Transcript Creative Support, Housing & Employment

Understanding the impact of
localism and the big society
on tackling homelessness
Neil Morland
Director of Growth & Regions
e: [email protected]
m: 07816 935 620
Localism
• A hot topic – Google search came up with 945,000 results
• A dictionary definition – a phrase, a partiality, a quality, or a idiom
• An academic perspective – society and politics were local until 19th
century
• As a political philosophy – proposes that by re-localising
relationships problems will be more definable and solutions more
easily created.
Localism
• Localism Bill – Government published it on 13 December 2010, it
contains measures to:
– Devolve powers to Councils
– Establish new rights for communities
– Reform planning
– Reform housing
– Incentivise economic growth
• DCLG have published a paper asserting that changes in behaviour,
expectation and culture a required for the measures in the bill to be
successful
‘Big Society’
• 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”
David Cameron, Prime Minister
• The third level at which the big society seems to operate beyond
asking the question and setting out policies is that of nurturing an
ecosystem. I describe this as the big society coral reef, and we are
all the fishes”
Lord Wei, Government "big society" guru
• Britain is a Big Society today - generous, volunteering, caring, full of
social initiative and enterprise. We helped it grow - we didn't stand
in the way or stand aside”
Tessa Jowell, Shadow Cabinet Office minister
‘Big Society’
• The Big Society is about helping people to come together to
improve their own lives. There are three parts to the Big Society
agenda:
– Community empowerment:
– Opening up public services
– Social action
• The Office for Civil Society, works across government departments
to deliver a number of key Big Society programmes, namely:
– The Big Society Bank
– National Citizens Service Pilots
– Community Organisers
– Community First
‘Big Society’
• In an open letter to the PM, Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the
Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary organisations says
charities face a "tidal wave" of growing needs and rising cuts
• Spending cuts are undermining Big Society, "Draconian" government
spending cuts are destroying volunteering and undermining David
Cameron's Big Society, warned Dame Elizabeth Hoodless, executive
director of Community Service Volunteers
• The government's own annual Citizenship Survey reveals that
volunteering has fallen for the fifth consecutive year
Public sector reform
• We will soon publish a White Paper setting out our approach to
public service reform. It will put in place principles that will signal
the decisive end of the old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you'regiven model of public services. And it is a vital part of our mission to
dismantle Big Government and build the Big Society in its place
David Cameron, Prime Minster
• The boundaries between public, private and third sector provision
should melt away. This empowerment agenda will have to be forced
on to public sector organisations in the early stages to break the
tendency to structural inertia
David Kirby, Head of Policy Development, Cabinet Office
Health and
social care bill
• Establishes an independent NHS Board to allocate resources and
provide commissioning guidance
• increases GPs’ powers to commission services on behalf of their
patients
• strengthens the role of the Care Quality Commission
• develops Monitor, the body that currently regulates NHS foundation
trusts, into an economic regulator to oversee aspects of access and
competition in the NHS
• cuts the number of health bodies to help meet the Government's
commitment to cut NHS administration costs by a third, including
abolishing Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities.
Welfare reform bill
• On 16 February 2011 the Welfare Reform Bill was introduced to
Parliament. The Bill legislates for the biggest change to the welfare
system for over 60 years.
• It introduces a wide range of reforms that will deliver the
commitment made in the Coalition Agreement and the Queen’s
Speech to make the benefits and tax credits systems fairer and
simpler by:
– creating the right incentives to get more people into work by
ensuring work always pays
– protecting the most vulnerable in our society
– delivering fairness to those claiming benefit and to the taxpayer.
Impact
• Savage cuts will leave people sleeping rough on the streets. The
coalition government is presiding over a social disaster as funds that
helped support people into housing are cut by councils
Patrick Butler, Journalist
• The government is protecting the homeless from council cuts. We
have a long-term commitment to support the most vulnerable in this
country
Grant Shapps, Minister of State for Housing & Local Government
Impact
• The National Housing Federation, which represents 1,200 housing
associations and charities, asked 136 organisations what they had
been told to expect by councils. The results show:
– Nearly three quarters of respondents (73%) said local authorities
they work in had already indicated cuts of greater than 12%.
– 41% of respondents expected cuts over 20% in their area, and
18% of respondents expecting cuts over 30%.
– 60% of respondents said their organisation would be forced to
reduce the level of service they offered
Impact
• Nottinghamshire – 65% reduction of SP funding
• Nottingham – 45% reduction of SP funding
• Devon – 100% proposal to reduce funding for DV support
• Newcastle – 66% of voluntary organisations in the city only have
enough funding to provide their services for up to a year.
• Hull – 49 charities have been put on notice by the council because it
"cannot guarantee" any Supporting People funding after March 31
Challenges and
opportunities
• Postcode lottery of services
• Community right to challenge to deliver public services
• Less funding from state for third sector organisations, some services
will disappear
• Outsourcing of public services to end state monopoly, outcome
based commissioning with payment by results
• Speed of change, new relationships
.
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