David Cameron's recipe for civic renewal

ConservativeHome struggled to understand Tony Blair's Telegraph article of Saturday in which he confessed that his approach to incivility had been wrong but then offered confusing ways forward.  Responding on the same editorial pages today David Cameron writes that it is obvious that the Prime Minister still doesn't 'get it':

• He still believes that public investment is the solution - "He believes that state initiatives and taxpayers' cash can ''cure'' the "nature of society". Anyone who still believes either that Mr Blair is a ''closet Tory'', or that I am anything other than a Conservative, should stick that quotation on their fridge door." Quite.
• He believes that crime and incivility are concentrated in a few hands and these hands need the interventions of the nanny state.  David Cameron is excoriating: "I find it extraordinary that Mr Blair could go from thinking incivility was a widespread social phenomenon in 1992, to a limited and localised one in 2007. Maybe this is what happens after 10 years as Prime Minister. Rarely travelling on public transport, constantly told what you want to hear, only aware of the most sensational breaches of public order, Mr Blair has missed one of the most pronounced and important social changes of our times.  The decline in civility is not confined to a few unruly families and neighbourhoods. It is all around us - on buses and trains, in shops and on the street."

At the end of his article, the Conservative leader identifies some of the policies that he will introduce to lead a revolution in social responsibility.  They are listed below with ConservativeHome reactions in italics:

1. Reforming the benefits system: Haven't seen much policy here although it is vital that the benefit system encourages the two pillars of any strong society - work and marriage.
2. Recognising marriage in the tax system: ConservativeHome strongly supports this policy and hopes that it won't be a mouse of a commitment when it is announced.  Only a large allowance will signify intent.  It's also important that the party realises that a tax allowance does not make enough of a family policy.  There need to be the kind of Healthy Marriage support services that are run by the voluntary sector but are supported by taxpayers' money.  We also need action on debt and other measures that will increase the strength of families.  Giving parents freedom to choose their children's own school would be a good start but we're unlikely to see that policy revived.
3. Freeing police from central bureaucracy: Nick Herbert MP's policy is one of the most encouraging of the party's initiatives and will be vital in turning the tide on criminality that preys so disproportionately on the vulnerable.  Other encouraging aspects of the Conservative law and order agenda include investment in drug rehabilitation and a double commitment to more imprisonment and more rehabilitation.
4. Long-term contracts for voluntary and social enterprises: This language is worrying.  Talk of contracts echoes the Labour-voluntary sector relationship.  Much of the establishment voluntary sector has an ethos that is indistinguishable from the public sector - partly because of long-term contracts that have come at the price of a dilution of essential difference and have filled many voluntary sector HQs with ex-local and central government staffers.  David Cameron rightly praises the smaller and more community-rooted charities and enterprises.  They are the future of poverty-fighting but they do not need the bear hug of the state.  They need new forms of funding that ensure that they can grow without their effective ethos being compromised.  Finding these forms of funding will be a primary test of Iain Duncan Smith's social justice policy group.

Three other members of Team Cameron who are pursuing excellent policies in this whole area are Michael Gove - working on affordable housing; John Hayes - raising the standing of skills and vocational education; and David Willetts with his enquiry into the pressures of modern childhood.

Comments

[Alan S]

This agenda ain't going to take off Tim. You, IDS, Steve Hilton and David Cameron seem to be the only four people in the party who get REALLY excited about "social responsibility".

[Gadfly]

Alan S,

Even if you are right you show in that comment the reason for this agenda. To get elected, you must reach out to the voters who are not members of the Conservative Party. By the way, the agenda has taken off, why else do you think Blair, Straw and other Labour politicians are also moving onto the social responsibility ground? They understand the power of the language, even if you don't.

[Mark Fulford]

Editor, I think you're wrong to be worried by "contracts" for voluntary and social enterprises.

These enterprises cannot make long-term plans because their government funding is currently short-term. I think that David Cameron's specific reference to "long-term contracts" is saying that he realises that short-term, hand-to-mouth funding is no good.

[Editor]

That's pretty fair comment, Mark. Big voluntary organisations doing long-term work need certainty. My belief is that the most exciting work is done by smaller and more innovative groups, however. Vouchers, matched funding, tax relief, endowments and asset transfer arrangements are all more likely to give them the resources to grow and not lose their founding ethos. The more that funding mechanisms ensure that larger groups also have to stay close to their communities and 'service users' the better, too.

[TomTom]

I think you're wrong to be worried by "contracts" for voluntary and social enterprises.

They will of course have to tender under EU procurement rules.

They will need to meet Diversity and Equality agendas under EU Directives

They will need to file reports with the Home Office annually to meet obligations to be representative of the communities they serve by actively recruiting ethnic minorities and fulfilling a diversity quota in terms of gender and sexual orientation

These are the statutory obligations for any groups receiving public funding....

They should simply become organs of the State since that is in effect what Barnardos is now that 66% funding comes from the Government

[Richard]

"He believes that crime and incivility are concentrated in a few hands and these hands need the interventions of the nanny state."

David Fraser calculated in A Land Fit For Criminals that most crime in this country was committed by a hardcore of about 200,000 people. Hardly a "few". The only intervention they need is a prison cell.

"These enterprises cannot make long-term plans because their government funding is currently short-term."

The whole idea of government funding for charities is risky - it makes them dependent on the government for handouts and does nothing to shrink the size of the state. As conservatives we should be encouraging the independence of the institutions of civil society, not making them tentacles of the state. Smaller state = stronger "little platoons". Voluntary organisations cease to become voluntary when they are funded by cash that is raised via the coercive mechanism of taxation. I want to give money to charity voluntarily, not be forced to by the taxman.

[Alex Swanson]

I suppose it's stupid to ask "Can people have their handguns back now".

Even Labour's Home Office admits there's no evidence that the handgun ban made anybody safer. We're going to hold the Olympics here in 2012, will we still have a law in force making an Olympic sport illegal?

Dave claims that he trusts ordinary people, let's have the definitive proof.

[George Hinton]

The problem with this country is that everyone knows their RIGHTS, but no-one has a clue as to how to act responsbily and socially inter-react with peers.
Regrettably this is not something that can be laid at the door of NuLab, but rather a malaise that has been on-going in this country for decades. What can be laid at the door of NuLab is their abject failure to do anything. As we have all recognised, NuLab are good at the rhetoric but crap at the actual delivery point.
Should NuLab be decimated in the local elections and in Wales and Scotland, then I for one would advocate a coup d'etat, to force through immediate elections in England. It might well be appropiate for some NuLab types to stand trial, lying to Parliament as the catch-all charge.

[Mark Fulford]

Voluntary organisations cease to become voluntary when they are funded by cash that is raised via the coercive mechanism of taxation.

Where social enterprise is doing a job that would otherwise fall to the state, it’s not charity for the state to pay the cost. And because the social enterprise is usually doing it better and cheaper than the state (reducing the size of the state), it’s downright daft to let the enterprise go bust though lack of funds.

The existence, need and value of a charity should not be decided by how popular it is. It would also be wrong to decide that because an organisation receives some charity, it should survive on charity alone. We, the general public, are more inclined to give to animal welfare than, for example, to adolescent rehabilitation. By giving long-term funding to C-Far we would be reducing the size of the state, saving money, and giving young offenders a better chance.

[Sean Fear]

There is a risk though, Mark, that once organisations become largely dependent on State funding, they just become arms of the State.

Housing Associations are a good example of this. My father sits on the board of an association which is entirely self-funding. To qualify for public funding, they would have to demonstrate that their ability to fulfill all sorts of social objectives stipulated by the government. Wisely, IMHO, they don't go for public funding.

[Richard]

"The existence, need and value of a charity should not be decided by how popular it is."

That's the whole point of charity! Voluntary donations by private individuals or corporations. Not Mr Whitehall chappie saying "you must fund X, now cough up".

"We, the general public, are more inclined to give to animal welfare than, for example, to adolescent rehabilitation."

Probably because we know or assume that the state takes care of the latter.

David Cameron says he believes in trusting the people. How about trusting us to voluntarily fund social enterprises and rebuild the sorts of institutions that the welfare state undermined or destroyed (voluntary hospitals, Friendly Societies, private schools for the poor etc).

[Michael McGowan]

Doesn't it depend how the state funds the charity? Gift Aid is one of the few areas where the state actually trusts the taxpayer to make the decision as to which charity to fund from the public purse. I am amazed that Labour haven't abolished it because the taxpayer tells the Government which charity to fund, not vice-versa.

[Editor]

More Gift Aid type mechanisms are exactly what we need, Michael.

[TomTom]

Doesn't it depend how the state funds the charity? Gift Aid is one of the few areas where the state actually trusts the taxpayer to make the decision as to which charity to fund from the public purse.

Did I miss something ? Wasn't there are country somewhere near us which has Susie Leather, formerly of the Food Standards Agency, the HFEA, and Labour Party member, currently chairing The Charities Commission and investigating what social benefits spring from charitable status for Independent Schools and other Voluntary-Aided Organisations ?

Maybe that is not the country just to the left of France and Belgium.....

[Mark Fulford]

Gift Aid is one of the few areas where the state actually trusts the taxpayer to make the decision as to which charity to fund from the public purse.

Ever since a grand-aunt bequeathed her entire not-so-small fortune to a donkeys' home, I don't trust anyone with charity! But I take some consolation that it wasn't gift-aided money - imagine if she'd coughed-up from the public purse too.

However, we're on a diversion from the important question: how does the state enable social enterprises to provide alternatives (and therefore competition) to state-run social services (such as offender rehab)?

Clearly, funding has to be part of the solution and I welcome David Cameron's understanding that this has to be long-term. Having heard David Cameron talk on the subject, he definitely also understands that it's essential for government to maintain a light touch and I'm sure that, in due course, he'll answer TomTom et al's reasonable concern on this.

[Mark Wadsworth]

Re points 1 and 2, please read a decent book on this (Patricia Morgan or Jill Kirby) and familiarise yourselves with the DWP's Tax and Benefit Model Taxbles, and then think about whether a universal benefit/flat tax system might not be the least-worst answer (subject to a minimum legal residence period of five or ten years).

Even James Bartholomew, author of The Welfare State We're In seems to have come round to this point of view.

Scrapping the entire welfare and tax credits system (except disability, housing and old-age related stuff), paying everybody current Income Support rates (children to get a flat £34 per week) and taxing all income at a flat 33% (incl. national insurance) would be broadly fiscally neutral (of course if you want you can trade in your notional benefit entitlement for a doubled tax-free personal allowance if you so wish).

Oh, and the CSA ought to enforce payments by absent parents as well.

That's that problem solved. Next.

[John Moss]

The problem with these sentiments is that they sound OK, but in practice, the only way you get out of the trap Blair fell in to - namely the decision of who gets to provide, still resting with the state - is to fund directly the users of services.

This puts people in charge of which "third sector" provider they go to for their healthcare or their child's education. Indeed, it puts them in charge even if they want to go off to Stelios and "EasySchool.Com". (Now there's a brand sure to be popular, at least with children).

I'm afriad that means education vouchers and social insurance based funding for healthcare. Unless you grasp this nettle, you just cannot, credibly, explain how the laudible desire for organisations outside the state to be involved in service delivery can work, without it turning into the Blairite "capture" of the voluntary sector which we see happenning right now, or worse still, being tarred with the "devil take the hindmost" brush.

[James Maskell]

Social responsibility involves an element of moral obligation. Cameron hasnt said much of how he would try to re-introduce it. Without moral obligation, people wont bother acting to be socially responsible. Moral obligation is key to it as it links to a whole range of other issues which Cameron campaigns on.

[Mark Wadsworth]

John Moss hits nail on head. If you give people education and health vouchers, then there is no need for any spurious contracts between provider and State. Let the people decide!

James Maskell, "moral obligation" is the same as allowing people to take responsibility for themselves, i.e. not having a welfare system that actively encourages "voluntary poverty" and irresponsibility. Again, read Patricia Morgan's recent book for the IEA.

[Mark Fulford]

"If you give people education and health vouchers..."

Mr Young Offender, here's your voucher...

Miss Vulnerable Child, here's your voucher...

Mrs Addict, here's your voucher...

I can't see it, myself.

[Mark Wadsworth]

Mark F - Let me clarify, maybe I should have said "there would be no need for contracts between State and providers of health or education short of the State ensuring certain standards are met".

Apart from that, I don't really see what point you are trying to make...

If Mr Young Offender doesn't want to go to school or go the doctor, I see no sensible way of forcing him. Likewise Miss Addict.

If Miss VC's parents can't be bothered to send her to school or to the doctor, I see no way of forcing them.

...so?