Our friends and allies at the National Coalition for Independent Action have just produced their July Newsletter. As ever it is stocked full of news, information, opinion and gossip. It opens bloody-mindedly:

My anger levels are rising again. What is this thing with authority? It seems like we only need to told by the ‘people in charge’ to stick our heads in buckets of water, than we eagerly apply our resources to getting the heads in, efficiently, effectively and with outcomes that can be accredited by the Charities Evaluation Service. So it is with the current buzz of discourse in the wonderful world of voluntary action. On the one hand the ‘Big Society’ is being treated as if it is… well, something…. A plan, an idea, a strategy, a programme, hhmm?? People at local level think they ought to be talking about it, grappling with how to respond to something that, mysteriously, becomes illusory. At national level, there’s a lot of hot air, and an awful lot of bandwagoning, by those who want to protect their interests, and be at the front of the queue when the contracts (what contracts?) are given out. But what if the ‘Big Society’ is a back-of-the-envelope electoral invention, or even worse a deceit (they don’t really believe in what they say) or a falsehood (they’re not going to do it anyway) or, most likely, incompetence (they don’t know what they’re talking about)? Where does that leave us?

And in what appears to be a parallel universe, we’re, at the same time, helping the Government and local state shred public services, accelerate their continued privatisation, reduce living standards (disproportionately poor to rich), and increase pressure on voluntary and community groups coping with the consequences. Doesn’t sound very ‘Big Society’ to me; more like ‘Big Cuts’. But the ‘we’re-all-in-it-together’ message appears to have got through. We have national voluntary second tier agencies advertising the government website where we can nominate our own, personally recommended, cuts. It’s almost like it’s a bit of a laugh.

NCIA newsletter No.17 July 2010

The second paragraph’s concern resonates with a growing feeling  that the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services and its local counterparts are queuing up eagerly to take over and run the remains of local authority youth work. Those following the West Sussex situation via the webcasts of council meetings will have witnessed the Children and Young People’s Services’ management colluding with the weary neo-liberal mantra that cuts provide exciting opportunities to be imaginative. In a turn of phrase hailed by a Tory councillor as profound, a certain Stuart Gallimore responded to Doug Nicholl’s articulate outline of the achievements of previous initiatives within West Sussex  by saying, ‘That was then, this is now!’ In the acronym peddled by New Labour, ‘TINA’, ‘There is No Alternative’! Meanwhile in the wings,  Hannah Moore, Chief Executive of the West Sussex CVYS, in a contribution of clichéd confusion, appeared to harbour no qualms about ‘creatively’ filling in the gaps opened up by the proposed budget reductions. In some mystical wave of the ‘new managerial’ wand, regardless of resources, things will keep on getting better. Ironically the West Sussex councillors were underwhelmed and decided to hold a further meeting at the end of July to explore the consequences of the proposed cuts and the new partnership deals. We’ll keep you posted.