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What can the Local Authorities do to support the UK in leading the Sharing Economy?

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Click to find out more about:sharing-economy

The Sharing Economy as a movement

How Businesses can take part in the Sharing Economy

How the Government should be supporting the Sharing Economy

 

What can the local authorities do to support the UK in leading the Sharing Economy?

On a more local scale to central government, it should be the duty of local authorities to optimise the participation and amount of resources openly available in their community.


What could your local government do for you?

Recently in a paper published by Debbie Wosskow, it was made clear that in order for the UK to allow itself to become a collaborative economy, we must “Unlock the Sharing Economy” (Wosskow, 2014).
To view the paper, click here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/unlocking-the-sharing-economy-independent-review

So how should the local authorities respond in order to move forward?

 

Renting out government space

The local authorities should give the public access to facilities which aren’t being used, such as town halls, sports centres and meeting places.

“The government should simplify the registration process for Space for Growth to remove the requirement for security vetting in buildings where this is not necessary. The online booking system should also be improved – making it as easy as possible to book government space”, (Sharp, 2014).

Co-working spaces

The local authorities should be looking to work with companies such as “CentralWorking” and            “Hubble” , as well as 9 other sharing economy businesses in the UK currently connecting the public who need office space, with companies who have free office space.

Find them here: http://www.compareandshare.com/sharing-economy-directory/

 

Travel

In Wosskows paper, she talks about the government using car clubs such as “Co-wheels Car Club” and “City Car Club”, but as a subscription model similar to that of the “Barclays Bike Hire” model, perhaps in partnership with the Oyster card. This would be a fantastic addition to the Sharing Economy in the UK, if all local authorities implemented car club subscription models in commonly used areas, to reduce in the cost of people buying cars, and actually promote the use of car hire and ride sharing.

“Shared mobility service providers would be better served by finding ways to collaborate with local governments if they want to achieve long-term viability. Not only would this entail adhering to regulations in areas such as vehicle and driver safety requirements but also seeking to optimize the citizen and environmental goals to achieve active city support”, (Cohen & Boyd, 2014).

Linking to this, once it is accepted by central government, the local authorities in the UK should allow residential, and non-residential properties to rent their parking spaces to these car clubs and other members of the public, instead of paying the premium of inner city parking.

Leeds is a primary example of a city who would flourish benefit massively from the Sharing Economy. Being close to Leeds Bradford airport, residents could rent their unused parking spaces to members of the public who need to leave their vehicle for a lengthy amount of time whilst they are away. The local authorities could support Sharing Economy businesses such as “Just Park”, “Your Parking Space”, and “spareground” to name but a few businesses who offer parking services to the public. To see what the BBC have to say about the recent success of Just Park, click here.

Rewards

‘Time banking’, is another term referred to in Wosskows paper. Local authorities should be supporting those who give their time to their community. Time Banking, allows these people to use their hours given to the community as a form of currency, such as programmes like “Echo”. This token economy means for your hour banked for reading to the elderly for example, you can have your grass cut for an hour by someone who is also part of a ‘time banking’ scheme, and this should be supported.

 

References

 

What can the government do to support the UK in leading the sharing economy?

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sharing-economyClick to find out more about:

The Sharing Economy as a movement

How Businesses can take part in the Sharing Economy

How the local authorities should be supporting the Sharing Economy

 

What can the government do to support the UK in leading the sharing economy?

It is about time the Sharing Economy in the UK was taken seriously as the future of business, travel, dining, hospitality and many other elements of our everyday lives. However, how do we make the transition?

In this report by Debbie Wosskow, she highlights the requirements needed to “Unlock the Sharing Economy” (Wosskow 2014). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/unlocking-the-sharing-economy-independent-review

To get a better understanding of ‘The Sharing Economy’, see Rachel Botsman’s “What’s mine is yours: how the collaborative consumption is changing the way we live”. http://www.rachelbotsman.com/book/

 

What could the government be doing to help ease the transition period?

One of the biggest concerns about using collaborative consumption is trust.

The government could make this easier by introducing ID verification methods which link to criminal record checks, so that members of the public would know if who was renting their drive/ front room/ bike. With this simple sharing of public criminal record data, the public would at least know who they were allowing access too.

The government has a lot of spare resources, which should be open to the community when they are not in use to save on resources in general. “Over 635,000 homes are empty in England – around 216,000 have been empty for more than six months”,(gov.uk, 2012).

Here are some examples of resources in government control which could be open to the public when free for a more collaborative nation:

  • Vehicle fleets
  • Facilities such as sports halls and town halls
  • Empty public buildings (house shares)

Potentially the most imperative thing the government could offer to support the rise of the sharing economy is to instate an innovation Lab, in partnership with Nesta, (Nesta.org.uk, 2014) to help Sharing Economy services to learn, and share the best practise. According to Wosskow, they should also look at providing “targeted financing for sharing economy businesses”(Wosskow, 2014). They could then work with National Statistics to comprehend the most effective delivery method to the public.

The government should also look into using S.E hospitality services such as “Air B&B” and “Couch Surfing” to accommodate for public servants. Not only would this cut costs, but it would be supporting the S.E services, and the members of the public who are taking part.

Similarly, the government should look at using transport services such as “City Car Club”, to transport their public servants. Membership models such as this means that they would cut costs, because you only pay when you use, and also reduce the amount of cars issued and in turn reduce the carbon footprint.

For a list of other transport services in Britain which are part of the sharing economy, click here:

http://www.compareandshare.com/sharing-economy-directory/

If the government is seen to be taking part, they will act as a catalyst for the masses. According to PWC’s theory of collisions (PWC, 2014), and mega trends, this movement collides with the Eco movement which is being pushed in the UK currently, and kills two political goals with one stone. Once the increased usage of services such as “FreeWheelers” and “GoCarShare” is apparent, the government should be looking to support the sharing economy by creating H.O.V (high occupancy vehicle), lanes which would encourage communities to share lifts into work and reduce the amount of cars on the road and cost for the public.

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