October 10th 2011
Crunch time
Timebanking has gained traction and won many plaudits in the last decade. But can it move into the mainstream? Clare Goff reports
Timebanking has been taken to new levels in Wales where Creation Development Trust has established it as common currency in Blaengarw, a village in the South Wales Valleys.
‘This is what localism looks like,’ says Sam Hopley, chief executive of Timebanking UK mid-way through the organisation’s bi-annual conference in Nottingham.
A gathering of almost 100 timebanking practitioners, delegates ranging from time brokers involved in facilitating the person-to-person exchange for which timebanking is most known, to the entrepreneurs and co-producers of public services who are leading the way towards where, perhaps, timebanking is heading.
Steering the way through these two paths is Hopley, who has headed up the organisation for the last six months. Since taking up the role he has been touring the country visiting timebanks and listening to those involved in the movement.
For the first time in its history, he says, timebanking does not have to push against any closed doors. As the financial economy nosedives, time exchange is enjoying a resurgence and with its proven impact in boosting social capital, building communities and increasing volunteering, the concept is gaining the ear of government and policymakers.
Timebanking creator Edgar Cahn, left, with delegates at the Timebanking UK annual conference.
Unlike traditional volunteering models, in which active volunteers help out passive needy people, timebanking starts with the principle that everyone is an asset and has something to give. It brings people together through the exchange of time and skills, with each hour of time given earning one time credit which can be exchanged for an hour of someone else’s time, or, increasingly, for ‘goodies’ such as trips or theatre tickets. Invented by Edgar Cahn in 1985 it was brought to this country by Martin Simon, former chief executive of Timebanking UK, and David Boyle, now a fellow at the New Economics Foundation.
While its ability to build social capital and revive the ‘core economy’ of family, neighbourhood and community has been proven, it is the growing connection between timebanking and co-production that is catching the attention of government and policymakers trying to forge through a new era of public service provision.
Hopley is currently straddling two chief executive roles, and it is in his former (and still current) position as head of the Holy Cross Centre Trust, a homeless organisation based in London, that the future of timebanking can perhaps be seen.
Now one of the most pioneering examples of how timebanking can foster co-production, it was, Hopley says, a soup kitchen chasing funding streams, competing with other charities and trying to find a way to justify its existence. Hopley has plenty to say on the current ‘ludicrous’ model of social care, which sees the ‘user’ of service having to justify their ‘needs’ to specialist professionals working in silos who are essentially sales people for services, while the commissioner pulls the strings.
‘We’ve invested in silo provision based around “managing” a client group. We take people out of the community, drive them towards specialised provision in buildings and try to fix them before we put them back into the community.’
The non-market economy – or what Edgar Cahn called the ‘core economy’ – however, is much more efficient at things like care of the elderly and children, and building and sustaining community, relying as it does so heavily on self-sufficiency, and on non-monetary rewards. Timebanking UK’s aim is for co-production to harness the ‘alchemy’ between the market and the non-market systems, and by doing so create a multiplier effect that can unleash social value and generate more from public spend.
Hopley has over the last five years turned Holy Cross into a learning organisation, with homeless people running support groups for other rough sleepers, helping prepare meals and assisting with admin or communication. In a collection of thoughts on how co-production and timebanking has changed the organisation, members of staff say that changing their relationship with those using the service to one of reciprocity has been empowering and liberating for both staff and users.
Hopley admits that there is still a long way to go with the model but it is showing that system change can occur and can improve the lives of both the professionals, users and commissioners of services. ‘Co-production says you are important, let’s use that as asset. It’s not about getting people to do stuff, it’s about taking them on a journey.’
Hopley is keen for Timebanking UK to be at the heart of the debate about what co-production can mean. As the term has risen up the political agenda, he’s seen it watered down and its story told by those with no experience of co-production themselves. While some versions of co-production focus on the relationship between the user and provider of a service, his vision of is about changing the whole system.
In a five-year business plan for Timebanking UK he sets out his ideas around flipping public services inside out in order to create a connected thriving social marketplace bringing public services, communities and businesses together.
But there are tensions around scaling up the timebanking model, particularly within the constraints of the current commissioning models. The difficulties of justifying the outcomes of timebanking to those holding the purse strings came across in a workshop focused on social return on investment analysis.
Will timebanking – a system in which the means are the ends – lose its authenticity by attempting to measure its outcomes to satisfy a commissioner? How can timebanks accurately measure their social impact? Even Holy Cross, the timebanking system that is credited with going furthest down the route of co-production, still struggles to get commissioners to shift their idea of value away from the monetary.
The jury is out on how far current social care models will change to allow co-production to truly flourish, but timebanking in the UK is naturally moving on and developing new models organically. Sam Hopley congratulated the 20,000 members now involved in timebanking, who ‘all have a slightly different sense of what they are doing’. From Castlemilk’s prisoners’ listening project to Hometownplus’s town-wide reward system in Wigan, he said that Timebanking UK has for some time been promoting a model that is less imaginative than what is really going on across the country.
Edgar Cahn, the founder of timebanking, agreed, saying that in the UK the model is being used more experimentally than in the US. He marvels at the growth in knowledge around the core economy, reciprocity and co-production, words that were unknown when he first came to the UK and says there are no social issues to which timebanking has not been applied, with the concept used in prisons, with mental illness, aging, child development, healthcare education and community gardens.
It is in Wales that some of the best models for timebanking as a mass mobilisation tool can be seen. Creation Development Trust has used timebanking and asset transfer to transform the village of Blaengarw in the Welsh Valleys, through learning and skills studios, and entertainment ‘menus’ for local timebankers. But Geoff Thomas, chief executive of Timebanking Wales, says timebanking has to move into the mainstream or it will remain a ‘cult’.
It is now Hopley’s job to guide a movement based on the values of trust and reciprocity into the mainstream of social policy and social care without losing its integrity. It won’t be an easy job but as he says in his opening address to this year’s conference, timebanking is able to unleash the capabilities of everyone. ‘What first intrigued be about it was its ability to bring out the best in people. There’s something about it that unleashes the best in all of us.’