The Big Society

While it's quiet on the A4e front (though I've no doubt there's lots going on) let's consider the Big Society.

It has become clear what Cameron means by this. The aim is to get rid of the public sector altogether and replace it with, initially, organisations which are cheap because they use free labour on the front line; with co-operatives of former public sector workers which will soon be swallowed up or ousted by private companies; and with "social enterprises" which are very little different from private companies. Local authorities will be stripped of even more powers, and will dwindle away.

Is it giving power back to the people? Emphatically not. At the moment people have a right to services, which are paid for out of taxation. As Karl Marx said (and I'm not a Marxist!): To each according to his need, from each according to his ability. The Big Society means it will be pot luck whether you have any services at all, and those you have will be delivered for profit. There will, of course, be plenty of "volunteers" to keep things running; the redundant public sector workers.

Work, of various kinds

The noises coming out of the Conservative party conference suggest strongly that something like "Work for your Benefit" is on the cards. While that might satisfy a lot of voters, the question remains, as always, of what work the unemployed are supposed to do. Perhaps they will be the "volunteers" creating the Big Society. And that's something that A4e's Mark Lovell is keen to get the company involved with, having been in talks with Paul Twivy, a PR man who runs something called the Big Society Network. There's no reason, of course, why private companies shouldn't get involved, and they won't make money out of it, but for most of them it will be part of their PR strategy.

A4e has been at fringe meetings at both the Labour and Conservative conferences, as usual. And they've also been in Spain, where, the Financial Times reports, the government has started taking an interest in the unemployed and is talking to A4e "about what a programme to help the unemployed might look like."

A4e has another website called Tomorrow seeking contacts with employers who are faced with making people redundant. The language is somewhat startling, and the music on the home page very irritating. And shouldn't this be the role of Jobcentre Plus?

In the News

The difference between news and PR is always hard to discern with A4e, and there seems to be none at all today with a story in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph which is largely taken from A4e's own site. But hey, it's a good story. The brother of the Dragons' Den star Duncan Bannatyne, name of Bill, doesn't share his brother's good fortune. He had been working as a fork lift truck driver, but had been unemployed for a year and so was sent to A4e. The upshot is that he is now working - for A4e. The photo, on both sites, has the poster in the background with the cartoon Emma Harrison on it.

Emma herself was in Downing Street last week with other "philanthropic entrepreneurs" to discuss Cameron's "big society" obsession. According to the ICG site she was happy to endorse the project. "A4e (formally Action for Employment) is the prime contractor for government services like 'Flexible New Deal' and 'Education for Offenders' and have helped more than a million people in Britain back to work. 'Let us all accept that people have been helping people for ever - and that it gives us all a wonderful sense of purpose and is a thing that we can all do. It would build communities, friendships, self esteem, confidence and help people get back to work,' said Emma Harrison, who is also the founder of the charity Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI)." I wonder where that figure of "more than a million" comes from. Does it include the results of all the subcontractors?

It's the last of "The Fairy Jobmother" tonight, and the latest pearl of wisdom from Hayley is “The jobs are there. It’s being prepared to start at the bottom and work your way up. There’s something there for everyone if you’re prepared to work hard enough.” (The Herald). So if you can't find a job it's because you're not trying hard enough. Thanks, Hayley.