WELFARE STATE
Grimond's new approach
John Connell
Mr Jo Grimond's long desire to see local authorities branching out into new fields of social remedial work has taken concrete form with Greenock Corporation's agreement to carry out a project financed by the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust. The MP for Orkney and Shetland feels that the socially depressed area of Greenock — it has long had one of the highest unemployment figures in Scotland — has many of the problems associated with industrial cities throughout Britain, and he is anxious to see more experimental work carried out by social work departments to improve environmental living conditions. Shetland, now experiencing unprecedented prosperity from the North Sea oil boom, has been selected •by the Rowntree Trust as a rural community which should be included in the survey project.
Chronic male unemployment on the lower reaches of the Clyde, with a minimum percentage of 8 per cent, has presented growing problems for local authorities like Greenock. Apart from a large container terminal and a dry dock, the town has not had a major industrial development for many years, and Clydeside's basic heavy engineering trades have continued to decline steadily since the end of the war. Local traders recently complained about heavy losses being incurred because of the inability of many poor families to pay hire purchase commitments.
Yet depressed as it is, and the area contains many derelict sites and slums, Mr Grimond is convinced that Greenock can literally be pulled up by its own boot laces if given half a chance. He sees the important seaport as a closely knit community with a proud tradition, but caught in a straitjacket of high unemployment. It is the children and the young people, according to Mr Grimond, who are suffering most from the town's deep social problems, and he wants some participation by the local people in their own affairs.
The BBC recently infuriated Greenock councillors by daubbing gang slogans on walls and filming scenes in the town which are supposed to represent the conditions under which many children are brought up in Scotland. It is the repeated reckless attitude of the BBC — in this instance handing out liquor to mere children participants — which has provoked people like Mr Grimond to condemn the sensational way that the authority goes about gathering items for news and documentary programmes. Giving teenagers drink and the other very questionable methods which the BBC has used to ' highlight' social problems seems to me to be complete hypocrisy, public vandalism, cynicism at its worst.
Why doesn't the BBC give more constructive coverage concerning social work projects? Has it never heard of the proposal from a Greenock business man to set up a Tennessee Valley Authority organisation to transform Scotland into the same kind of progressive state as the one in America?
Still, the TV media has done very good work in publicising the work of the Birsay Committee, the Government body which has been trying to give help to the travelling folk. There are about 450 itinerant families in Scotland, wandering gypsies who claim that the local authorities make little effort to provide them with facilities to settle down in permanent sites or arrange to have their children educated in proper schools. And it is the severe Scottish winters and the increasing problems of travelling on the roads and apparent harassment by the police that have finally driven these nomadic people to make a desperate plea for intervention from the Scottish Secretary of State. Mr Charles Douglas, one of the travellers' representatives on the special committee, has vainly asked for some understanding from responsible bodies over a long period. He maintains that the police habitually take male travellers from camp sites, lock them up, and then fine them. "We are sometimes treated as worse than thieves or criminals," complains Mr Douglas. Lord Birsay is very disappointed that a year's work on the problem has produced only one real response, that by the Lanarkshire town of Coatbridge to provide a custom-built site by early 1973. The Secretary of State for Scotland is willing to provide a 75 per cent grant towards special caravan sites, with proper electricity and water supplies. These sites cost about E16,000, and most local authorities are sympathetic towards the travelling people, but pressing housing problems and public indifference towards gypsies always leave the travellers at the end of the welfare queue.
Many people in south-east England are beginning to feel the effect of growing numbers of unemployed and social misfits wandering about the countryside looking for food and shelter. A recent experience which I had in Glasgow illustrates the nature of the problem of dealing with the apparently needy people. A young gypsy woman, continually street begging and with a baby in her arms, asked me for help. Almost immediately a man, who turned out to be a detective, asked me if I would be willing to stand as a witness against a "persistent nuisance ". Despite the fact that the woman was shrewd and was obviously set on breaking the law, I could not go into court against her — and I told the policeman that I agreed that the public have to be protected from persistent beggars. But this is the kind of personal problem which always leaves me in a dilemma — or is there an easy solution to it?
Finally, and I hope on a much brighter note, it is pleasing to see that East Kilbride looks like developing one of the most advance Social Work Departments in the United Kingdom. This bustling new town which attracts hundreds of visitors each year is now engaged in a major welfare scheme designed to cover its citizens till well into the midseventies. East Kilbride has one of the youngest populations in Scotland — there are about 7,000 pre-school age children — and it is •the kind of community which is able to take advantage of a good physical environment and new housing estates to implement the advanced provisions of the Social Work (Scotland) Act of 1968.
The local Social Work Department keeps in close contact with all kinds of bodies —, the South of Scotland Electricity Board, old age pensioners' groups, and those looking after the mentally handicapped. Unemployment has been the cause of some trouble with rent collections, especially during the period when many men lost their jobs with t'he Rolls-Royce collapse. Local social workers have asked for weekly rent collections in certain cases, more publicity for the system of the purchase of rent vouchers, and they want Social Security to pay rent directly to the local housing authorit.
It has not all been milk and honey for the thousands of Scots who have moved from the industrial areas in the west to nearby East Kilbride and the further afield new towns of Glenrothes and Cumbernauld. But most of the overseas visitors who have visited these developing communities have been very impressed with the towns' design and the variety of social services.
There is much more going on in Scotland than often meets the sociologist's eyes. It is encouraging to see that Greenock and the Scots gypsies are beginning to get some of the welfare attention that they deserve.
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