The Joseph Rowntree Foundation Place Strategy group that we presented our work on Total Place to were an impressive bunch. They managed the trick of analysing a new initiative in an open and informed way that highlighted a whole new bunch of questions that have not come up before.
The one that stuck out for me was the workforce issue. The pilots can be excused failings in their involvement of all manner of groups, due to the short timescales. However, as the Total Place approach evolves, those places who do not fully incorporate the workforce in all apects of the process will struggle to make a difference.
There was also a very pragmatic understanding of the need to talk the cost-cutting/efficiency language of Total Place even if it is frustrating for some that caring about the lives of the most excluded has only risen up the agenda becuase the way it is done currently is so inefficient.
The involvement of organisations like JRF in Total Place could play a big part in it really being a big deal in terms of improving lives, rather than a 'nice' way of cutting public spending.
Ed Cox of ippr North also had some useful things to say and flagged up their Total Neighbourhood project and somone also provided us with a good contact for our museums project too.
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