29th March 2011

Protests against the cuts are understandable.

Most families will be affected. Whether it is children's services, services for the elderly or take home pay or redundancy, in most families someone will be affected.

According to the commentariat Local Authorities are protecting their own services and cutting grants to charities. In my paper this morning there was a table showing fifty services which are to be axed as a result of funding being lost.

Some local authorities are attempting to be strategic, thereby saving money on their own in-house management by streamlining back office functions, rationalising buildings and office use and even sharing Chief Executives.

Such strategic thinking and acting is preferred to salami slicing services.

But it occurs to me to ask why has the coalition allowed a situation to arise whereby the painful decisions have been sent down the line to be made after the financial settlements have been announced?

Forgetting for a moment, the no fly zone in Libya, the Irish bail out, the Japanese Tsunami, education policy and pensions; the two main thrusts of the coalitions policy is to reduce the national debt and promote the big society.

Labour apparently agrees that the debt should be reduced, but more slowly and is in a double bind because really the big society is a big socialist idea rather than a Tory one, so it is for it but only if it is dressed up as a slightly different version.

But if you have a plan that is that simple then why has it been so difficult to co-ordinate your policies to enable the plan to be implemented?

Tory Governments have historically had a problem with big City authorities, which are usually but not always, Labour controlled. That's one problem. The other is the increasing size of the 'third sector' as the charitable world likes to be known. Professional charities, with huge budgets and hundreds of staff are not always sympathetic to Tory Governments and the feeling is mutual.

What we need is to move this debate outside of the political arena and indeed outside of both party and sector interests too.

I have been to too many meetings in my time as both a Vicar and a Director of a Charity where either the great and good of the charity world have sat at the head of the table and politicians have been wheeled in, or political meetings where the heads of Charitable organisations have been quizzed by politicians.

Meetings like this are usually confrontational and unhelpful.

The truth is that there is enough money and we are a wealthy enough country to run our children's and elderly services, educate our young people to degree level above and invest in the future of the countries social and infrastructures.

But to listen to the rhetoric of politicians you wouldn't think so.

Since the eighties the tinkering by both parties has resulted in frustration as power has shifted from the centre to the local and back again.

We need to ask what are we trying to achieve?

What do we need to make it happen?

Who should pay?

Who is better placed to deliver the services we want?

How can they be supported?

To simply start by stripping out the money, cutting the budgets and raising the taxes doesn't really help anyone plan or deliver the services we need to keep society functioning at its optimum level to support the people who need support and ensure that all contribute to what has been called the 'common good'.

Central Government has its responsibilities and they are clear, national security lies at the heart of that responsibility alongside investment in national infrastructure. This will be an increasingly crucial task as the power and influence of the BRIC countries increases.

Local Government should have a strategic role in ensuring that local community services are delivered, people and businesses housed and supported and young people educated to the highest standards. Some regional balance will be needed if the biggest of our Cities, London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol are to take on the important regional role.

Charities can assist with some of this but always more effectively at the level of challenging people to become involved in their communities more locally.

The problem we have is a muddle that arisen from years of territorial battles with national government trespassing on local government territory, with the desperate attempt to impose an entirely artificial market economy and charities being viewed as a cheap alternative.

We need a national debate on what kind of society we want to become and how the common good can be achieved ...........