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Notes on community enterprise in Scotland

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13 pieces, 2010–2026

The pieces dated between 2010 and 2020 occupy addresses where the same subjects once appeared on this domain. None of the earlier text survives in them. Each was researched and written afresh as though on the day it is dated, so a grant scheme, a council budget or a shop’s opening hours are described as they were then and may since have changed. Pieces added more recently are dated when they were finished.

For a narrower list, the three sections are Community enterprise, Public services and policy and Culture and books.

2026 1 piece

  1. Lending to neighbours: credit unions and Romania's mutual aid housesTwo old forms of community finance, one Scottish and one Romanian, both built on lending only to people who already share something. Their prices show what that shared ground is worth.Community enterprise

2020 1 piece

  1. Walking and cycling to school after lockdownLockdown has broken the school-run routine. That makes it a rare chance to change how children get to school.Public services and policy

2019 3 pieces

  1. Social enterprise and wellbeing in communitiesPublic health reform says health is made in communities. Much of that work is already done by small local enterprises.Community enterprise
  2. Social enterprise case studiesScotland has about 5,600 social enterprises. Most are small and local, and they come in more shapes than the word suggests. A few examples, grouped by the way they work.Community enterprise
  3. Community food enterprisesFood is one of the fastest growing fields of social enterprise in Scotland. Much of it began as a response to hunger, and the best of it is trying to become something more lasting than a food bank.Community enterprise

2018 1 piece

  1. Community bonds and share offersA new £100,000 bond for small social enterprise loans is a good moment to set out how community finance works, and what it does not protect.Community enterprise

2017 1 piece

  1. Book review: Poverty Safari by Darren McGarveyA rapper from Pollok writes about growing up poor, getting sober and the people paid to speak for places like his.Culture and books

2016 1 piece

  1. The Italian region where co-ops produce a third of its GDPThe claim that co-operatives produce a third of the region's output is repeated everywhere. The laws and habits behind the sector are more interesting than the number.Public services and policy

2015 1 piece

  1. The case for cuts: why the austerity argument held onFive years after the coalition's first budget, the economists have mostly moved on from the case for fast deficit reduction. British politics has not. The evidence, and the reasons it has made so little difference.Public services and policy

2012 2 pieces

  1. Five Glasgow advice offices to closeGlasgow's switch from grants to contracts leaves five bureaux in the city's poorest areas facing closure at the end of March.Public services and policy
  2. The Code of Social Enterprise in ScotlandA definition that everyone can use ends up meaning very little. In 2012 Scotland's social enterprises wrote down, in a page and a half, the test they apply to each other.Community enterprise

2011 1 piece

  1. True story of man behind The CorriesThe song is sung at Murrayfield and Hampden, and now it plays on the Commonwealth podium. The man who wrote it has been dead for more than twenty years, and he is less well known than his tune.Culture and books

2010 1 piece

  1. Shops axed...so we're locals' lifelineWhen the last shop in a neighbourhood shuts, the people who live there can wait for the market to come back or open one themselves. In the East End of Glasgow this autumn, they did not wait.Community enterprise