David Cameron to relaunch troubled ‘big society’ project

Downing Street acknowledges that it has struggled to explain the idea to voters who appear not to have digested the message David Cameron will launch his troubled “big society” for the fourth time on Monday as he describes the project as being more than a “fluffy add-on” for a government with greater ambitions than imposing the toughest spending cuts in a generation. Following an admission by the minister responsible for running the big society project that the government had failed to explain it, the prime minister will say the initiative runs through all the government’s public service reforms. It also explains why he wants to build a “stronger society” with families at its heart. Cameron will say: “You learn about responsibility and how to live in harmony with others. Strong families are the foundation of a bigger, stronger society. This isn’t some romanticised fiction. It’s a fact. There’s a whole body of evidence that shows how a bad relationship between parents means a child is more likely to live in poverty, fail at school, end up in prison or be unemployed in later life.” Downing Street acknowledges that it has struggled to explain to voters the big society, the central theme of last year’s general election campaign. It is intended to devolve power and to foster a greater sense of responsibility by loosening the role of the state. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister who runs the project, admitted on Sunday the government had struggled to sell its message. “We may have failed to articulate it clearly and we’ll carry on explaining as best as we can,” Maude told Radio 4′s The World This Weekend. “I think people understand what is meant when we explain it and think that it is all a good idea.” Cameron will try to rejuvenate the big society as he attempts to show his government has bigger goals than simply “balancing the books”. He will say: “The big society is not some fluffy add-on to more gritty and important subjects. This is about as gritty and important as it gets: giving everyone the chance to get on and making our country a better place to live.” The prime minister will announce a series of concrete steps to illustrate his point: • A white paper on giving will be unveiled on Monday to encourage charitable donations. The Link cash machine network has reached agreement with banks that use its service to allow customers, who make 10m transactions a day, to donate through its machines from 2012. Paperwork for gift aid donations up to £5,000 will be removed and the rate of inheritance tax for estates that leave 10% or more to charity will be reduced. • The Whitehall green book, which is used to assess the costs and benefits of different government policies, will be amended to take account of their social impact. • Cabinet ministers will devote at least one day a year to volunteering. Cameron will say: “Too many people think that’s the limit of our ambitions, that all we care about is balancing the books. Wrong. I want to balance the books so we can achieve things I really care about.” The giving white paper will say charitable donations have “flatlined” in recent years and the poorest in society are, in relative terms, more generous than wealthier people. The white paper says: “Donors in the poorest income brackets give more as proportion of their income than those in middle-income households and the wealthiest. We think there’s significant potential for the better-off to give more.” Cameron will say the government is modernising public services in the spirit of the big society as he defends Michael Gove’s plans to expand academies and Andrew Lansley’s plans to hand greater commissioning powers to GPs, though he will acknowledge the NHS reforms are subject to a pause. He will say: “We’re not introducing free schools and expanding academies because it’s a way of saving money from the schools budget. We’re doing it because it’s the best way to improve education. More choice for parents. More freedom for professionals to innovate. A greater ability for new providers to come forward. It is the big society way to improve education. “In our health service, we’re not giving patients more control and doctors more professional freedom because we want to save money. We’re doing it because it’s the best way to improve the NHS.”Cameron will show the influence of the New York Times columnist David Brooks whose new book, The Social Animal, highlights the importance of social networks. He will say: “In the past, the left focused on the state and the right focused on the market. We’re harnessing that space in between – society – the ‘hidden wealth’ of our nation.” David Cameron Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 22, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.