Whitehall pores over ‘big society’ bill in bid to avoid rerun of NHS fiasco

White paper to reflect David Cameron’s desire to open up public services to private companies The government is preparing to publish its long-awaited and fiercely contested public services reform white paper and has begun to circulate the finished document – dubbed the “big society bill” – around Whitehall. After intense debate, the legislation, which has been delayed for five months, is earmarked for publication next month and is intended to steady the course of the government’s reform programme after its plans for the NHS were waylaid. In the next few weeks, the legislation will be stress-tested across Whitehall to try to prevent it being beset by the kind of problems surrounding the controversial NHS bill. The “open public services” bill will combine policies that have already been embarked on, including: • An emphasis on personal budgets for social care and healthcare, which allow an individual to spend their funding how they see fit – a measure introduced by the Labour government. In social care, 30% of all patients are on personal budgets and this was already due to reach 100% by 2013. In healthcare, pilots have been under way to roll personal budgets out to patients, which the white paper is likely to accelerate. • Parents of children with special needs can make their own decisions about schooling. • Elderly people can choose how money is spent on their care. • Parish councils can take control of parks, playing fields, parking and traffic restrictions – all mechanisms intended to start to enact David Cameron’s “big society” agenda. A report by the thinktank ResPublica , published on Sunday in the Observer, claimed the big society was failing children, with parks and play schemes closing across the country. The bill’s delay from February has partly been attributed to the need to divert resources to the troubled NHS bill, and partly to ideological differences within government. Cameron laid out his vision for public services in February, saying private companies could have a right to challenge state providers and bid to do the work. He pledged the “decisive end of the old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you’re-given model of public services”, but came up against opposition from Liberal Democrats. Before Cameron’s article on public service reform, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg delivered the Guardian public services speech in which he appeared to rule out allowing this to happen saying: “There will be no for-profit providers in our publicly funded schools system.” Since then, Cameron’s director of strategy, Steve Hilton, has been pushing to see his vision implemented fully but his task has been made more difficult by George Osborne, who has been urging caution. It is now thought that the white paper will reflect Cameron and Hilton’s desire to open up provision. A government source said: “The truth is, we’ve already been very radical, for instance on education and welfare, but this will build on that – coming out, we hope, just before recess.” Returning to another of his favourite themes, Cameron marked Father’s Day with a trenchant criticism of runaway dads, saying they should be stigmatised in the same way as drink-drivers. In another front of the big society, the education secretary, Michael Gove, will announce on Monday the progress being made in setting up more free schools. In the application round that closed on 15 June, the Department for Education received 281 applications to set up free schools from September 2012. Of the 281 free school applications received, the current analysis shows that 227 are for mainstream schools and of these applications, 77 (34%) are for primary schools; 81 (36%) for secondary schools; 65 (29%) are for all-through schools and four (2%) are for 16-19 schools. The figures show 5% of applications came from existing academy providers and 56% from local groups. The figures will show that the percentage of applications from independent schools wishing to move into the state sector decreased in this application round, at just 18% of the 227 applications, compared with 35% last year. The percentage of schools characterising themselves as faith schools has also fallen – 29% compared with 40% last year. Gove will claim the applicants say they want to set up schools for a number of reasons – including a basic shortage of school places, to support the most deprived children or to provide a good new local school to address historic academic failure. Speaking ahead of his speech to Policy Exchange, Gove said: “Our critics said it was impossible to open a school in little more than a year. Several will open this September. They told us that schools wouldn’t want to become academies. They are converting at a rate of two every school day.” Ed Miliband reiterated his call for “your neighbour is my neighbour” responsibility across society in a Sunday newspaper interview. “It is not just about earning and owning … but it is also about the fabric of our society,” he said. “What kind of country do we want to create for our kids? Public services policy Public sector cuts David Cameron Public finance Economic policy Economics Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk

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