'Big society' suffers setback in showcase Liverpool

City pulls out as key partner in Cameron initiative due to government-imposed spending cuts

David Cameron's vision of a community-driven renaissance of the inner cities suffered an embarrassment today after Liverpool, a key partner in one of his project's four "big society" showcase areas, said it was pulling out of the initiative because of government-imposed spending cuts.

Liverpool city council leader Joe Anderson said the need to make 141m of savings over the next two years had put the future of hundreds of voluntary groups in the city at risk.

The announcement follows a warning yesterday by the head of Liverpool's big society "vanguard", Phil Redmond that Cameron's initiative had ground to a halt in the city because decision-making had been "subsumed by the cuts".

The Labour-led city council was not a formal partner in the big society "vanguard" project launched by the prime minister on Merseyside last July, but says it was co-opted onto a "parallel vanguard" some months later and had put "significant resources" into a "substantial programme of activity".

In a letter to communities secretary Eric Pickles, councillor Anderson writes: "When we agreed to become a Vanguard, your government promised to work with us to remove some of the problems and blockages that were preventing us from successfully delivering our Big Society programme. I have to say, the government has failed to deliver a single change that we have requested, which has severely hampered many parts of our programme."

The council learned in December that it would lose 100m in specialist grants from the government, many of which were allocated to charities and community groups tackling welfare issues, from worklessness to family breakdown.

Anderson adds: "How can the City Council support the Big Society and its aim to help communities do more for themselves when we will have to cu! t the li feline to hundreds of these vital and worthwhile groups?"

In a statement, the Department for Communities and local government said: "The initial four vanguard areas have been invaluable training grounds and have demonstrated where barriers, both cultural and practical, should be removed through deregulation, direct support or measures in the Localism Bill."

Redmond said today in a statement that his criticisms of big society in Liverpool, made in an interview with Local Government Chronicle, had not intended to be seen as a denigration of Cameron's vision: "I remain a strong supporter of the principle behind Big Society even if the marketing slogan is not the best!".

Meanwhile the government's big society advisor Lord Wei today sought to clarify reports that he had scaled back his unpaid involvement in the project because he needed more time to devote to paid work and having "a life".

In his blog he wrote: "At different times in life one will have more or less time. At the moment, alongside my work in the Lords, serving the Chinese, faith, and other communities as a peer, my family, and earning a living, I have slightly less time than I did last year.

"Thankfully the structures in government are now in place to harness my time better so I do not have to put in the long hours over and above the two days a week I agreed with the government in June 2010. I put in extra time when I first started, which impacted on family life and finances. My duty must be to my family first, then the communities of which I am a part, as well as to the country."

He said he was not "superhuman" and only "a humble advisor": "There is something quite un-Big Society in thinking one person alone at the centre of government can magic it into being. I have learnt that I am a small cog in a big mach! ine," he said.


guardian.co.uk Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UK greenhouse gas emissions fall 8.7%

Image
Total UK emissions plummet as recession lowers electricity and fuel use A dramatic fall in greenhouse gas emissions following the recession has brought the UK's climate change targets for the next five years within easy reach, taking the pressure off government and business to comply. Government estimates released on Tuesday showed greenhouse gas emissions fell by 8.7% from 2008 to 2009, the biggest drop since records began in 1990. Carbon dioxide levels plunged 9.8%, a fall only matched in 1980, in records extending to 1970. The unexpectedly deep slump in emissions mirrors the fall in industrial output in the recession, with high-emitting sectors including construction and transport hit particularly hard. But it also means that government-set climate change targets of cutting emissions by 35% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, now look much easier to meet. The UK has already met the targets for 2016, provided emissions stay at 2009 levels. This raises the prospect that business...
Keep reading

Top flyer boo-boo : Shut off noisy engines

LONDON: It's too noisy, could you please turn off the engines ? Could you please open the window? These are some of the "foolish" and "bizarre requests" flyers often make to flight attendants, according to a new survey. The survey of some 3,000 Virgin Atlantic cabin crew members found that some passengers fail to understand why they are prevented from opening the window, others think "turning down" the engines could reduce the noise. "Please, can you open the window?" was among the most common unusual queries made by uncomfortable passengers who seem to be unaware of the benefits of a pressurised cabin at 35,000ft. Other unique questions included "could you turn the engines down because they are too noisy?" and "please can the captain stop the turbulence?", the Telegraph reported. The survey also laid bare the level of comfort and service some customers expect, with several asking flight attendants "can you sho...
Keep reading

Dogs can be trained to sniff out bowel cancer, Japanese researchers say

Image
Experiments show that labrador retriever's sense of smell can identify minute traces of chemicals circulating in human body Dogs can be trained to sniff out bowel cancer, even when the disease is in its early stages, researchers in Japan claim. In a series of experiments that involved sniffing the breath or stool samples of patients, a specially-trained labrador retriever proved nearly as good at identifying those with cancer as a conventional colonoscopy examination. The team, led by Hideto Sonoda at Fukuoka dental college hospital, said some dogs have such a keen sense of smell that they can detect minute traces of chemicals that appear to circulate in the bodies of people who have cancer. The finding builds on previous experiments in which researchers used dogs to sniff out cancers in the skin, lungs, bladder and ovaries. Writing in the journal Gut , the researchers describe how the eight-year-old dog was trained to distinguish between the smell of a patient with colorectal canc...
Keep reading