Social Policy Contemporary Social Policy, The Big Society & Young People.

Social PolicySocial Policy

Contemporary Social Policy, The Big Society & Young People

Social Policy

My Research …

http://fyt.org.uk/userpdfs/de8193e687dd7f488790.pdf


What do we know?

Govt policy re YW

Politics re: C, YP & Families

Free SchoolsBig Society

Govt reforms


Broken Britain?

How to change it and who does it…

State - Government

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE -

MARKET

Voluntary Civil Society – Charities,

Individuals, Faith Groups etc


Reclaiming Society

• Thatcher – ‘no such thing as society’ (1987)• Cameron – There is such a thing as society and

it needs to be BIG (2009)


The Big Society?

One word to describe what you feel, think or know about the Big Society …


The Big Society - Vision[the] ‘recent growth of the state has promoted not social solidarity, but selfishness and individualism’ [we need] ‘a re-imagined state to actively create the big society, directly agitating for, catalysing and galvanising social renewal’ Cameron, D. (2009). The Big Society. Hugo Young Lecture, http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/11/David_Cameron_The_Big_Society.aspx

In 2010 he went further declaring, ‘You can call it liberalism. You can call it empowerment. You can call it freedom. You can call it responsibility. I call it the big society... the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street’ Cameron, D. (2010). Big Society Speech. Liverpool. http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/big-society-speech/

http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/11/David_Cameron_The_Big_Society.aspx

http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/big-society-speech/


What is the Big Society?

Nigel Pimlott 2013


What do you thinks it’s really about?


However, ‘how can we get to where we want to go when we are not sure of the intended destination, we don’t have a map and there is insufficient fuel in the tank’ Caron Bradshaw, Charity Finance Directors Group

What we do know is that it is underpinned by several key declared values. These are:The desire for long-term social action and changePublic service reformEffective community engagement and localism• Empowering and involving people• Increasing volunteeringOpening up of public services• Decentralisation of power • Promoting transparency• Developing civic action and responsibility• Maximising innovation and enterprise• Paying service providers by results N Pimlott The Big View, 2011


Impact on the church/Christian community?


Current Policy - Key Elements

1. Community Empowerment2. Opening up Public Services

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubadm/902/90202.htm


1. Community Empowerment

• Decentralisation, devolution & empowerment• Empowering state, rather than an

overpowering state• Transferring power from the central state to

local people and institutions• When people know their actions can make a

difference they are more motivated to get involved

• PRO’S & CONS


2. Opening up Public Services

• New structures in education, health, welfare• Greater involvement charities, voluntary

sector, mutuals, social enterprise, businesses, philanthropists

• Commissioning, procurement, tendering, payment by results

• PRO’S & CON’S


Opportunities


Invited to engage Encouraged to do even more

But with less resources And then there’s the capacity and infrastructural issues

Challenges

‘So actually the Big Society, in my opinion, is being asked to do what we have already being doing, but with potentially even less resource than was previously available. Also, picking up the pieces of things that are around the community that have been dropped and been let go because of lack of funding .’


Challenges


Closely related policies• Education – Academies, Tuition fees, Free

schools• NHS reform• Council/social housing reforms - Stunnell:

“There’s no reason why a home in future should always be a home for life.” New improved right to buy

• Reducing public expenditure• Welfare Reform


Welfare reform

• Present system is too complicated and work incentives are poor

• “No one in work will be worse off than a person on benefit”

• ‘Universal credit’ – a single benefit (amalgamating Working Tax Credit, Child

Tax Credit, Housing Benefit, Income Support, income-based JSA and income-related ESA); merges out of work and in work benefits

• Sanctions for refusing job offer– (Relying on ‘nudge’ – behavioural economics)

From white paper: Universal Credit: A welfare system that works


Localism Bill‘Youtube


Localism Bill - given Royal Assent on 15 November 2011

• new freedoms and flexibilities for local government

• new rights and powers for communities and individuals

• reform to make the planning system more democratic and more effective

• reform to ensure that decisions about housing are taken locally

www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/pdf/1896534.pdf


Big Society & Young People


Positive for Youth• Positive for Youth – ‘Governments in the past have focused on

the negative stuff about young people, such as antisocial behaviour.’ Tim Loughton

• Massive Cuts and a dismantling of youth work provision across the sector - “So we’ll instead do negative stuff to the provisions they value and need” Me

http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/youngpeople/Positive%20for%20Youth


Positive for Youth‘Raising young people’s aspirations and driving up participation and attainment in learning is the best way to help young people realise their potential and get ready for work.’‘The Government will therefore retain the duty on councils to secure young people’s access to sufficient activities and services to improve their wellbeing, including their duty to seek and take account of young people’s views in decisions about these activities.’ From: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-00198-2011.pdf

Social Policy

Axing of a Universal Youth ServiceIf the days of a universal youth service are threatened by a

thousand cuts and we fall back solely onto targeted support for those most at risk, we risk too great an emphasis on

presenting symptoms, such as unwanted teen pregnancy and educational failure, and too little on supporting the whole

young person.Plus, this is a long game. It is establishing trust and real relationships that makes real inroads in youth work: you don't change young people's lives with a website and a communications plan. You do it by showing up on wet

Wednesdays and being there when they need you.

Think Big Society, Children & Young People Now, 14 September 2010 Nick Wilkie, chief executive, London Youth, http://www.cypnow.co.uk/inDepth/ByDiscipline/Education/1027914/Think-Big-Society/


YW Challenges• Understanding?• Paradox – massive cuts = empowerment?• Who sets the agenda?• Involving young people• Undermining of existing work?• Paradox - Diminishing of the ‘volunteer’ voluntary yw

sector• Infrastructure?• Longevity?‘


Commodification of Young People

• Things and people that were originally not for sale, are now for sale – schools, health, prisons, getting people into employment, youth services

• YP seen as economic units• Services – tendering, commissioning,

competition• Payment by results• Social returns on investment


Young People - Double Standards?

'Those who make the wrong decisions, who engage in criminality, must be identified, arrested and punished, and we will make sure that happens' : Theresa May, August 11, 2011 after the riots

'The UK further states that the criminal prosecution of bank employees due to participation in tax offences is highly unlikely' : Clause in UK-Swiss tax deal agreed by George Osborne, 23 Aug 2011.


Big Challenge in motivating the Church to engage - Equality?

Social Policy

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Bias_to_the_poor_Jan2012.pdf


Big Challenge in motivating the Church to engage - Compassion?

‘Britain is being refashioned into a nation which believes that helping the needy is

morally and fiscally unaffordable – and no sum of money saved is worth that shame’ Laurie Penny (2012). Compassion – a subversive idea. New Statesman. 8 Feb

2012

Social Policy

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Bias_to_the_poor_Jan2012.pdf


Big Challenge if the church does get motivated

‘This is a process where religious organisations reshape themselves to fit government policy and thereby lose their unique characteristics, while taking on the same institutional shape and processes as state agencies.’ Bretherton, L. Christianity and Contemporary Politics p43 After P. J. DiMaggio & W. Powell.

Mimicking – Coercion - Normative Pressures

Social Policy

My Research …

http://fyt.org.uk/userpdfs/de8193e687dd7f488790.pdf


Thank you

[email protected]

fb.me/frontieryouthtrust07940 54 54 69

Social Policy Contemporary Social Policy, The Big Society & Young People.

Documents

Transcript of Social Policy Contemporary Social Policy, The Big Society & Young People.