Can Cameron's ' Big Society' work?
David Cameron's flagship policy, the 'Big Society' has been the focus of intense media discussion in the Uk as he rolls out the detail.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10680062
Although not discussed in this link, the times (which you have to pay to see online these days) was talking about a shift that has already happened.
The Big Society will mean cutbacks in Govt spending, with Corporate giving and individual volunteers taking up the slack. However , it is noticable that many people are deterred from volunteering with young people because of CRB checks. These have to be paid for, by someone, and many do not want the intrusiveness - never mind the extra cost.
So, this government is rolling back the need for checks on most volunteers. there will still need to be checks for those working in ' close and regular contact' - ie , paid emplyeees in children's homes, but if you go into school to read to your kids, or referree scholls soccer matches, the rulebook does not apply.
The emphasis in past years has been creating mistrust, the Times editorial argues. In the 70s, we were told by militant feminists that 'All men were rapists', and that any adult who went near children for any reason was automatically suspect. This has led to a culture of distrust and over reliance on regulation, and the article welcomes this new initiate to roll baack the red tape.
Well, anyone who is going to have a go at the people who attacked Erin Pizzey deserves a pat on the back in my view, but is this enough , I ask myself. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is often flagged up as a good example of voluntryism that works - yet most of it's active members are people who are seafarers and coastal dwellers anyway, and I would argue that they have had this tradition in their local areas and in their families for generations.
This is very different from an inner city area where the population is mostly in transit. People do not live there with several generations in the same street any more.The population tends to move away as they grow older and people's next of kin are sometimes in another city or even living abroad. This does not make for 'local traditions' any more.
Jobs for life are long gone in the private sector , and in the pulic sector, job security is under attack. Again , this miltates against the sense of ' community'.
I get that there just isn't the social infrastructure in the Uk to underpin Cameron's ideas.
Where 'faith schools' are thriving, this tends to be either middle class parents trying to get their kids into a better school than the local bog standard comprehensive, or worse still, an immigrant population that wants to isolate their kids from what they see as corrupting western influence. Again, it does not make for social cohesion in either case.
Either way, I see Cameron's Big Society hitting the buffers. Often, people complain that they volunteer to do things and find out that they are being asked to do things that were once piad jobs for people who have now been fired to save government money. this further reinforces the idea that the Big Society is simply a Con-servative con-trick.
If we are going to have a more compassionate andcaring society, we have got to stop criminalising little old ladies who do flower arranging in churches without a CRB check - but we have to accept that Government should fund things like local libraries and street cleaning.
BBC's Newsnight sent this indepth report on Cameron's ideas in practice.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8820733.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10680062
Although not discussed in this link, the times (which you have to pay to see online these days) was talking about a shift that has already happened.
The Big Society will mean cutbacks in Govt spending, with Corporate giving and individual volunteers taking up the slack. However , it is noticable that many people are deterred from volunteering with young people because of CRB checks. These have to be paid for, by someone, and many do not want the intrusiveness - never mind the extra cost.
So, this government is rolling back the need for checks on most volunteers. there will still need to be checks for those working in ' close and regular contact' - ie , paid emplyeees in children's homes, but if you go into school to read to your kids, or referree scholls soccer matches, the rulebook does not apply.
The emphasis in past years has been creating mistrust, the Times editorial argues. In the 70s, we were told by militant feminists that 'All men were rapists', and that any adult who went near children for any reason was automatically suspect. This has led to a culture of distrust and over reliance on regulation, and the article welcomes this new initiate to roll baack the red tape.
Well, anyone who is going to have a go at the people who attacked Erin Pizzey deserves a pat on the back in my view, but is this enough , I ask myself. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is often flagged up as a good example of voluntryism that works - yet most of it's active members are people who are seafarers and coastal dwellers anyway, and I would argue that they have had this tradition in their local areas and in their families for generations.
This is very different from an inner city area where the population is mostly in transit. People do not live there with several generations in the same street any more.The population tends to move away as they grow older and people's next of kin are sometimes in another city or even living abroad. This does not make for 'local traditions' any more.
Jobs for life are long gone in the private sector , and in the pulic sector, job security is under attack. Again , this miltates against the sense of ' community'.
I get that there just isn't the social infrastructure in the Uk to underpin Cameron's ideas.
Where 'faith schools' are thriving, this tends to be either middle class parents trying to get their kids into a better school than the local bog standard comprehensive, or worse still, an immigrant population that wants to isolate their kids from what they see as corrupting western influence. Again, it does not make for social cohesion in either case.
Either way, I see Cameron's Big Society hitting the buffers. Often, people complain that they volunteer to do things and find out that they are being asked to do things that were once piad jobs for people who have now been fired to save government money. this further reinforces the idea that the Big Society is simply a Con-servative con-trick.
If we are going to have a more compassionate andcaring society, we have got to stop criminalising little old ladies who do flower arranging in churches without a CRB check - but we have to accept that Government should fund things like local libraries and street cleaning.
BBC's Newsnight sent this indepth report on Cameron's ideas in practice.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8820733.stm