One of the themes of the writing and lobbying of Professor Bob Holman is that poor families and communities can and should be entrusted with the control of resources allocated for their benefit. He has argued this in the particular case of Easterhouse, a housing estate near Glasgow, where he has lived and worked for many years. His book, Faith in the Poor, was notable for the fact that it was largely written by ordinary people who might never otherwise have been expected, or had the confidence, to put pen to paper articulating their perspectives and agendas. He also argued the general case at both Labour and Conservative Party conferences.

This called to mind something that happened during my very first social work job. I was a researcher in what was then called an Urban Aid Team. Our task was to focus on families in debt and therefore at risk of eviction from their homes, and to experiment with different approaches to the problems they faced, making recommendations about future council policy. We worked exclusively in an estate called West Pilton, west of Edinburgh, and a sort of mirror image of Easterhouse about thirty miles away.

The main thrust of our effort was channelled through various types of casework, seeking to help families with their problems including finance and budgeting. We engaged with local community-based groups and tried to build up a picture of the overall context of the lives of the families in crisis. It may seem dated now, but at the time it was an initiative that represented a willingness to reflect on a chronic problem and to consider alternative responses to it.

As I collated the statistical information we were obtaining from the families, particularly the scale of their debts, it quickly became clear that if we were to disband the team, and allocate all the resources needed to keep it going instead to the families we were trying to help, then we could write of their debts and give them a clean slate for the first time in many years, if not in their lives.

I ventured to convey this discovery to the then City Chamberlain of Edinburgh Council, and remember how he looked at me incredulously, and left his customary seat behind a huge wooden desk in order to come closer to me and find out whether I was being serious. Didn’t I understand that this project was a jewel in the city’s crown, and had been set up only as a result of a great deal of effort? It represented a creative partnership between central and local government, and was one of many that he hoped to see develop.

It dawned on me, in my state of naïve innocence, that there was no question in his mind of any sort of radical course of action such as giving families a new start in life. And this was a major lesson for me in how the world works.

In the past decade or so there has been a movement worldwide called “Jubilee 2000” that aimed to write off the debts of third world countries. It has met with considerable success, not least because of the enthusiastic support of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. In short it has preferred to see money transferred (in the form of debt relief) rather than simply a continuation or increase of aid and development work. The jury is out as to whether this bold initiative actually changes the lives and life-chances of the poorest sections of the nations it is intended to help.

In England and Wales the “Children’s Fund” represents another initiative that has the Chancellor’s backing and support. Something like £450K each year for at least three years is being allocated by central government to help the poorest children and families. The term “poor” is not used, and the concept of “at risk of social exclusion” is preferred. Each local authority area is being allocated a proportion of the total, based on population and deprivation indices.

The government is encouraging the involvement of the voluntary and faith-based sectors, and the clear intention has been to find new ways of getting resources through to those who most need them at a local level. But already there are signs of the seemingly insurmountable problem of how to deliver resources into the hands of local people and organisations, rather than to those, usually middle-class professionals, who are employed to help such people.

I am part of the Redbridge Children’s Fund Partnership Group, charged with overseeing the Fund in this part of North East London. The voluntary sector is a full partner in the process, and there is a very lively network of voluntary and faith-based organisations contributing to the policy-making. However a basic dilemma is looming: when organisations are asked to deliver particular services, how can we be sure that locally-based groups will be sustainable, and able to fulfil the criteria required for administering the funds?

Put more crisply, if there are, say, two organisations in the running, one a small, local, kitchen-table sort of group of local people, and the other a major voluntary organisation well-resourced and experienced in making such proposals and administering such projects, how can the local group be expected or enabled to compete? The scales are understandably weighted in favour of the larger, professional organisation.

And so we find ourselves confronted by the worldwide and age-old dilemma that Bob Holman has been attempting to solve for much of his working life. There needs to be a commitment to locally-based and rooted groups, to organisations like Councils of Voluntary Service that can support and encourage such groups, and timescales that allow capacity-building and growth.

I ought to have mentioned that we have been consulting children all along the way, and it may be that their clear thinking and creative ideas will help where adult perspectives and institutions are struggling. It will be interesting to see whether we can make an impact where so many have encountered difficulties.

It is testimony to the thirty years I have spent in social care and community work that I haven’t yet suggested we disband and give all the money to the poor. Perhaps the City Chamberlain from Edinburgh can take some of the credit for that. Anyway, as things develop I will seek to keep you in touch, and would be delighted to hear news from any who have experienced the positive involvement of local groups.