Big Society My Mission In Politics Says PM
Sky News
David Cameron has launched a major defence of his controversial Big Society plan, declaring the initiative his “mission”
The Prime Minister has defended his flagship policy in a speech to social entrepreneurs in London, after weeks of criticism from volunteering groups, charities and politicians.
Mr Cameron rejected criticism that the concept was “too vague” and a “cover for cuts”, insisting it was central to the “social recovery” the country needed.
He said: “This is my absolute passion.
“I think it’s a different way of governing, a different way of going about trying to change our country for the better, and it’s going to get every bit of my passion and attention over the five years of this Government.”
Mr Cameron described the Government’s deficit-reduction programme as only his “duty”.
He went on: “What is my mission, what is it I am really passionate about? It is actually social recovery as well as economic recovery, and I think we need social recovery because as I’ve said lots of times in the past, there are too many parts of our society that are broken
“Whether it’s broken families or whether it’s some communities breaking down or whether it’s the level of crime, the level of gang membership, whether it’s problems of people stuck on welfare unable to work, whether it’s the sense that some of our public services don’t work for us, we do need a social recovery to mend the broken society and to me that is what the Big Society is all about.”
He said people needed to “take more responsibility” and “act more responsibly”.
The Government’s response to any problem was only ever “half the answer”, he said.
The passionate language means Mr Cameron has personally invested in the success of the Big Society. Read full story here on Sky news website.
Labour Leader
But commenting after the Big Society relaunch, Labour leader Ed Miliband said: “It’s the scale and pace of Mr Cameron’s cuts that is driving local libraries to shut, children’s centres are under threat, citizens advice bureau are closing down.
“And it’s not just me saying it.
“It’s Liberal Democrat leaders around the country who are saying ‘you are going so far and so fast, we’ve got no time to adapt, we’re going to undermine the big society that you claim to support’.”
Big Society Plans: Warning From Charities
Gay couples may soon be able to tie the knot in church
Being a gay man myself and in a civil partnership, I welcome this move, I think the coalition government are connecting with people and moving forward to allow everyone to be treated the same.
However I am from a Catholic background and while some people within the Catholic religion accept me and my partner living together, they don’t see our civil partnership as a marriage and wouldn’t accept us marrying in church.
The change in law is only at primary stages and while I would like to see it make law I am worried that this will cause more problems for the gay community has a whole, but only time will tell.
Wayne
Below is a artcle from Observer Newspaper
Equalities MinsterEqualities minister considers change in law reversing ban on civil partnerships in places of worship.
The Coalition government is considering a change in the law to allow gay people to have marriage-style ceremonies in places of worship.
Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone is expected to announce later this week that a ban on civil partnerships being conducted in religious venues is to be lifted.
The move, which could also allow hymns and readings from the Bible, is likely to be welcomed by gay rights groups but met with strong opposition from traditionalists within the Church of England, other mainstream religions and the Conservative party.
However minority religious groups such as Unitarians, Liberal Jews and Quakers, who already carry out ceremonies for gay people, will be sympathetic to the move.
“The government is currently considering what the next stage should be for civil partnerships, including how some religious organisations can allow same-sex couples the opportunity to register their relationship in a religious setting if they wish to do so,” a spokesman for the Equalities Office said last night.
“Ministers have met a range of people and organisations to hear their views on this issue. An announcement will be made in due course.”
It was not clear to what extent the change in law would allow civil partnership ceremonies to be brought into line with traditional weddings between heterosexual partners, or whether the term “marriage” would be officially used.
Civil partnerships, introduced in 2004, provide most of the same legal rights as marriage, but are often seen by gay people as lacking the spiritual depth conferred by a religious ceremony.
While many Anglican clergy already carry out blessings for gay couples, there is no authorised church ceremony and the issue has led to divisions in the Church of England.
Pope Benedict XVI has regularly condemned same-sex marriage and gay relationships, calling them “a destruction of God’s work”.
Quakers, who have been in favour of same-sex unions for almost two decades, agreed to perform marriage ceremonies for gay couples in 2009 and have previously urged the government to change the law to allow Quaker registering officers to handle same-sex partnerships in the same way as marriages.
Gay marriages are already legal in a handful of countries, including Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, Spain, and some American states,
David Cameron, in 2009 interview, suggested that same-sex partnerships were no different from marriage but admitted that not all in his party held a similar view.
David Cameron’s ‘big society’ could be funded by savers
Observer
The Big Society
“Socially responsible” savers could be encouraged to put their money into “big society” ISAs under plans being announced to show how the money will be found to fund David Cameron’s vision of a volunteering renaissance.
The plans are to be unveiled as the prime minister makes a speech to try to relaunch his big society idea in the face of growing claims that volunteering will never thrive in an era of harsh public spending cuts.
The Cabinet Office is publishing plans to attract capital into the social investment market, including £400m from dormant bank accounts and – eventually – further sums from individuals and institutions like pension funds that might be prepared to invest routinely in social enterprise.
Social investments are already worth £200m a year but the Cabinet Office says this market is “embryonic and needs support”. Ministers want to expand it to the point where “socially responsible everyday savers” start investing their money in “social ISAs and pension funds”, although they also stress that this is a long-term aspiration.
The Cabinet Office paper, Growing the Social Investment Market: A vision and strategy, attempts to answer critics who say the cuts will kill volunteering by suggesting that social investment could eventually become as important a source of charity funding as traditional donations and the state. The government is also setting up a “big society bank” to fund social enterprises. It will start operating in April with up to £100m of the £400m from dormant accounts being made available this year. Banks are going to lend it another £200m on commercial terms.
The prime minister’s other big society relaunch initiatives have included the appointment of Charlotte Leslie, a Tory backbencher, and Shaun Bailey, a youth worker and former Tory candidate, as big society ambassadors. Further announcements are due relating to the £100m transition fund for charities affected by the loss of government contracts and plans to train 5,000 big society organisers.
At an event in London, Cameron will insist that he will never abandon the concept because it is at the core of his political philosophy. “The big society is my mission in politics,” he is expected to say. “And I am going to fight for it every day, because the big society is here to stay.”
In his speech Cameron will resurrect his claim – once described by the London mayor, Boris Johnson, as “piffle” – that society is “broken”. Lack of responsibility is to blame, he will say.
“I don’t think this has happened because we’ve somehow become bad people. I think at its core, it’s the consequence of years and years of big government. As the state got bigger and more powerful, it took away from people more and more things that they should and could be doing for themselves.”
In an article in the Independent on Sunday, Ed Miliband argued that the big society was bound to fail because there was an inherent contradiction between wanting to build up the voluntary sector and cut the size of the state. “No one can volunteer at a library or a Sure Start centre if it’s being closed down,” the Labour leader wrote.
He said the big society was invented as part of an attempt to decontaminate the Tory brand and that the party was now “recontaminated” because “in the past week voters have seen more clearly than ever this Conservative-led government in its true colours: a single-issue government making huge sacrifices of the things we value on the altar of deficit reduction”.
The former Tory cabinet minister David Mellor said the big society had gone down “like a lead balloon” at the election and that he could not understand why Cameron did not abandon the idea. But Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, claimed the concept had been a public relations success.
Red Nose Day 2011
Well it’s nearly that time of the year again for the 1st Major Charity event for BBC yes it’s
Red Nose Day and it is back on Friday 18th March so it’s time to get ready to join in the fun! Wherever you are, whatever you do, make sure you do something funny for money and change countless lives for the better.
T-Shirts & Noses
It’s time to pick your Nose and pull on your T-shirts because Red Nose Day is back and it’s never looked so good.
The monster cool trio of Noses are available at Sainsbury’s and Oxfam shops and the Vivienne Westwood designed T-shirts are ready and waiting at a TK Maxx near you. Or bag them in our online store right now.
Desert Trek
A team of intrepid celebrities – including Dermot O’Leary, Lorraine Kelly and Scott Mills – is about to embark on a gruelling physical challenge that will test them to the limit. They’ll tackle some of the planet’s toughest terrain in the scorching sun as they cross a remote Kenyan desert – but can they take the heat?
iPhone
If you’ve got an iPhone, you’re in for a treat. Our brand new, totally free and completely brilliant Red Nose Day In Your Pocket iPhone app is now available to download.
From access to exclusive iTunes content, games and celeb features to all the latest Red Nose Day news and videos. It’s all there, all in your pocket. Hence the name.
Get Your Red Nose
Cameron defends Big Society policy
Article by The Independent online
David Cameron has fought back against accusations that his vision of the Big Society is simply a “cover” for Government spending cuts.
Writing in The Observer, the Prime Minister said that his initiative to hand power to local communities and voluntary organisations was intended to change the way Britain was run.
He acknowledged however that at a time of spending restraint, it would benefit society if people were prepared to volunteer more.
Building a stronger, bigger society is something we should try and do whether spending is going up or down,” he said.
“But there is a broader point to be made. As the state spends less and does less – which would be happening whichever party was in government – there would be a positive benefit if some parts of society were to step forward and do more.
Read More Here
The Big Give
About us from The Big Give on Vimeo.
Francis Maude denies that spending cuts are undermining the big society
Taken from Disability Lib and Third Sector
Last week Liverpool Council pulled out of the current Government’s Big Society experiment. The head of the council claimed they can not continue with the experiemnt when Central Government is cutting funds that voluntary organisations need to promote volunteerism and to get more people involved in their communities.
Yesterday, the 7th of February, Thirdsector online reported that the retiring executive director of Community Service Volunteers ( Dame Elisabeth Hoodless) says government lacks a strategic plan for the big society and that the spending cuts are undermining volunteering.
Today Thirdsector online has reported Government’s response and Francis Maude, the cabinet minister denied that the spending cuts are undermining the big society – writing in The Times newspaper Maude says: “Building the big society is not about pouring taxpayers’ money into the voluntary sector.
“What we are doing is supporting a new culture where everyone gets involved and society stops relying on the state to provide all the answers.
“I believe too much time is spent asking the taxpayer to prop up traditional organisations, rather than innovating and finding new ways to inspire people.”
So there it is folks, big society is about people doing stuff for people without money, jobs, benefits cut etc…..big society is about those working paying tax but Government not putting anything back….Government will provide the “environment” but you just get on it with. Is this realistic? Must Government always respond to criticism defensively?
May be I am looking at the current situation too simplistically but one thing I know, training volunteers is not free, encouraging people to creatively contribute to their communities needs money too and with the cuts already causing many organisations to close dowm no wonder someone commented on the Thirdsector online’s Government’s respond article that….”The Tories would deny that the sun rises in the morning”.
Cabinet Office minister responds to criticism by retiring CSV head Dame Elisabeth Hoodless
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, has responded to claims made by Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, executive director of volunteering charity CSV, that the government’s big society agenda lacks a “strategic plan” and is being undermined by spending cuts.
In media interviews to mark her retirement this week, Hoodless said volunteering projects were being hit hard by government spending cuts and this was at odds with the big society agenda.
But writing in The Times newspaper today, Maude says: “Building the big society is not about pouring taxpayers’ money into the voluntary sector.
“What we are doing is supporting a new culture where everyone gets involved and society stops relying on the state to provide all the answers.
“I believe too much time is spent asking the taxpayer to prop up traditional organisations, rather than innovating and finding new ways to inspire people.”
An article in The Guardian today reports that communities secretary Eric Pickles opposed plans to force councils to show they were cutting their own costs as much as their contracts with charities.
The plans had been developed by David Cameron’s head of strategy, Steve Hilton, Cabinet Office ministers Oliver Letwin and Francis Maude and Lord Wei, the government’s adviser on the big society, the article says.
It says that Labour leader Ed Miliband has written to the leaders of several large charities, asking them to take part in the party’s policy review on civil society.
Len McCluskey, general secretary of trade union Unite, has also called for the Public Administration Select Committee to launch an investigation into the government’s funding of voluntary organisations in the light of the big society agenda.
“The select committee needs to investigate the crisis that is engulfing UK charities,” he said.
“If the Chancellor George Osborne does not address the crisis facing the sector in his Budget on 23 March, many charities will go to the wall and that will be the death knell of the big society.”
The Cornerstones Reception and One Voice Access Guide Launch
Top Charities Warning On Health Reform Risks
Taken from Sky News Website
Radical plans to reform the healthcare system must be amended to give patients a stronger say over their local services, a group of leading health charities have said.
The eight organisations, which represent millions of patients, called on the Government to make “crucial changes” to the Health and Social Care Bill, “to ensure the NHS will be answerable to everyone it serves”.
They described plans to make a network of GP commissioning consortia – which will be responsible for £80bn of the health service budget – accountable to the public as “weak”.
They demanded that democratically elected representatives are used to scrutinise decisions and budget management at a local level.
“The new local HealthWatch bodies described in the Bill will not have the powers or resources to ensure that patients have a say in their local health services.
“If they are to serve a meaningful purpose they must be significantly strengthened.” Under the reforms, GPs will take control of commissioning services for patients.
Strategic health authorities and primary care trusts (PCTs), which currently commission services, will be abolished.
So far, 141 GP consortia, serving more than half of the population of England, have now signed up as “pathfinders” to pilot the new arrangements ahead of their planned implementation in 2013.