Big Society?

LFN we have a village school run by non LEA provision; it's not good.

All teh SN support for nonsatemented kids has been pulled as the funders wanted significant extra time input into the Church that pays the bills; tehrefore children wanting extra reading help etc have hAD IT PULLED.

PARENTS AHVE FLOCKED AWAY FROM SUPPORTING SCHOOL VOLUNTARILY BECUASE OF THIS, SCHOOL WNATS TO DICTATE TIMINGS ETC, SEATS YOU IN A COLD CORRIDOR WITH NO HEATING
so space for worship can be allocated

Staff members have completely lost morale, and are quite open about tehir complete unhappiness (ranging from teachers being open that they cannot help children with SEN as Head won't OK any budget whatsoiever, to teachers planning to move on in bulk)

Personally it's a bad thing, and amkes me very wary indeed about the whole idea of people being able top open schools randomly.

I've also learned that a 'good school' is not necessarily a 'ggod school'- ours is considerde the beee's knees, yet ds3 attends an SNU at a local council estate school that is generally ignored and it so much better; warmer, better teaching, and ds3 has gone from sitting at the back crying alone to achieving NC average grades and participating in some MS activities.

My options are more limited than most (will ahve 2 at different SNU's 9if we get palces), one at end Juniors and one starting reception) so Ic an't chosoe it for ds4 due to distance (SNU kids taxi'd to closest school) but would if we could.

I've experience of this from most sides: employment in charity sector, employment in public sector and now a service user as I have 2 disabled lads.

If I had to choose in all honesty i'd go for a mix every time: charity tends to be best delviered but so many of the ones that delvier the nitty gritter services go under in this climate and I've watched one I worked for go down and elave the recipients of public-sector equivalent services high and dry; oit's not good at all.

I think state services should be there to provide the backbone: the need will always be there- you can't remove a lot of need, criime etc might be choice at elast at some level (the criminal chooses after all) but sickness and disability is not.

Charities shoudl be there to amke up those serveces; the support for people not quite at SSD stage (that's what we did), holiday breaks for carers, etc.

I am very unsure about private: my experiences have been very poor indeed (as employee, never had any services from teh sector, no trust left).

Reality is IMO it all needs to be a collaboaration but I am not seeing that. I am trying to set up a support group locally for people with an ASD child, all I need is help toi find venue etc- great big blank. When help is available barriers are put up: for example meetings miles away which I can't get childcare for (actual group would be term time only).

I'd like that to change, at some point in the future when I am qualified I want to establish a related not for profit venture in the field, but ATM there doesn't seem to be anything out there to help me with it all.

Luckily we are in Wales so have the buffer of the Assembly for all new changes in this area; seems to me Big Society is a catch phrase for 'sort it yerself'; i'm a great proponent of communities pulling together but as OP says the most vulnerable are those that cannot do that, and we are already (we being people I know with SN family members) seeing huge cuts yet nothing in palce to cov er them. Consider Riven's family: holiday club pulled so hubby may have to leave his job. Fabbo

I believe that BT provides better service now than it did when it was owned by the State - and not just because technology has advanced. Privatisation and competition was the spur to better quality.

I agree that there has to be competition. That is why the train privatisation was initially botched, though now the railways are better than they ever were in the BR days too. It is relatively easy to introduce competition to British Gas, by selling a bit of it off - but hard to introduce competition to railways.

It is quite easy to get schools to compete - just build a good school in a neighbourhood and existing bad ones will be forced to improve or close. I don't care who runs the school as long as they aren't crazy.

It would be good and relatively easy to introduce competition for Jobcentres - they are quite inefficient at getting people into work - and other organisations, private or charitable, could probably do it a lot better.

I don't care who delivers my public services - I want it to be of decent quality and excellent value.

The State is not there to employ people, though that is a nice ancillary bonus. If we lived in a utopian country with no crime, I would not want to pay for police officers.

The State's role is to provide essential/emergency services, education, and infrastructure, and to be a strong regulator - but most importantly, to create the economic conditions which enable businesses to prosper. That generates sustainable wealth and jobs.

I'm happy for public services to be provided by private, profit-making companies, but ONLY if there's enough genuine competition in the system to ensure that the tax money paid for the services and the profit reaped is in keeping with the quality of service provided.

With the private sector employer cutting wages by half, getting rid of all the pensions etc I'd prefer the public sector option thanks.

One way the extra money goes into peoples pockets, the other way it goes into the pockets of goldman types.

Its a no brainer really.

Interesting that you cite private sector rather than not for profit or charity, shows a lot.

Prolesworth

Obviously these things are hypothetical, but given equal quality, would you prefer:

i) a private company providing a public service costing £100m a year, including £10m profit a year, or

ii) the State providing the same public service at the same quality, costing £110m a year.

Obviously things are never that clear-cut, ever - but the figures are definitely plausible.

"Yes, proles, the volunteering ethic is pretty well established I think, and I don't think it will be aided by a top-down (and in that sense anti-communitarian) attempt to squeeze it away from its natural position and into the provision of quite complex infrastructure."

Completely agree.I think the whole point of volunteering is that people do it voluntarily and shouldn't be rounded up and made encouraged to do it. But I may be wrong.

expatinscotland I said I wanted a 35% state instead of a 50% state - not a 0% state!

I am completely convinced that the state could shrink by about a quarter and society will be better for it. I think shrinking it by half would be too much though.

These are relative questions, not absolute onces.

Just read the articles, get it now, it's just privatising everything.

Another thing I don't get is how they are going to ensure they have the right services of the right scale in the right places. If they just leave it to everyone to do whatever they fancy then it'll be fragmented and ineffective.

Proles has a great point - are there any statistics as to how many people in the UK or England (which it seems is where this is really going to happen) volunteer, with their time or money or expertise or whatever? Do they actually know how many people do it now, and how many people they expect to do it going forward? How do they intend to encourage additional people to volunteer? Do they know that people have the time and resources to give, outside of their immediate work and family commitments? And so on.

Have they actually got any figures to back all of this up or are they going to simply pull services and hope someone comes along to fill the gap?

'Sorry - I resent paying taxes, by and large.'

Then why don't you move to a country that doesn't have them, or where it's so corrupt you can easily get out of them.

And then you can see just how much good infrastructure costs and just how valuable it is.

Because anyone who believes their taxes should operate like a shop, pay in, get a good out, is a fool.

The greatest boon taxes usually bring is a peaceful society with good infrastructure that allows the majority to go and earn a living as they see fit mostly uninterrupted, so they have the luxury to moan about it all on the net instead of dodging bullets and queuing up all day for some rice.

Anyone who thinks Britain is 'broken' should be put on a one-way flight to Haiti.

That's what broken is.

But low taxes and all.

Are people really so blind and stupid?

Think they haven't planned this out?

First, get as many who are on benefit as possible onto JSA. It's cheaper than other benefits, with the added 'bonus' of having the recipient's housing benefit cut by 10% after 12 months.

Next, now you have them on JSA, they are no longer disabled lone parents, they're unemployed scroungers.

You got 'em where you want 'em.

Cut more public services, making more unemployed, then introduce Big Society as a means by which to compel such people to work for next to nothing (£60-odd/week on JSA for a single person) doing jobs the public sector used to pay a living wage to do.

Easy peasy - they're feckless unemployed, anyhow.

How on Earth anyone sees this as anything but a con is beyond me.

But the next time someone calls me 'harsh' on here, I'll refer them to people who support Tories because if villifying the disabled and vulnerable isn't harsh, I don't know what is.

I also don't agree with community service for people on benefits. Benefits are basically a insurance scheme that covers you for hard times. We're not doing people a favour by paying them benefits, simply giving them their due. They shouldn't come with any responsibility except for that of paying NI when you're working or once you're working. An insurance company wouldn't say to someone "you had a house fire - we'll pay out if you help clear up."

Sure there will always be people who game the system (as with commercial insurance). All you can do is to try and minimise the opportunity for that, and also ensure that it doesn't cost more to work.

Oops sorry, was having a literary flight of fancy there - ignore the unnecessarily flowery language!

Sorry - I resent paying taxes, by and large.

Obviously they are essential but the State does not need 50% of the money in this country - and so much tax is totally wasted.

As a ballpark figure I would be much happier at a 35%/65% split between public and private.

If we have too much State we end up with stupidities like CRB, ID cards, and the like.

Bureaucracy is inherent to the State - there is a reason councils are so much worse run than most big retailers. Rigidly sticking to centrally imposed bad rules leads to terrible tick-box regulation - like the FSA and Stafford Hospital.

Of course the State must always be there to help us up when we fall down, and to look after those who cannot look after themselves. It also has to be a tough regulator. However the very nature of the State means that too often it keeps us down.

The State can do wonderful things but by and large, it is wasteful and unresponsive. The State discourages innovation. It breeds uniformity. It absolves us of responsibility by robbing us of discretion and the faculty of discrimination. Almost always, this stultifying dullness is innate - not an artifact of implementation.

I would trust the State a lot more if it is devolved down as far as possible instead of bring run by Whitehall. We have natural networks of people who we trust - why not rely on them more?

Custardo, I hadn't seen your post when I wrote mine. What I did was read the articles included by itstimmytime. Maybe I've jumped to the wrong conclusions. Wouldn't be the first time.

Eleison talks a lot of sense.

x-post grannieonabkie. What you say is very interesting and makes much sense.