Thursday, 30 June 2005

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Government and citizen: a new social contract? *updated with link* In his speech at today's launch of Together we Can David Miliband sought to explain how the social contract is 'out of step' and the social order is in transition. He even used the term 'the collective sphere,' identified as being in need of modernisation because we no longer have a culture of acquiescence sustained by deference and hierarchy. This was a call for re-emphasis on the values of mutuality and shared responsibility, "to build the sense of ownership, belonging and civic pride that is the oxygen of a successful society." Today's achievement was to make all this sound like a rational way of developing policy without it coming across as an over-spun gloss on existing and new initiatives. Is it a genuine cultural change? Home Office minister Hazel Blears followed up with a speech that emphasised democratic empowerment, arguing that Together we Can "marks the beginning of a new relationship between government and citizens." The press release speaks of the Together we Can action plan as “the first step towards a significant shift in the balance of power between local communities and Central Government.” Hazel Blears also noted in passing that we're not very good at assessing the cost-benefit of informal social control in terms of savings to services. (Sounds like time for some research funding there then...) Events like this - more than three hundred people, a fistful of government ministers, expensive video and choreographed production – don’t help get at the detail but they do tell us a bit about commitment, continuity, and whether an initiative is soundly based. There are numerous awkward issues to be surfaced and dealt with, in particular some of the neighbourhood governance questions, and I'll post separately on these. The Together we Can documents are here and here. David Miliband's speech is available here.
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Ordinary people are now fashionable Today saw the launch of a new Demos report on civic participation and the public realm, Start with people. I wish they had. I have enough respect for the authors, John Craig and Paul Skidmore, to be confident that the report will be a sound and thought-provoking read, when I get the chance. I say that because the launch event felt like a strong attempt to put me off bothering. The think tanks have discovered the community sector, as have politicians, and that's not unwelcome. It doesn't mean that these powerful and influential people sitting round discussing how ordinary people set about confronting the processes that reflect the disadvantages around them, in terms and values which are alien and offputting to the rest of us, is not close to offensive. People have been busy at local level - sometimes struggling, sometimes well-supported - getting involved and doing what they can collectively, for a lot longer than think tank wonks and politicians have taken their endeavours seriously, or recognised the significant social value of such endeavours. Maybe I heard through tired ears, but I did hear culture minister David Lammy, for instance, start off on an unfortunate note by saying that when new labour came to power in 1997, we didn't all understand the project, the voluntary sector was a bit behind, and the community sector was just 'somewhere else.' There really is a need for a rather more sensitive attitude. It's just possible that the community sector wasn't and isn't 'somewhere else;' the politicians and the wonks have been somewhere else. I worry that some of them still are. I arrived late for the meeting and felt duly contrite, knowing that I may have missed something and needing to allow my understanding of what was going on, to develop over a few minutes. Conceptually and on a rather different timescale, something similar may be needed here.

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