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!

Good point butter

I've worked for two big charities in volunteer liasson / management (one family cahrity and one cancer charity); both paid roles.

The cancer charity existed via fundraising aprtly from a team of what I would call 'habitual volunteers': people who were on committees for a different cahrity every day, and really already were maxed out.

The second used volunteers more centrally, to deliver services and one of the reasons my branch closed was because we simply could not recruit enough to maintain the service levels fundraisers insisted upon. A shortage of about 4 people meant no people delviering the service in the end.

Most of our volunteers were elderly, or most versatie in terms of how we could use them, p[arents of school age kids- usually single mums IME trying to get experience to get back into the workplace; the same group the Government are also targetting for back into work so won't be available. In no way could we have funded childcare or creche facilities, and we needed mainly daytime help, so that's another huge swathe of the volunteer army out of the reckoning.

I like the idea of small satte in principle but not if it results in small support which I am pretty certain it will. Different policies seem logical in themselves- such as taking single aprents of IS when kids in school and focusing on third and rpivate sector delilvery- but I am a great beleiver in Gestalt principle and think they willas a whole damage each other and cause massive problems for the very vulnerable at the middle of it all.

Just trying to get my head round this Big Society thing........

So is it possible for me to privatise my own house and bring in unpaid volunteers to do the housework and general domestic duties?

It's not like the feckless scroungers have anything else to do - they may as well do my housework.

Is that how it is going to work?

Where do I sign ?

LOL LadyBlaBla. Ditto!

As a TA in a secondary, I work with students who are very vulnerable and would find life in school difficult if not impossible without support. I don't get paid much for it, but I do get satisfaction of a job well done.

We are all concerned about Scamerons plans, and we have not been given any reassurances about our jobs. There are over 40 full-time TAs, supporting around 15 downs syndrome, and several ASD students, plus severe physical disability and/or complex medical needs. We also provide and plan alternative curriculum, pastoral support and 1:1 tuition. We are amazingly good value for what we are paid.

If I get laid off, there is no way on earth that I will some back to school as an unpaid volunteer. Sorry, but it would be a point of principle. Instead of being paid peanuts to do a good job, I will be paid about the same to sit at home on my backside, while my students suffer the consequences.

The Moral Maze on Radio 4 has just been discussing Big Society. If you go to BBC iplayer you should be able to hear it again.

thanks for the Moral Maze info grannieonabike. The guests are Claire Fox, Melanie Phillips, Michael Portillo and Matthew Taylor. Click on the link for date 21/07/10

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qk11

panel was Claire Fox, Melanie Phillips, Michael Portillo and Matthew Taylor.

Guests were Mark Littlewood, Director General at the IEA (a free market think tank)
Philip Blond, Director of the think tank ResPublica
Silla Carron, Chair of the tenants Association at Clarence Way Estate.
Nick Pearce, Former Head of the No10 Policy Unit.

I thought Mark Littlewood the right-wing IEA guy was frightening. Portillo was very good against him. I thought Philip Blond made some very good points.
I thought Nick Pearce, former head of the Number 10 policy unit, was a disaster and shows the vacuousness at the heart of New Labour, just cliches and nothing else. Portillo was very good against Nick Pearce.

I always like Claire Fox, who is an ex-Marxist as far as I am aware, or maybe still is one. She always talks sense, and never just parrots socialist cliches. If she was in charge of policy for the Labour Party she would transform it, but she would upset a lot of the cliche parroting nodding dogs who seem to be in charge of policy now. She gives an important point of view that is never heard amongst the proselytisers for Big Society and even Labour opponents to Big Society. She agrees with cutting back the state, but feels that Big Society does the opposite and is the state micro-managing us and organising us.

exactly right Riven. Claire Fox said the same, the state should be capable of providing a good education system and health service without having to corral hundreds of volunteers to join in. It's the state's responsibility to provide excellent services. It's similar to the prevailing attitude, encouraged by the progressives, that it's parents with low aspirations and not enough involvemnet in their children's education that are the problem, rather than the schools whose job it should be to provide an excellent education for everyone despite the aspirations of their parents.

"but feels that Big Society does the opposite and is the state micro-managing us and organising us."

This is my issue with it, too. If it were called "measures to make it easier to set up volunteer groups" then I'd be fine with it. But I hate the idea that's suggested by the Big Society and Big Society Network names.

agree with you vesela. Isn't it amazing that hardly anybody brings up this objection to it at all? There must be millions who think the same and yet nobody gives a voice to them. The Big State socialists don't object to this aspect at all because it fits in with their Big State control agenda. Their mates, the Stasi, would have loved Big Society, they would have had Big Brother like posters with a picture of Lenin pointing his finger and a caption of "Lenin Needs You".

I think things are becoming clearer to me.

The Big Society is not about power to the people (no government gives away power).

It's not about giving money to people - at a time when we are being told how many cuts are going to have to be made? I don't think so.

It is about saving money and making people feel better about cuts to public services, so that they don't start rioting on the streets (which no-one wants, after all).

It's about divide and rule and re-education (maybe not a bad thing, either).

I think the proof of this is that they are parachuting 'experts' into local communities. These are government plants who are there to keep an eye on us at local level. Micro-management, in other words. It's like what the communists did in Russia and China - send party members out to the provinces to organise communes and keep people on message. Weird, isn't it?

The important thing is: is it going to work? I don't really care if it's dishonest and patronising. Is it going to help?

Look at this!

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/20/big-society-empower-communities

Quote:

There are many instances in South America which have provided inspiration for the anti-globalisation movement ? the Zapatista organisation of autonomous municipalities is the best known example, where people control their local area and production through democratic communities, ignoring local councils entirely or requiring these councils to recognise them as the real power. Whereas the big society attempts to suppress dissent, providing a sop and cover for cuts and the market, these forms of organisation ? anything from solidarity networks to food co-operatives ? are communities of dissent. They provide what is materially vital for its members, while being boldly political. Their internal politics ? egalitarian, horizontal, consensus-based ? promote dignity and real community, reflecting the form of organisation they wish to see throughout society. Their external politics are directed against capital and the state ? they know the cause of their exclusion, and organise themselves against it.

These principles naturally spill into the workplace, in worker-controlled organisations. Factories across Argentina run themselves "sin Patrones", without bosses. Each member directs the organisation in weekly meetings, all positions or roles are rotated and wages are equalised. Despite their gestures in the public services, worker control in the private sector is something the Tories fear and unionism was something Thatcher sought to crush ? it would be a brilliant irony if with a Akido-like reversal the big society led to their revival.

The Tories are opening a crack for us. If using "dormant" money in the banks is permissible, why repurpose "dormant" property? As in Paris, where the rents had skyrocketed, the homeless and those on social provision could simply take over unused property. Then we can start talking about the redistribution of the other "dormant" money lying around. Perhaps we can create networks of solidarity and mutual aid that will allow people to survive austerity and job losses, while directing their proper anger against the forces that created that situation and destroyed their communities in the first place ? ultimately, the system of capitalism itself.

Exciting, innit??

In the third paragraph, I think he means 'why not repurpose 'dormant' property?'

Good points grannieonabike. "Is it going to help?". Did the Stasi help?, did Mao help? They never helped the oppressed people, they only helped the ruling elite.

Don't agree with the Guardian article. Typical middle class intellectual leftist pied pipers who fight capitalism and lead the people into sozialistiche Stasi type enslavement. Capitalism requires regulation not socialist revolutions which enslave humanity.

M'mm, don't know about that, Claig. 'They never helped the oppressed people, they only helped the ruling elite.' To make that statement, you have to be sure that poor people were better off before the revolutions.

And no, capitalism does not require socialist revolution! That would mean death of capitalism. It's not going to happen.

If these Zapatista organisations function in the way he says they do, what's wrong with them? They might undermine capitalism, but they're hardly a threat to anyone here.

Again: capitalism is here to stay. It's rock solid, because we have all bought into it. But we can still look at other ways of organising society and maybe learn something, can't we? It's not as if we have all the answers.

I love the idea of putting unused property to some use - as long as it is not damaged. I think he is saying that it is legal in Paris.

"where people control their local area and production through democratic communities, ignoring local councils entirely or requiring these councils to recognise them as the real power"

this is a recipe for revolution. He is saying ignore councils (i.e. ignore laws and the state). This is dreaming by intellectuals in ivory towers. The impact on the people will be devastating. There will be a breakdown of law and order and the police will be seen as the state's way of enforcing its control. It will lead to anarchy. Then what will appear, the hidden agenda of all of these revolutionary movements. The Maos and the Stasi, who keep files on all of the public and have informers around every corner, who shoot people as they try to escape their socialist prison pen and climb over the Berlin Wall to taste freedom. Yes these sozialistiche regimes gave their people basic housing and basic food supplies and they gave them all the same Trabant car, while the leaders swanned around in limousines. The people had to queue up round the corner for a rash of bacon and they daren't say a word wrong about their masters. It was slavery, just as the slave master fed and housed the slaves so that they could carry on working for him.

Watch a documentary about the Spanish Civil War and see what happens when anarchists destroy law and order, when the local big chief arbitrarily sets himself up as the new authority and when anarchists would go into villagers' houses and confiscate their pictures, belongings and valuables "for the good of the community", which was really for the good of the local strongman. The public are then at the mercy of their new socialist overlords and they judge the public to see how good socialists they really are.

By "dormant" property, this socialist progressive revolutionary, probably means confiscating people's second or third homes which they may rarely use, and giving them to homeless people. I think we already have a law here doing something similar if a home is vacant for 6 months. I don't agree with these socialist redistribution policies of taking and confiscating people's property. It is a slippery slope, it starts with taking people's pictures hanging on their walls as was done in Spain, and ends up with everything owned communally (i.e. in the hands of the overlords). It is against freedom and the interests of the people and only serves the interests of ruling elites (whether they fool the people and describe themselves as socialists, progressives or any other type of ists and ives).

What happens when Big Society disagrees with Big Government about things like how to best tackle poverty and social exclusion? Many community groups have already voiced concerns about welfare reforms, cuts to re-skilling and back-to-work schemes and incentives, disability benefit changes, suggestions that methadone availability for heroin users should be time-limited, less funding for TAs in schools etc, saying that in the long run these things will lead to greater poverty, greater social and financial exclusion and further ghettoisation of deprived communities. These are the people who work closely within their communities and have a pretty thorough understanding of what?s required to build community and reduce inequalities and exclusion. Big Society already exists, and it has its own strong opinions.

Do Big Government plan to learn anything from Big Society? Or take their opinions on board? Use their experience to influence reforms? I haven?t heard much yet about any plans for that.

He's not saying we should ignore councils, he's saying the Zapatistas do.

'There will be a breakdown of law and order and the police will be seen as the state's way of enforcing its control.' - Yes, this could happen if we ignored our councils or the government. But I haven't heard anyone saying ignore our government.

Things that happen in one country in one particularly fraught period in history - a civil war - aren't going be copied in another, in another time and place, with a different lot of people. The circumstances were different then.

I think it is in order to avoid this situation that the government wants to implement this Big Society idea, because they think people would riot on the streets if they cut jobs, services and benefits. I think they see this as giving them something to live for, a way, also, of distracting their attention from what is happening.

'Yes these sozialistiche regimes gave their people basic housing and basic food supplies and ... they daren't say a word wrong about their masters.' - I agree I wouldn't want to be bribed into giving up my freedoms. But some people would say that is what capitalism does, too. And people do need somewhere to live.

I don't think the empty houses are given to homeless people, just occupied by them.

What I think is fascinating, here, is that the Coalition is trying to do something similar to what has been done before by communist regimes. The Big Society also has a dose of anarchism about it - the idea that the best aspects of human nature will rise to the top if you just remove the constraints of the state.

At least that is what they say. What I really think is happening is that they want to make devastating cuts and they want more, not less control, in order to avoid social unrest.

Sorry, DivineInspiration, our posts crossed. That's a very good question. I really hope government will listen to the experts at local level, and act upon their recommendations. What a wasted opportunity if they don't.

'Do Big Government plan to learn anything from Big Society? Or take their opinions on board? Use their experience to influence reforms? I haven?t heard much yet about any plans for that.

Excellent point; similar debate WRT to effects of cuts being debated on BBC1 this AM, about huge behavioural standards changes following a rebuild to an (Oxford?) school and whether cuts to building funds would have long term negative influences (asdmititng teacher's rep aand archuitect far from impartial)

grannieonabike I agree with you that those are probably the government's motives. I think the motives of some challengers of capitalism are to create anarchy as the first step in their agenda of control.

"I don't think the empty houses are given to homeless people, just occupied by them."
When the owner wants the property back, do the government make the homeless people homeless again?

I think there is a better way which is sensible government such as the LibDems or Tories, who are reinstating our civil liberties. We need the excesses of capitalism to be regulated by sensible government. We need a government that listens to the people as DivineInspiration says. It is still early days for the new government and so far they have been quite good. It is good news that the LibDems are part of the coalition as they may be able to restrain some of the ideas of the real right-wing think thanks.

"When the owner wants the property back, do the government make the homeless people homeless again?' - I don't know. In the 80s when there was a lot of squatting being done, the police had to evict them , forcibly.

'We need the excesses of capitalism to be regulated by sensible government. We need a government that listens to the people.' - agree.

But I don't think the Lib Dems will restrain the extremists, and I'm afraid I don't trust the motives of the government. But let's see what they do.

Are people who spend time volunteering in the 'Big Society' still allowed to claim unemployment benefit, or is it going to be more a 'Noblesse Oblige' type of thing?

ATM JSA is stopped if youa re not available for work so....

damned if you don't, hungry if you do?

maybe it's the Governments new dual polcit approach to obesity?