Please tell me about this "Big Society" thing

"Its just a way of cutting back on the things tax currently covers."

I think you mean it's a way of cutting back on the things tax doesn't cover.

That is why we have a deficit. Our tax income doesn't pay for our public services (and hasn't for a while).

I don't see what is wrong with seeking to use the voluntary sector to deliver services. The Citizens Advice Bureau is brilliant in helping people often in terrible situations so it can work.

Its just a way of cutting back on the things tax currently covers. Tis crap.

I don't see why people are so negative about this, I do voluntary work with the homeless and the elderly I think its a valuable contribution. I think people expect the state to do too much and there are often things that charitys can do better and cheaper than the state

QED...

That is because David Cameron deserves and demands no respect because he is shallow, ruthless and without empathy.

David Cameron could make a speech urging us to be kind to animals and small children and some would see it as a coded message that he was disbanding the NSPCC and RSPCA....

"this is not telling people how to behave"

Erm, well it is telling people what they should be doing with their free time, and also how they should behave in their communities - i.e. helping out, for free.

Get involved in your local community preschool committee if you want a taste of what The Big Society actually means. An arguably essential public service which 50% of the time in England is run by unqualified untrained inexperienced time-strapped amateurs. With hugely mixed results.

When you say "encouraged back into paid employment" you mean "will have their benefit cut" I think?

There aren't going to be any jobs to go to.

The majority of people losing their jobs because of the cuts are women. People who are working part-time or other flexible hours due to childcare commitments will find it hard to find replacement jobs as the hours will not be available / and childcare for different hours will not be affordable.

Result = women with children to stay at home, in line with what the woman from the conservative think tank confirmed was the preferred situation last week.

"telling people how to behave"

Nobody in the government, to the best of my knowledge, has told me how to behave. The last government, by contrast, was all set to have my DNA and fingerprints on a database just in case I ever decided to misbehave in the future... now that was scary.

I'm really not getting this 'making women redundant in droves and forcing them to volunteer' message that everyone seems so terrified of. In fact, looking at the legislation coming forward, anyone who is made redundant is going to be encouraged back into paid employment.... not unpaid work. The message I'm getting is that we are a stronger society when we act as a community rather than as a disparate group of individuals. That's all.

Very good

The other thing is that people tend to volunteer to do things that they care about, or that impact a certain part of the community that they care about.

People are not likely to eg stop volunteering for a cancer charity and go and work in the library instead, they will want to continue with what they are doing. They will not want to give up their time for things that are not close to their hearts.

I have not heard any firm figures or ideas from the govt about this, it's all very woolly. I suspect that they do not know the answers to these questions.

Maybe from immigration ISNT ?

71% of the adult population volunteer at the moment, I just don't see where this army of additional volunteers is going to come from. You seem convinced that they will materialise. Where from?

Attacking me for pointing out this fact is pretty pathetic TBH.

As far as I can gather, the idea is to make middle-to-low earning women redundant and for them to stay at home. There will be no-one to run current services (particularly those that help older people and children) so the unemployed mothers will do it for free, meaning that the tories are smug about spending less money, and their wives can feel good about hosting charity lunches, or those fortunate enough, continue in their well-paid work.

Chil - you surely must see the irony in the Tory policy that they wish to decrease bureaucracy and state involvement, and contrast that against the Big Society - where they are actually telling people how to behave - the biggest intrusion of all.

I volunteer and do shit in my community, however I do it for no reward and no points, but you start telling me I must do it and indeed I will give you a tax break for doing it, well, you know what, go fuck yourself, you have just ruined what I was doing anyway - that's not why I do it to look better than everyone else.

Extrinsic rewards destroy intrinsic pleasure, and the only reason people volunteer is for intrinsic pleasure.

Altruism has been stifled. Lots of people volunteer but that's in spite of the prevailing culture, not because of it. Everything from CRB checks to hefty insurance costs are barriers to ordinary people making simple things happen for others. Many have just given up trying.

Your cynical 'can't do' attitude and looking for right-wing ulterior motives is also proof that altruism has been stifled.

This is what is happening at the moment, from here

"Key Volunteering Facts and Figures for England
In 2008/09 71% of adults volunteered in some way with 47% volunteering at least once a month (2008/09 DCLG Citizenship Survey).
In 2008/09 41% of adults volunteered formally (giving unpaid help through a group, club or organisation) and 62% volunteered informally (giving unpaid help as an individual to someone who is not a relative)
(2008/09 DCLG Citizenship Survey).
In 2007/08 formal volunteers contributed an estimated £22.7 billion to the UK economy (UK Civil Society Almanac)."

That is an awful lot already being done. I honestly think that people who are minded to volunteer are already doing it. So who is going to do all of this extra work?

I don't think that altruism is currently stifled. Millions of people give their time voluntarily to all sorts of organisations at the moment.

Where are all the additional volunteers going to come from?

"The simple fact being you cannot manufacture altruism."

But perhaps you can stifle it?

It is the biggest bureaucratic state lead scheme of all from a party that apparently wants to 'shrink the state'.

It is deeply patronising at all levels, especially to people who do it already without having a label on it. Interestingly as soon as you start to put a label on these things and provide an extrinsic reward as has been discussed with tax breaks, people no longer want to do them.

The simple fact being you cannot manufacture altruism.

I think that if women (and men) are put out of work and they see around them children suffering and families going hungry, they will step in to help, yes. Because many people are decent people who care about others. I think this is another part of it.... The right wingers can say, right you mealy-mouthed nicey lefty types, people are really suffering now (because of our policies), put your money where your mouth is and sort it out. This will have the happy effect of leaving left-leaning people too busy trying to stop their communities collapsing to have any time left for concerted protest against the government policies that have caused it all in the first place.