Reflecting on Arnie Vinick (and actually, very much more to the point, Al Gore) I am forced to conclude that power is an elusive concept.
One of the tricks in the armoury of the regeneration practitioner is to seize power, assume it really, where in reality none exists.
All of the many achievements of the Urban Regeneration Companies (URCs) for instance, were delivered despite the fact that the URCs didn't have any planning powers, or CPO powers; they didn't own any land and what budgets they had were limited in comparison to their host local authorities, RDAs and so forth.
I appreciate the picture is mixed but seriously it is a wonder that anything was achieved at all! And it was always easier to commission a feasibility study than to get any tangible benefits going on the ground for real people.
The good urban regeneration practitioner will use other peoples powers if necessary and combine this with influence (lobbying and publicity) and bullying and charm - in equal measure - to get something going. It's exhausting but it's how we do it. Of course, this "art" will become ever more necessary in more-for-less Britain.
I once sat on a private sector-public sector committee of an initiative called "Fair Cities" that was chaired by the luminous David Michels, then Chief Executive of Ladbroke Hilton. We were debating whether the then Prime Minister (Tony Blair) could do anything about a fairly trivial (in David's eyes at least) condition for those claiming Job Seeker's Allowance to not exceed so many hours training each week.
Suddenly David roared with laughter from the Chair, "you know it's impossible" he said "I always swore that if I ever became Chief Executive of a hotel group that I'd get the muzak out of the lifts and the public areas. I hate that bloody muzak. And blow me down, I became Chief Executive of the Hilton Group and was I able to? The hell I was" and he went on to explain about the problems with the highly sophisticated centralised IT systems, the complex programmes, not to mention the drop in productivity among the staff which was well understood to be the likely result of him carrying out his intention.
His conclusion was that he had little power, even as the head honcho of the operation, and it made him sad and made him laugh in equal measure.
This reminds me of the time, a little while later, when I first met John Prescott at the Kent Thameside stand at the first ever Thames Gateway Forum. He was there for 17 minutes, a fact about which I was inordinately proud at the time (still am, I guess) and asked a number of very reasonable questions.
But I will never forget the moment when we got onto the Highways Agency when he asked, in all seriousness, what we would suggest to help him "get over the obstacle" of the Highways Agency. We looked at him in stupefaction: was he really as disempowered as we regeneration types at the chalk face? "But" I stammered "aren't YOU the Deputy Prime Minister?".
Not, perhaps, the most career-enhancing response.
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