The health initiative – a revelation that adds a major new dimension to the CJ offering – arose from conversations with Dr Malcolm Rigler, a CILIP member, who had played a significant part in the setting-up of “65 High Street, Nailsea,” as reported in Information Professional May 2022 pp 29-32 (https://bit.ly/3wMfcXn). Malcolm, in a collaboration with fellow members of the Royal Society of Public Health, had produced a paper entitled Health on the High Street. Among its conclusions was that vibrant high streets play a very significant part in delivering improved Public Health through the deliv- ery of financial and digital inclusion. The paper also highlighted the importance of the creative arts in communicating and delivering these various outcomes.


How CJ began and evolved CJ began life as a low-key, informal research project to examine the impact of bank branch closures on those they serve. In just 30 years, branch numbers have reduced from around 30,000 to less than 10,000 today. The process continues una- bated with the main high street banks and the new digital-only challengers driving everyone to online banking. The 2,500 towns now without a bank branch, or down to “last-branch” sta- tus, are in seemingly terminal decline, a process undoubtedly accelerated by other factors including out-of-town and online shopping, the digital revolution, the high incidence of business rates, parking restrictions, and more. The results are there for all to see in our once-thriving high streets, formerly hubs of social and commercial exchange and transactions – abandoned premises, small business run- down, crime, squalor, vandalism, litter, the proliferation of betting and charity shops, apathy and poverty. In short, unsafe and unwelcoming places to be! It was from this recognition that CJ evolved from low-key research into a pro- ject to actually create and restore a bank branch network capable of reversing the spiral of decline.


These towns, as will be recognised, are home to the major proportions of those digitally and financially excluded, expe- riencing health inequity and having low literacy levels. In other words, the NHS/ CILIP and CJ projects have almost identi- cal population targets, with CJ potentially adding, as will be seen, a new dimension to enhance NHS/CILIP efforts. Attempts to persuade the major High Street banks and the new challengers to collaborate proved, as expected, to be fruitless.


But then, in Australia, and other advanced-economies too, we discovered some innovative, successful, branch-led banking models. Of these, the Community Bank®


model deployed by the Bendigo 34 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL


Bank of Adelaide and Australia stood out. Since 1995 it has opened 324 branches, generating massive interest and engage- ment, delivering significant. Commu- nity-wide regeneration. The model sees Bendigo Bank forge partnerships with communities in which:


l branches are owned lock, stock and barrel by the individual communities which they serve;


l profits earned can be used ONLY to fund local initiatives determined by those communities;


l increasingly, non-banking products and services are incorporated into branch offerings.


The Community Bank operations and outcomes are summarised in this state- ment from Robert Musgrove, General Manager of Corporate Affairs at the Bendigo Bank, who has provided so much advice, support, inspiration and know- how.


He said: “We applaud the Community Junction initiative for its endeavour to improve the prospects and success of communities across the United Kingdom. “Globally there are some wonderful examples of where mobilised and empow- ered communities take charge of their own destiny and work to enhance their vibrancy, innovation and success. “In Australia, Bendigo Bank has been pleased to be part of what is possibly one of the largest social enterprise movements globally; called Community Bank. This concept began in the late 1990s as a new and unprecedented banking model, in response to the closure of thousands of bank branches across the nation. At its core the model sees local communities partner with Bendigo Bank through the establishment of a local enterprise that provides banking services into the com- munity. Both the bank and the community share the revenue generated from their


collective effort, allowing the community to distribute its profits into local com- munity capacity-building initiatives. “Today there are 324 Community Bank branches throughout Australia employ- ing over 1,500 staff, representing over 75,000 local shareholders and nearly 2,000 passionate and local directors. This network has distributed over AUS$220 million into local community projects since the model’s inception. With this model, local communities are demon- strating that their empowerment and mobilisation is achieving significant outcome across all aspects of the community’s balance sheet, includ- ing health, education, infrastructure, innovation, and social and financial capital. Community Bank, along with Bendigo Bank, is a compelling buying group which collaborates increasingly with all levels of Australian Government to adopt a shared approach to commu- nity building programs.”


Adapting and enhancing the Bendigo model


CJ has adapted and enhanced the Ben- digo model by the inclusion of a series of non-banking products and services into its offering. Consumers’ social and commercial habits have changed. Any attempt to encourage people to return to high streets by opening bank branches in traditional formats is doomed to failure.


Hence, focus has been directed at identifying and, where appropriate, assembling features which provide irre- sistible engagement incentives. Those features include:


l coffee shop;


l community “trading spaces” – where- by marketing, sales and distribution fa- cilities enable individuals and groups to work together to convert local interests,


January-February 2023


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