Introducing a London-wide currency to rebuild communities
Town & Country Planning,
September 2001
Take a look at the small print in the draft economic strategy
for London - better known as the London Development Agency strategic plan
- and you will find an intriguing paragraph which seems to imply a kind
of volunteering 'smartcard' for the capital.
They promise, if possible, to launch a the card where you can earn 'point's'
helping out in the community, and then spend them on public transport
or sports.
It is a little mysterious, because nobody I've talked to at the Greater
London Authority when the strategy was published had any idea where the
idea had come from or what it meant.
Actually I could help them out there. There is a similar Community HeroCard
in Minneapolis. There is a new smartcard developed by the Metropolitan
Police in south London, with money from the Treasury, which allows kids
to collect points when they turn up at school without playing truant.
But most important, there is also - and I have to declare an interest
here - the ambitious new London Time Bank, launched by London's deputy
mayor Nicky Gavron at a party in Brixton's Angell Town estate in July.
I have to declare an interest because I've spent a considerable chunk
of the past year raising money for the project through the New Economics
Foundation - and with some success. The London Time Bank is by some way
the biggest local currency project launched in the UK so far, with nearly
half a million pounds promised so far from a range of funders.
This isn't the kind of local currency that is designed to revitalise London's
economy - just rebuild its sense of local trust and community. Nor is
the ambitious kind of idea that gets plonked down by some centralised
authority and just expects everyone to take part.
No, it's the basis for a network of community time banks across London
- in doctor's surgeries (like the existing one in Lewisham), or housing
estates (like the one in Brixton), or a range of other institutions that
need people's active involvement to succeed.
The idea is that it will link up a growing number of time banks, providing
mutual support - and a web-based way of exchanging time over the internet
- so that London gets a de facto secondary currency, called time credits,
that can be used if you need help or social support.
What makes the project especially exciting is that the time credits can
also be used to buy refurbished computers. Hopefully, they will soon be
able to be used to get into local sports centres - as you can at the Peckham
Pulse by using time credits earned at the nearby Peckham HourBank.
Time banks are one of the few ideas on offer that is able to rebuild trust,
social capital and a sense of community, by using time as the medium of
exchange. They create reciprocal relationships between people and institutions,
as well as between people and people, which ordinary volunteering finds
it harder to achieve.
It allows almost anybody in society, including the elderly and housebound,
to give something back. And the evidence is that feeling needed is a critical
missing piece of the social capital jigsaw.
But most importantly, time banks are a mechanism for mobilising the enormous
resources of London that are currently wasted by the market economy. These
include wasted equipment like old computers, but they also include the
human resources - especially among older people - which can be used to
support public services and make London a better place to live.
So I'm excited about the London Time Bank. It's a new kind of volunteering
- measured and rewarded - which might prove controversial. But the great
thing about inventing a new kind of money to to do that measuring and
rewarding is that it can link up programmes right across London.
Most important, it means that every time you help out in the community
you are generating 'money' that goes to make more activity happen as a
result.
That may look like a neat idea, but it's a lot more than that. What if,
one day, we charge council tenants partly in time for part of their rent
(as they do in Baltimore)? What if we let people pay council tax arrears
in time, as a way of keeping them out of prison (as they do in Colerado)?
What if we pay teenage jurors in time for trying non-violent cases by
other young people (as they do in Washington)?
Looked at like that, I believe the London Time Bank is going to be a significant
shift in the way we organise rebuilding our social capital. Fingers crossed…
