Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Cameron launches "Big Society"

Steel Icarus

we move
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10680062

David Cameron has launched his "big society" drive to empower communities, describing it as his "great passion".

In a speech in Liverpool, the prime minister said groups should be able to run post offices, libraries, transport services and shape housing projects.

Also announcing plans to use dormant bank accounts to fund projects, Mr Cameron said the concept would be a "big advance for people power".

Voluntary groups and Labour have queried how the schemes will be funded.

The idea was a central theme in the Conservative general election campaign and Mr Cameron denied that he was being forced to re-launch it because of a lack of interest first time around.

While reducing the budget deficit was his "duty", he said giving individuals and communities more control over their destinies was what excited him and was something that had underpinned his philosophy since he became Conservative leader in 2005.

"There are the things you do because it's your passion," he said.

"Things that fire you up in the morning, that drive you, that you truly believe will make a real difference to the country you love, and my great passion is building the big society."

'People power'

The prime minister said community projects would be established in four parts of the UK - Liverpool; Eden Valley, Cumbria; Windsor and Maidenhead; and the London borough of Sutton - as part of efforts to "turn government completely on its head".

Each of the project areas - which Mr Cameron said had approached ministers asking to be involved - will be given an expert organiser and dedicated civil servants to ensure "people power" initiatives get off the ground.

The initiatives being championed include a local buy-out of a rural pub, efforts to recruit volunteers to keep museums open, support to speed up broadband supply, and giving residents more power over council spending.

These schemes and others in the future, he said, would represent "the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street".

In the past, he said, the talents and initiative of people had been wasted, claiming that over-centralised government had turned public sector workers into the "weary, disillusioned puppets of government targets".

Mr Cameron acknowledged the transformation he was seeking would not happen overnight and stressed it was not a matter of the government stepping aside and letting people fend for themselves.

"Of course there is not one lever you can simply pull to create a big society," he said.

"We should not be naive enough to think that simply if government rolls back and does less, then miraculously society will spring up and do more.

"The truth is we need a government that helps to build a big society."

As well as encouraging greater volunteering and philanthropy, Mr Cameron confirmed plans to use funds stuck in dormant bank and building society accounts to enable "some of the most dynamic" charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to take over the running of public services.

It is hoped that hundreds of millions of pounds will eventually be available in start-up funding through a Big Society Bank, to be matched by private investment.

'Cut-price alternative'

Mr Cameron rejected suggestions that the plans were "cover" for substantial cuts in public services due next year and that the public were either confused by or uninterested in the proposals.

"I don't accept that people don't understand what this is," he said.

Everyone was aware of the "great work" that volunteers were already doing in communities up and down the country, he said, and it was his ambition to simply expand this.

"It is incredibly simple idea and one, I think, is catching on," he said.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Tessa Jowell called Mr Cameron's speech "a brass-necked rebranding of programmes already put in place by a Labour government".

She added: "We welcome the coalition's decision to continue our work in partnership with local communities, but these projects are dependant on funding and resources being put in place.

"It is therefore highly unlikely that civil society will become 'bigger' due to the large public spending cuts that are being put forward by this government."

Voluntary groups broadly welcomed the idea but expressed concerns about how equipped they were to take on more responsibility, given that public funds were likely to be cut as part of the budget squeeze.

"It is going to be very challenging for them to play a bigger role if they have less resources to do it," said Ben Kernighan, from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

And union leaders said public services must be based on certainty of provision and not whether there were enough volunteers on any given day.

"Make no mistake, this plan is all about saving money," Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said.

"The government is simply washing its hands of providing decent public services and using volunteers as a cut-price alternative."


:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
Liverpool is a pilot so it would be good to get some feedback about what in practise this means from those posters in the area including the LibDem sycophant element.
 
As well as encouraging greater volunteering and philanthropy, Mr Cameron confirmed plans to use funds stuck in dormant bank and building society accounts to enable "some of the most dynamic" charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to take over the running of public services.

I think we all know what this means. He wants the charity sector to take the strain, and after some initial cash injection they won't be capable in 3 years time thus heralding the way for the bastards to save it with the magic of privatization.


groups should be able to run post offices, libraries, transport services and shape housing projects.

groups= my mates like crapita


These schemes and others in the future, he said, would represent "the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street".

lying cuntface

"We should not be naive enough to think that simply if government rolls back and does less, then miraculously society will spring up and do more.

no, we should wait while those without get pinched even more and will sigh with relief as I hand over public services to OCP.

I hope he gets violated by a gibbon.
 
the thing is that running a library as a public service is not something which can be left in the hands of well-meaning volunteers, even if it was desirable. how would they, for example, deal with enquiries about genealogy resources available locally, about interlibrary loans, queries about electronic resources, repairing books, and working with children? and museums? what knowledge would most volunteers bring to the job?

and, returning to libraries, there are a number of professional ethical issues which would imo need to be resolved before this sort of thing could be considered at all. the issue of censorship, for example, where books by fascists (or communists, for that matter) might be informally withdrawn due to volunteers' political sympathies.
 
I'd quite like to run a local regiment. I'm sure I could find quite a few lads around here who would be very happy to join as well. Obviously as a Big Society regiment we wouldn't be handicapped by the nanny state and busybodies with their constant inspections and so on. I look forward to receiving my grant and first shipment of rifles and body armour any day now.
 
I'd quite like to run a local regiment. I'm sure I could find quite a few lads around here who would be very happy to join as well. Obviously as a Big Society regiment we wouldn't be handicapped by the nanny state and busybodies with their constant inspections and so on. I look forward to receiving my grant and first shipment of rifles and body armour any day now.

and ammunition
 
whats the betting that most of the 'volunteers' will be unemployed people/disabled claimants coerced into the Govt's 'welfare to work' programmes.
 
Big-Society-006.jpg



What a shower!
 
they were on about that dormant bank account thing ages ago, so it must have been a nu labour idea? he's full of shit. they're trying to apeal to the liberals, by lying and bullshit.
 
So if I volunteer more for my camera club I will be part of the big society?

At the moment I have no spare energy even for that.
 
Is this (a) an attempt to reduce the power of centralised government and give power to the people
or (b) an attempt to cheaply expand the power of centralised government through co-opting volunteers as a state workforce and charities as outsourced service providers.

Answers on a postcard to David 'I am a cunt' Cameron. The clue is in the name.
 
the thing is that running a library as a public service is not something which can be left in the hands of well-meaning volunteers, even if it was desirable. how would they, for example, deal with enquiries about genealogy resources available locally, about interlibrary loans, queries about electronic resources, repairing books, and working with children? and museums? what knowledge would most volunteers bring to the job?

and, returning to libraries, there are a number of professional ethical issues which would imo need to be resolved before this sort of thing could be considered at all. the issue of censorship, for example, where books by fascists (or communists, for that matter) might be informally withdrawn due to volunteers' political sympathies.


Some prat at a conference I was at last week insisted that "millenials" (by which he meant people under 30) were resistant to ideas of "experts" and "authority". They believe that google has democratised knowledge and made experience accessible to all.

He was talking shit, of course. Young people have always been arrogant, but willing to learn in areas that interest them. Which doesn't include seedy marketeers who have reinvented themselves as social media gurus.

But this straw man belief that all expertise is a fraud, that experience merely confuses, and that best practice is always arrived at a priori - it is actually held by the New Tories. Like cackling journos mocking "non jobs", they genuinely think that anything they don't understand must be meaningless. It's quite a sophisticated position, almost, in a nihilistically postmodern way. But they shouldn't really have been let into government.
 
MPs are made secretaries of state for things they know nothing about on a regular basis, and consider themselves competent. Therefore clearly there is nothing stopping anyone from doing any job.
 
I wonder if Cameron himself has any experience of volunteering. I somehow doubt it, much more important things to do!

But most people, once they have worked all day they just want to spend some time with their families and then go to bed. What time is there left for volunteering?
 
Jesus you're a bunch of moaning wet bastards :D You really do just wanna sit back and let the government do fucking everything save spoon the food into your mouths. If the government wanna give people money for actually DOING something their way that all sounds good to me, and if it leads to less tax then even better. Having it all nationalised in massive, target led, over beurocratised bullshit fashion is.. bullshit. Saying that, if Cameron plans to just remove public services and expect volunteers to do it all with no pay then he can fuck off n all.
 
You naive pig

Here piggy, here's the water, now fucking drink it pig. They don't call them the shock troops of the bourgeioisie for nothing.
 
1. Voluntary organisation borrows money from government money
2. Organisation sets up free public service
3. ?
4. Profit!
 
Jesus you're a bunch of moaning wet bastards :D You really do just wanna sit back and let the government do fucking everything save spoon the food into your mouths. If the government wanna give people money for actually DOING something their way that all sounds good to me, and if it leads to less tax then even better. Having it all nationalised in massive, target led, over beurocratised bullshit fashion is.. bullshit. Saying that, if Cameron plans to just remove public services and expect volunteers to do it all with no pay then he can fuck off n all.

You pathetic crackhead moron
 
Jesus you're a bunch of moaning wet bastards :D You really do just wanna sit back and let the government do fucking everything save spoon the food into your mouths. If the government wanna give people money for actually DOING something their way that all sounds good to me, and if it leads to less tax then even better. Having it all nationalised in massive, target led, over beurocratised bullshit fashion is.. bullshit. Saying that, if Cameron plans to just remove public services and expect volunteers to do it all with no pay then he can fuck off n all.

So, offload all the work that the state should support in providing to volunteer and charitable groups instead. When the money/funding runs out, and the government turns around and shrugs it's shoulders, we risk losing key services such as drug rehab, rape counseling, even bus services! Brilliant. :mad:
 
I wonder if Cameron himself has any experience of volunteering. I somehow doubt it, much more important things to do!

But most people, once they have worked all day they just want to spend some time with their families and then go to bed. What time is there left for volunteering?

Jesus you're a bunch of moaning wet bastards :D You really do just wanna sit back and let the government do fucking everything save spoon the food into your mouths. If the government wanna give people money for actually DOING something their way that all sounds good to me, and if it leads to less tax then even better. Having it all nationalised in massive, target led, over beurocratised bullshit fashion is.. bullshit. Saying that, if Cameron plans to just remove public services and expect volunteers to do it all with no pay then he can fuck off n all.
London Borough of Hackney said:
What do Government Spending Cuts Mean for Hackney? Update

In my email to you on the 18 June, I wrote about the decision taken by the Government to make reductions in public expenditure in the current financial year 2010/11 and beyond. I can now give you more details, as promised, following the announcement of the Government’s emergency budget on the 22 June and the Hackney Management Team (HMT) and Cabinet away day on 2 July.

Based upon analysis of the detail contained within the emergency budget announcement, the Council will need to develop proposals that will release savings of up to £26 million for the 2011/12 financial year. This is due to significant reductions of around 25% in the forecasted grants the Council expects to be receiving in the period to 2014/15. HMT and Cabinet have been planning for a range of circumstances over the last six months, which include successfully building up capacity in 2009/10 to enable the Council to lessen the impact of any reductions. This includes looking to identify opportunities for generating efficiencies in this financial year (2010/11) of £6 million by bringing forward proposals from future years so that we can be better placed to deal with the funding uncertainty for local government beyond the current year. These savings will contribute towards our target for 2011/12. In addition, proposals have now been developed for consideration by the Team Hackney Partnership of how to manage the in year £3.8 million cuts to Area Based Grants commissioned by Team Hackney. This is challenging, and we are carefully planning for future scenarios to avoid having to make any reactive decisions. We expect to have to make savings on a similar scale in 2012/13 and 13/14, but the more savings we can achieve this year and in 11/12 the more flexibility we will have to protect our priorities, and manage uncertainty in future years.

Earlier this month, HMT and Cabinet had an extremely constructive meeting where we worked to develop ideas for where we can make savings, what the future shape of the Council could look like to support delivery of the necessary savings and the route for getting there. We also need to ensure that the services and staff within the new structure are consistent with delivering our key priorities, building on our standards and delivering services.

HMT and Cabinet believe that savings should be achieved in a phased approach over coming years focussing initially on making savings through removing vacant posts and reducing reliance upon the usage of agency cover. We will review the Council’s top-level structure and senior management structure from Corporate Director to Head of Service as well as implementing, and in some cases bringing forward, already planned service level reviews. In many areas savings can be delivered thanks to the hard work you have already put in to improving the quality and efficiency of our services, including through the new Hackney Service Centre, Transforming Adult Social Care and Reclaiming Social Work.

Our ambition for generating savings is to minimise the impact on the quality of our front line services. Future phases of work to make savings will be focused on where these can be achieved at service level through a programme of service reviews which have already started with the Best Use of Resources Programme’s Policy and Performance and Single Public Realm reviews. Areas for further review will be identified over the coming months and will support the delivery of our financial plan.

In August, our first phase of change will begin when I will be able to announce a proposed new structure for the top tiers of the Council. This will result in changes to the management tiers, and the transfer of some teams and functions to new Directorates. Following this announcement there will be a consultation period with everyone in the organisation. By October, we will have agreed proposals to take forward.

At all phases of this work, there will be regular communication with staff from me and from the Corporate Director’s with local updates for their Directorates.

Once again I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our staff for your support especially during this difficult period of change and uncertainty. Your commitment to Hackney and dedication to provide excellent services to our residents is recognised and appreciated by all of HMT.

Tim Shields

Chief Executive
the cuts in hackney will be the same across the country & this call for volunteers to take over libraries and museums, among other places, seems to be just the thing which edie's not too chuffed about.

you can't walk into something like a library and think you know how to run it - i've been working in a library in a variety of capacities for fucking five years and there's still a load i don't know. and it's the same with all the things he's talking about. giving people more control over council spending while councils have less money seems a fuckwitted idea to set communities at odds among themselves.

before the election i thought that the tories would have to try really hard to be worse than labour, but they don't seem to have broken a sweat yet.
 
1. Voluntary organisation borrows money from government money
2. Organisation sets up free public service
3. ?
4. Profit!

Step 3 is when service delivery is contracted to groups which have proved themselves by running a Big Society prison in their shed, or whatever, and these groups in turn contract out back office functions. Takes you to 4 quite nicely, but in a sillyarsed way.
 
But most people, once they have worked all day they just want to spend some time with their families and then go to bed. What time is there left for volunteering?

Presumably the time people will have when they get made redundant due to the cuts...:mad:
 
Back
Top Bottom