What happens when the community wants something and there is no ‘owner’? Making groups formalise themselves can result in bureaucracy and stifle innovation and sustainability.
In Bradford and elsewhere, the approach has been deliberately ‘light touch’. Local people with ideas they wished to deliver themselves could choose to become formally constituted as a group, or merely nominate a local organisation (church, school etc) to act as banker for any monies received. It also needs to be borne in mind that one person’s ‘bureaucracy’ is another person’s ‘robust accountability regarding public funds’: the trick is to strike the appropriate balance between the two.
