Society daily 22.04.2010

Top SocietyGuardian news and comment

Other news

* The public has limited appetite for the Conservatives' plans for a "big society", according to an Ipsos Mori poll reported in the Financial Times. It quotes pollster Ben Page, who says the problem is that people say they want more local control but then also say they want services to be the same everywhere, "and you can't have both".

* The FT also reports on an Institute of Public Policy Research study that claims public spending will be better protected in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland when cuts are prepared after the general election.

* A social worker who made sexually inappropriate comments to strangers while on a night out in Birkenhead, including asking them whether he could "piss in their mouths", has been struck off, reports Community Care.

The big society brand

I've just watched a great short film by the Guardian's John Harris in which he goes to Stourbridge in the west Midlands to investigate the Tories' big society idea. He talks to local parents, volunteers, residents and parliamentary candidates. There's a couple of standout conversations that get to the nub of some of the difficulties and contradictions within big society: one about academy schools with the sitting Labour MP Lynda Waltho, and a more troubling one with a local mum about exactly why she would welcome the chance to set up her own school.

Clearly the big society "brand" means nothing to most voters (which is possibly why it seems to have been quietly abandoned by the Tories). Harris concludes that the concept "feels a lot more like a flimsy bit of branding than a convincing idea".

But just because it has little traction in a general election campaign it would be wrong to write off the energising forces that big society tries to corral - grassroots social action, neighbourliness, self-help, user involvement in public services and so on - as irrelevant or unwanted.

Indeed, Harris himself in a recent, highly perceptive column for the Guardian admitted that the Tories, unlike some on the liberal left "at least ... have something coherent(ish) to say" on social breakdown and what to do about it. He wrote that he was impressed with the community activism that created the Eldonian village housing co-op in Liverpool, which he cites as a shining example of community-led regeneration. Harris notes that in the Eldonian project:

"... a culture of brass-tacks involvement not only cuts across the idea that being atomised and indifferent is the inevitable modern condition, but also points up how priceless self-organisation can be".

Interestingly, according to one account, the Eldonian project was nearly strangled at birth by hard-left corporatism after a "Militant tendency" took over the Labour-run city council in the 1980s. The point is that Eldonian could not have happened in the way it did without either the commitment and drive of local people, or the supportive involvement of the state. As Harris puts it:

"The point is not to fall for the rightwing idea that government can be replaced by little platoons, but to understand that in their absence, the state will never be enough."

'Squalid' goings on at the health department

Stephen Bubb, the blogging chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo) and his team have been doing some digging into the recent 11th hour decision of the Department of Health (DH) to pull the plug on a series of NHS contract tenders due to be let by primary care trusts (PCTs) in the east of England. Armed with the fruits of multiple freedom of information (FOI) requests, Bubb concludes that the DH is guilty of "rather sordid manipulation".

He argues that the decision was taken because senior civil servants realised that this was the only way to stop an NHS Co-operation and Competition Panel investigation that would ultimately prove highly embarrassing for the health secretary, Andy Burnham. The tenders had become subject to an inquiry after Acevo and others complained that Great Yarmouth and Waveney PCT, heeding Burnham's declared intent to make the NHS the "preferred provider" of NHS services, had discriminated against charities and private firms by excluding them from the bidding process (I blogged on this here).

A critical ruling from the panel would have been extraordinarily uncomfortable for Burnham, who finally abandoned the controversial "preferred provider" idea last month (see my blog here).

This is an extract from an Acevo analysis of the FOI papers published on Bubb's blog:

"DH intervened at the very last minute. The FOI documents reveal that Gary Belfield, the director general at DH, met with the chair of the panel the same day that the panel met. This was the day before the panel was meant to publish its decision to proceed or not. They also reveal that Belfield then phoned in to the panel's meeting, mid-way through its discussions, to tell them that DH had put a stop to the procurement process in question, thereby making the [commission panel's] discussions redundant."

Bubb writes:

"It seems very clear that the panel were on the point of concluding that the decision of the PCT, following Andy Burnham's 'preferred provider' speech, would have had 'adverse effects for patients and taxpayers'. No wonder the DH were keen to squash it."

Bubb, who calls the series of events a "squalid episode" will now renew calls for the competition panel to be made independent of the DH. He is also hoping to uncover a further internal DH paper through the FOI process. "Will it reveal the hand of Andy Burnham I wonder?" writes Bubb.

SocietyGuardian events

National Commissioning conference 10. Beyond efficiencies, doing things differently. 15-16 June, Lowry Hotel, Manchester. Speakers include: Solace chief executive David Clark, former Department of Health lead on social care personalisation John Bolton, new King's Fund chief executive Chris Ham, and Social Care Institute for Excellence chief executive Julie Jones.

The Public Procurement show. The UK's leading event for public sector procurement. 15-16 June, ExceL, London

SocietyGuardian Social Enterprise Summit

We are starting to plan this year's Society Guardian Social Enterprise Summit. Last year's summit was a great success - you can read about it here. Once again we are looking to showcase inspiration, innovation and practical ideas on how social enterprises can deliver public services. Whether you are from the public sector or from a social business, we want you to tell us who you'd like to see and what you would like to see discussed. Email to charmian.walker-smith@guardian.co.uk. You can follow Guardian Social Enterprise on Twitter