Alex Meikle: Just why Glasgow fails to prosper

Initiatives, programmes and millions of pounds have failed to impact on the city's deprivation so attitudes must change to make a difference

THE news that over a third of pupils in the Glasgow North East constituency leave school with no qualifications is shocking. This means the area has the lowest rating for school-leavers of any part of the UK. By contrast every constituency in Edinburgh is in the top third while every constituency in Glasgow was below the Scottish average.

This statistic joins a grim litany of facts about the city. In spite of hundreds of millions of pounds spent on programmes and a plethora of initiatives targeted at poor health and lifestyle, the city stubbornly remains at the bottom of the table when it comes to bad health, atrocious diet, and prevalence levels for drugs and alcohol which are shocking and world-beating.

At the same time it has become almost a clich to speak of Glasgow as a veritable schizophrenic city. The city has reinvented itself as a cultural centre teeming with good shops, nightlife and restaurants; a buzzing and vibrant place. Yet it contains large areas of multi-deprivation, high unemployment and destitution with life expectancy for adult males in some parts amongst the lowest in Europe. People living in these areas can become trapped in a lifestyle of low aspirations which perpetuate low expectations; in many ways, they inhabit a different world.

Two examples can illustrate the corrosive impact of ongoing deprivation and how it can evolve into a virtually separate culture outwith the mainstream. I recently had a conversation with a representative from one of the agencies tasked with trying to get Glaswegians leaving school into work. She told me about the case of one young man she had sent for interview from a community in Glasgow North-East. The interview was in the city centre and she strongly encouraged him to wear a suit, which he did. The problem was that as soon as he walked down the streets of his neighbourhood upon returning from the interview he was subjected to a barrage of scorn and insults from his peers, because he was wearing a suit. People do own and possess suits in this part of the world, but they are reserved for special occasions and certainly not worn every day.

The problem is more than just about wearing a suit. The young man in question, despite coming from a family experiencing long-term unemployment, is convinced that he wants to work in engineering or construction; to work "with his hands". This folk-memory of a Clydeside industrial past is belied by the reality of Glasgow's contemporary economy.Over the period from 1979 to 1992 employment in manufacturing fell by 42 per cent in Glasgow and west central Scotland. Put another way, in 1972 some 72 per cent of the economically active population of the city of Glasgow were employed in manufacturing and construction. By 2006 this had fallen to 22 per cent: That is an industrial "shake-out" of stupendous proportions The virtual collapse of the manufacturing sector in the west of Scotland has been replaced by the public sector and service industries in the private or voluntary sectors.

There is a lack of fit between the expectations and norms in some of our local communities about work and what is expected in terms of skills, and the reality of the demands of a modern service based economy.

The second example is equally as illustrative. Some parts of North-East Glasgow are poorly served by public transport. When questioned about this, transport operators respond that there is low demand for their services. At the same time taxi companies will tell you that these areas, far more than the affluent suburbs, are veritable cash cows with constant demand for short-haul journeys. People without access to private transport prefer to use taxis rather than the relatively cheaper option of buses. What explains this paradox?

The answer, to a large extent, is that a significant number of people living in these areas are rooted firmly in a cash-based economy. Savings are poor or non-existent and there is little or no concept of deferred gratification. When money comes into the household either through benefits or wages it is spent almost immediately and a significant number of people don't even have bank accounts. When cash is available spend it; why wait on windswept streets for buses when you can get a taxi right away (of course low use of buses leads to a vicious circle whereby operators cut the services even more, leading to a fall-off in demand and so on).

These two examples point out how, in important ways, both the culture and the economy of marginalised communities differ significantly from that of the norm in a city like Glasgow and contribute to widening that gap further.

In response to the city's massive social problems, Glasgow has developed a series of services and expertise in the area of social care to deal with these issues. Recently the Christie Commission reported that social care services should seek to intervene earlier to prevent social problems getting worse. While there is a lot to this, there is equally a problem from the other side.

That is, we have become adept at dealing with crisis, but, apart from some sterling exceptions, what we are not so good at is completing the journey and getting people back to full recovery, citizenship and reintegrating them back into the community through volunteering, further education, training or employability. There are a number of reasons for this. Social care services see their prime function as dealing with the individual and their immediate problems such as addictions, ill-health, abuse etc. In contrast, further education and learning services can view this client group as problematic. Overall, there are long-standing and deep-seated problems in relation to a lack of core skills, attainment and self-confidence allied to a culture of dependency stoked up by decades of families largely reliant on benefits and social services which can stifle individual initiative and independence. In sum, the gap between social care in response to crisis and learning can appear insurmountable.

What we need, therefore, is greater integration between social care programmes and learning and education. People going through social care programmes should be encouraged and directed, to a far greater degree than at present, towards learning and education programmes. This can be achieved in a carefully directed way.

Rosemount Lifelong Learning, which provides social care, childcare and community learning services in North East Glasgow, provides programmes such as Making a Difference which targets young parents experiencing problems sustaining their tenancies. The programme focuses on building up confidence, overcoming social isolation, dealing with debt, parenting, diet and other issues.

From this year, the programme will be based in our community based flexible learning centre (the Flexicentre). The idea is to locate a structured social care programme within a learning environment, and to stimulate the young parents to take part in further courses. The vision thing here is to actively bridge the gap between social care and learning and allow people to make the journey from crisis-dependency-stability-recovery-to reintegration back into the community.

Glasgow is rapidly becoming a city of two cultures, or to use Disraeli's famous phrase a microcosm of "two nations" within one city. To arrest that process we need urgently to refocus and integrate our social care and learning services so that all Glaswegians can share in the city's growth and prosperity.

• Alex Meikle is chief executive of Rosemount Lifelong Learning.