Cotswold Community: Peper Harow Foundation negotiations

The Cotswold Community was a therapeutic residential community for boys between the ages of 9 and 16 who were diagnosed as emotionally unintegrated, and therefore displayed often disruptive and delinquent behaviour. The community evolved from the transformation of an approved school beginning in 1971. The role of the Tavistock Institute was as a consultancy body to oversee and advise on the management structure to support the therapeutic task. A particular focus of the project came to be the transformation of management structure from a traditional hierarchical authority towards delegation of authority to the grass roots staff who dealt with the residents on a day to day basis.The Cotswold Community was under the jurisdiction of Wiltshire County Council until a proposal in mid 1982 to move into the voluntary sector to facilitate development and simplify management away from the constraints of local authority management..

The Cotswold Community project was undertaken in a series of stages between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. The onngoing consultancy work with Cotswold Comunuty involved various representatives of the Tavistock Institute, including, in the early stages, A.K. Rice (see SA/TIH/C/1//17) and Isabel Mezies-Lyth.

From 1982-1984, Eric Miller became the main Tavistock consultant involved in the project, primarily focussing on the implications for the therapeutic task of alternative institutional forms and the Community's movement into the voluntary sector as the Cotswold Community Trust, affiliated to and supported by the Peper Harow Foundation. Miller's objective for the later stage of the project was to design and implement a management structure to help the Community maintain its professional task through shifts in authority and responsibility for managerial amd administrative functions. The transitition of the Community to the voluntary sector was sought to facilitate greater self management and a move away from the rigid umbrella structure of the local authority. Eric Miller was a consultant for the Community, particularly its Principal, over a transitional period in its management, ownership and affiliation, working with County officials to identify the functions that would need to be transferred and plan a phased take-over of the Cotswold Community.