Professor Hendrik Wagenaar, Associate Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre, has explored the growth in civic enterprises and community initiatives delivering public services, as the co-author and editor of an Interface, published in Planning Theory and Practice.
The Interface, The Transformative Potential of Civic Enterprise, which can be downloaded without subscription on the Planning Theory and Practice website, considers the potential of new models of the delivery of goods and services to not only change service delivery but also to enrich democracy. It questions the roles of governments in relation to civic enterprises, and examines how the organisations can be held accountable. The Interface also considers how communities can be represented and which voices are listened to, and whether such initiatives build on older ideas of organisation and finance.
Professor Hendrik Wagenaar
The Interface aims to open up discussion of this policy area and cites examples including the Incredible Edible project in Todmorden and the Som Energia initiative in Spain.
Take a look at the Interface and join the conversation on Twitter #PTPinterface
Michael Gove MP at the Conservative Party “Big Society” policy launch, March 2010. Image courtesy of Paul Clarke via Wikimedia Commons
