Article
Let people power local services
Council spending was unsustainable. The future direction of local service provision – and society – lies in its citizens
Will council cuts free-up space for the growth of the Big Society? Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian/David Levene
The cuts announced by the coalition have rightly dominated the news agenda, and we were never in any doubt as to how far-reaching they would be given the dire financial situation the country is in.
Local government is at the frontline of these cuts, as councils are responsible for many of the services that are affected. Previous levels of spending are unsustainable and, like it or not, we simply cannot afford to do all the things we used to.
At Westminster council, like everywhere else, we will have to cut back on things that are helpful, desirable, but not essential such as "silver surfer" internet lessons and lunch clubs. But we will invest to replace the state with networks of volunteers, neighbours and friends to ensure that we look after each other.
We will continue to provide the core services that keep the city clean and safe and protect the vulnerable. And we'll have an absolute focus on value for money. But we want to release the potential of our citizens to improve their local quality of life for themselves, by developing a stronger sense of community responsibility.
This includes our residents in a small pocket of Westminster, a stone's throw from the House of Commons where local people joined forces to fight for something they felt passionate about – their local market, which was dying on its feet. We helped fund improvements, but local people, businesses and councillors invested their own time and effort to drive these through and secure the market's future.
The changes to spending mean we have to totally rethink how we operate. This is about a new relationship between the state and the citizen. It's about people taking responsibility for themselves.
But this does not mean we will no longer be here to help. Some people need additional support to turn their lives around, and by helping them to help themselves we can save money, too. This is not political ideology. It's happening right now through our pioneering Family Recovery Programme, which is saving taxpayers £2m a year by targeting social breakdown, while helping those in most need rather than locking them in a dysfunctional downward spiral of state dependency and worklessness.
We also have a role to play in reducing bureaucracy so we can help voluntary groups to grow and prosper. The answer lies not in handing over blank cheques to those groups, as that's no different to the failed system we have now in which billions have been wasted. That's the big state. The future direction of local service provision, and indeed of our society as a whole, lies in its people.
Some critics scoff at the notion that people are prepared to give up their free time to make their local areas better places to live. But tell that to the 91 people who volunteer in our local libraries, without whom we would not be able to run the array of services from them that we do.
We'd like more of them, and not just for our libraries. In our leisure centres, parks, football pitches. London 2012 has already attracted 100,000 people willing to volunteer during the Olympics. So there's obviously an appetite out there, our job in government is to create the right conditions and environment to empower people to take part.
Before the term "big society" became part of the nation's political lexicon, we were striving towards this concept in Westminster. We want to leave a legacy of social responsibility and civic engagement. But we can only guide and facilitate it. The delivery of the programme will belong to the people.
• Read Labour council leader John Merry on the impact of the spending review in Salford
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User Comments
petrifiedprozac
22 October 2010 8:07AM
I am sure in a debate on Newsnight the other week the consensus was (including a Tory), the country is richer than its ever been so the money is going somewhere, to the rich maybe?
confucious
22 October 2010 8:10AM
'The failed system'?
Correct me if I am wrong but the Conservatives and LibDems dominate local councils around the UK ?
Why then have they allowed themselves to get into debt to the tune of millions of pounds? Isn't it councils who introduced CCTV on every street corner, spent millions on employing people on such things as walking around in groups of ten to curb groups of people standing together- before they had commtted a crime, cameras inside waste disposal bins, spying on innocent people exporting local waste to other countries the list goes on.
When do the Conservatives and LibsDems at the local level start to shoulder some responsibility for the financial woes of their neighbourhoods?
I notice that now that the Conservatives are in power the councils are starting to cut back in a big way- 3 million here three million there my goodness even 35 million has been mentioned. What was stopping them when the Labour Party were in power?
Why now- did they not see this crisis coming and if not why not? Are the Labour Party entirely to blame? Really. Should the Conservative and LibDem majorities on these councils point the finger at the Labour Party when it was on their watch that spending and mismangement got out of control.
Self
22 October 2010 8:10AM
Quite clearly, annual increases of 4 or 5% in C Tax were unsustainable. We would soon reach a point where it absorbed almost all of some people's disposable income.
I heard on Radio 5 that three councils were merging to save over 100 million. We need more of this. In particular, we need our ridiculous, tin-pot police forces to merge.
BenCaute
22 October 2010 8:11AM
Before the term "big society" became part of the nation's political lexicon, we were striving towards this concept in Westminster. We want to leave a legacy of social responsibility and civic engagement. But we can only guide and facilitate it.
So whne you accused the protesters in Parliament Square of 'hijacking' the place and used your powers to have them removed, that was helping the big society and encouraging civic engagement was it? And how much did you earn from your City job?
davidabsalom
22 October 2010 8:11AM
Ah, Westminster! The council that pioneered the policy of moving the poor out of nice areas and dumping them in Outer London shitholes.
BenCaute
22 October 2010 8:13AM
And how are you the beacon for social responsibility?
Politicians have demanded an inquiry into the leader of Westminster Council after BBC London discovered a company he ran went bust, owing thousands of pounds in unpaid business rates.
Councillor Colin Barrow was shareholder and director of Eiger Capital, an investment firm he helped set up that went bust in 2008.
HGAT
22 October 2010 8:16AM
Has anyone looked into taxation versus standard of living? In the NL, for example, taxes are high (52% on earnings above about 47,000 quid) but wages are also better, and there is far less social inequality, less crime, and generally a better standard of living, than in the UK.
The coalition keeps saying their planned cuts are unavoidable, but most of us know damn well that at least some of them - and certainly the manner of them - is absolutely a matter of choice. The coalition's cuts are far more political than they are economic; their plan is to return to a dystopian society where the poor die of exhaustion as they lick the Tories' boots.
lightacandle
22 October 2010 8:18AM
Are you sure you are the right person to extol the values of a non-existant 'Big Society' and to place yourself as a shining example of local democracy....
"Westminster City Council’s ten person Cabinet has met only once in public in the last 8 months, while secret sessions, closed to the public and press, have met on eight separate occasions. The agendas and papers prepared for the secret Cabinet meetings are not available to the public, the press or to Opposition Labour Councillors."
Labour Councillors are now calling on Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles to mount an inquiry into this blatant abuse of democracy
“Secret meetings are no way to run a Council in the twenty-first century. We are calling on the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to mount an inquiry into the way in which the City Council is being mismanaged by the current Conservative administration.”
angrygranny
22 October 2010 8:18AM
'Tell that to the 91 people who have volunteered to help in our libraries'.
Tell that to the 91 library staff who have been made redundant - of course you are going to have plenty of people with free time once the half million have lost their jobs. But is that really how you want society to be run?
An illustration of the difficulties was demonstrated at a meeting I attended last night about our community's future. The Borough Council officers present were amazed at the things we had already achieved in our small town, at the great community spirit, at all the local organizations and what they were doing. We even have a 'job club' run by volunteers. But when we came to talking about the long term future of the town, there were those who strongly felt that there should be no more houses built, and no more growth. Others felt equally strongly that we needed more houses and young families moving into the town, as school rolls were falling and the population getting older. With the regional spacial strategies scrapped, apparently there are now no top-down targets for house building. It seems that he who shouts loudest (whether it is the developers or the nimbies) will get their way.
I fear that with greatly reduced staffing levels in local government, we are going to descend into a state of anarchy.
thetrashheap
22 October 2010 8:18AM
If many houses are receiving the equivalent to 25,000 in benefits then put them to bloody work. Make them contribute.
We have millions of people taking at least the equivalent of the minimum wage from the state. Use them for community projects. It's a complete waste of resources and its grossly unfair. Also people should prefer to contribute than sit and watch crap TV all day. Helping the community and giving back if able should be a prerequisite of using the dole.
Many unemployed disabled people who would love work but can't find an employer would love to be given jobs, helping others.
It never takes long for accusations for workhouses to come back when people suggest this but if you work 37 hours a week and your household income is equivalent to 35,000 a year. Forgive me if I don't shed a tear.
wotever
22 October 2010 8:19AM
Before the term "big society" became part of the nation's political lexicon
Actually, the term most often heard is a puzzled question: "what big society?"
SELAVY
22 October 2010 8:25AM
**But tell that to the 91 people who volunteer in our local libraries, without whom we would not be able to run the array of services from them that we do.***
Given the number of bankers who live in the mansions of Westminster and Kensington creaming £1,000,000 annual bonuses, perhaps you could tell us just how many of them are volunteering ?
ReginaldMolehusband
22 October 2010 8:30AM
Why don't we get the 500,000 folk made redundant from the public sector to volunteer, then they can do all their old jobs for free, shrinking the state and contributing to the big society!
Everyone's a winner!
Zagradotryad
22 October 2010 8:30AM
But we will invest to replace the state with networks of volunteers, neighbours and friends to ensure that we look after each other.
Gawd bless ya guvnor! Gorblimey, luvaduck, kness up muvva brahn etc.
This just a return to the days of middle class women with too much time on their hands telling the poor how to behave.
Let our watchword be "Forward to 1952!".
irussell
22 October 2010 8:32AM
What Big Society? - Exactly, but does that mean it's such a bad idea? And if we already had a real sense of community spirit, they'd be no need to suggest it.
And the notion that people who help others in their community and expect no monetary reward are ''mugs'' is vile and stupid.
francoisVoltearouet
22 October 2010 8:34AM
Would this be the same Clyde, sorry Colin Barrow.
His followers, Barrow included, founded a number of right-wing think-tanks to continue their re-branding exercise; chiefly Policy Exchange and CChange, but also Localis, which became closely affiliated with Policy Exchange.
Barrow has served as an executive/trustee of all three think-tanks. He was a director of Conservatives for Change or CChange from October 2001 to August 2006, a trustee of Policy Exchange from July 2003 to January 2005 and a director of Localis from September 2001 to April 2007. He is reported to have provided funding to Policy Exchange and Localis and his former home at 8 Barton Road was Localis’s registered address until July 2003 when it was changed to 10 Storey's Gate, where Policy Exchange and Conservatives for Change were based.
According to the Electoral Commission's Register of donations to political parties, Barrow donated a total of £30,750 to Conservative Central Office in three separate donations in 2004.
In January 2007 Conservative Party, Cities of London & Westminster accepted a new donation from Barrow of £2,600.
Barrow is a co-founder of the Conservative City Circle, a group that strengthens communications between the Conservative Party and the City on economic matters.
Now you do realise, Colin, that now Cleggy has disparaged think tanks, the IFS in particular, that you cannot be taken seriously. See how it works now.
ReginaldMolehusband
22 October 2010 8:37AM
@ Zagradotryad
Let our watchword be "Forward to 1952!"
You should be in marketing that is genius!
Bluejil
22 October 2010 8:38AM
And we'll have an absolute focus on value for money. But we want to release the potential of our citizens to improve their local quality of life for themselves, by developing a stronger sense of community responsibility.
I assume you mean you could have the homeless pick up the garbage left behind by the more wealthy homedwellers.
London 2012 has already attracted 100,000 people willing to volunteer during the Olympics.
Only because nobody can afford the tickets.
SoundMoney
22 October 2010 8:39AM
@angrygranny
I fear that with greatly reduced staffing levels in local government, we are going to descend into a state of anarchy.
At the time Birmingham got its City charter in the mid-19th century, the chief executive did it part time whilst working as a solicitor for a living, and he had a full time staff of three.
I'm not saying we should go back to sending kids up chimneys, but it is the largest Council employer in the country, at around 60,000 people.
Somewhere in the middle is a kind of sanity which will probably involve no rioting at all, and rather lower Council tax bills. 26,000 have been put on notice of possible redundancies.
stevejones123
22 October 2010 8:05AM
What you are saying is that you want a load of mugs to work for free so you can cut taxes on your better-off resicents.