Big Society?

[itstimmytime]

here and here

What do people think?

My major concern is that this policy is being developed only to absolve the government of its responsibility to those who are most in need.

There are many for whom the barriers preventing them from accessing their communities such as disability/mental health/language/old age etc are great and this requires major long term investment. There are communities people don't want to access because of (sometimes percieved) problems with drugs, violence, gangs etc. There are communities where people have no idea who their neighbour is, would like to be involved, but don't know where to begin.

I welcome any innovative thought in how to build community and deal with the issue of the 'ghettoisation' of some communities and the fragmentation of others. If people feel pride and ownership in their local community, then they might be more inclined to care more about the wee old lady down the road or the local primary school needing a new dinner hall.

I work in communities and in the last few years the council I work for has made massive inroads in integrating people more into their communities and trying to develop the existing resources. This has largely been successful, but there is much, much more work to be done (always will be!). We all know that local authorities will not have responsibility for delivering services in the future, but who will? Who will monitor it? And what will happen to the people who require support to remain in their communities?

I expect a lot of hyperbole from Cameron later and, as I live in Scotland, this won't affect us much as most elements of Cameron's plans are devolved!

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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'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

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.

prolesworth, there's a lot of corner-cutting - or just not-bothering - in a purely state-provided system though, too.

Either way, there's a lot of vigilance required (which can be expensive) and inevitably you'll be given pigs in pokes, whoever provides a service. The only thing you can do is ensure that the service-provider - whether a state or a private body - is easy to get rid of and doesn't have some massively long contract term or electoral term.

SanctiMoanyArse I hate it when I see councils cutting funding for schemes for SN children. That is one thing the State should always be there for. I am really glad your DS is making progress.

If anything, though, your situation underlines how essential diversity of provision is. No school is right for every child.

I fully accept that some free schools and academies will be totally rubbish, too. That doesn't make the idea bad. As I understand it, most free schools were being backed by existing school federations, private schools, or educational charities - or being set up by teachers. I hope they will have the experience to make them work. They should not be left to sink or swim, and I hope Michael Gove has the support structures in place.

Been away attending to pesky children - For info - the Care Commision in Scotland are about to introduce that no service which scores less than a 4 will be allowed to tender (services are rated out of 6), so this will safeguard quality to an extent. Although there are private companies operating many, many brilliant services are not for profit and this seems to me just as good a way of delivering services than by the public sector. As long as they aren't priced out by large companies.

What expat in Scotland said.

and an inbuilt incentive to deliver a better one, though.

It all depends whether people notice the corners that are being cut, or rather, whether you think they can notice. And whether if they do notice, they can do anything about it. I think they're quite good at noticing (and for the less visible things, there are health and safety regulations, which in some areas need to be upped).

Most times when private companies have delivered a crap service, it's been glaringly obvious but we haven't been able to do anything about it because they were handed their terms on a plate, with ridiculous contract lengths etc.

There was a mention of "natural networks of people who we trust" - who's the "we"? And who are these trustworthy people? The problem with devolving things to local initiatives is that groups gather who have some kind of self-interest in being in charge (schools, say), to promote the welfare of their child/their elderly relative, or to act the local little tin-pot god and "philanthropist" who can give their clout and money/etc to projects they personally approve or not. Community things that help the disadvantaged, the marginalised, the minorities, or the "undesirables" would just be ignored.

Other than that, what expat and prolesworth said. A private company looks to its profits first, not to the welfare and service it is providing for the public.

'I fully accept that some free schools and academies will be totally rubbish, too. That doesn't make the idea bad'

I think if you aloow just anyone to establish a school you have a huge risk

I don't have a problem with select groups being allowed to establish schools with criteria (eg the Government hasn't yet answered whetehr they will force these new schools to admit SEN kids) but I want anyone doing it to have toi demoinstyrate a long term interest in education and at least some fmiliarity with diversity issues and an inclusive (not just SEN- faith groups, poverty, etc) ideology.

EG if someone estab;lishes a faith school tehy should ahve to submit a plan as part of the process showing how they wil;l pro,mote intergration within the wider society wrt to working with other faith groups 9and non faith groups).

AS for ds3's experience- sadly it only shows that provision is there for educated activist aprents who fight and whose child meets a narrow criteria: he should enver have attended MS but LEA refused to engage on that, and ds1 is one of 30 kids waiting for 5 places at the only ASD Comp unit.

Oh and yes wrt to private / profits (have seen that happen) and again agree with whoa re these netwroks of people- we took Conservative style ethics advice and moved to enable our careers to flourish; life kicked us a bit and we are now still fighting to keep going without any loical community at all

should have added - inbuilt incentive to deliver a better one if there's competition. Otherwise it's just an expensive waste of time.

I personally think Cameron's Big Society will not work, at least in part because of the lack of volunteers.

I'm not sure where all these would-be volunteers are going to come from. Around here pretty much everyone volunteers who wants to, if we include all the Scout leaders, football coaches, PTA members, School governors etc.

Most people who volunteer spend a few hours a week or month on their project. I can't see anyone volunteering to run Post Offices, transport services, or housing projects. The time commitment is too high, and the reward, when you know you are doing a job that used to be a paid post, is non-existent.Plus most people who volunteer want to do something entirely different from their paid employment.

Volunteers are difficult to manage, feel entitled because they are giving their time up for nothing, and are prone to walk when things don't go their way. None of which makes it easy to depend on them.

People are giving less and less to charities, too here.

Because, well, they have less to give.

This will get worse when the VAT hike comes in.

There's something rotten in the state of Britain Denmark.

Small state and big tax. You'd have to be an idiot to buy that line.