Brighton and Hove City Council held a public consultation with local residents to discuss budget management for the next financial year.

The purpose of this meeting, which took place at the Jubilee Library, was to engage with Brighton and Hove residents, offering them a chance to express their opinion on how the council should spend its budget following the Government’s cuts.

Residents were divided into groups and each had to discuss one of the five pre-determined potential strategies.
The last stage of this event required a vote to elect the most favoured strategy as the one preferred by Brighton and Hove residents.

The council’s initiative to involve local residents in developing concrete proposals on budget management was an excellent idea.

However, in my opinion the event did not deliver its intended results.

Because of some crucial organisational issues, the degree of residents’ involvement was ultimately unsatisfactory.

First of all, the event’s organisers only allowed two minutes for each group to explain their proposals to the other groups before the final vote.

Although a short and concise explanation was certainly needed, I believe that issues relating to budgetary matters require slightly more time.

The two-minute limit was justified on the basis that the event itself was subject to library-imposed time restrictions. Still, groups would definitely have had more time for their explanations if there had been only one coffee break instead of two.

More importantly, the biggest flaw was that the strategies given to the groups were pre-determined.

Although these strategies could be modified, the basic assumption is that following next year’s cuts the only option left to the council is to either increase council tax, reduce expenditure or shift some services to the private sector.

The rigidity of this assumption precluded the expression of opinions that were not in line with these ideas.
This was a pity, since it was clear to me that almost every resident in attendance had more than just a couple of adjustments to propose.

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