The State of the Nation's Charities: Ed Miliband caught me smoking

Last week The Rt. Hon Ed Miliband M.P. Minister of the Cabinet Office, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told 650 people I smoked. My humiliation knows no bounds. Ed also said, he respected and trusted our sector he wanted government and the Third Sector to be partners in change and encouraged us to “bite the hand that feeds us”. Frankly all things considered I don’t care about that, the man told 650 of I hope my peers that I smoked.

Despite my ritual humiliation, the NCVO conference on Civil Society last week should be a major wake-up call for the Third Sector. The Conference gave me great hope for the future and a sense that if the Third Sector play our cards right, at last our sector will join the top table.

Ed Miliband’s keynote and Oliver Letwin’s closing speech at the NCVO conference left me in no doubt that the Labour and Conservative Parties view our sectors potential relationship with them quite differently.

As a Minister, Ed is a thoughtful, compelling and honest advocate for the Third Sector. The chap gets us. Mr Miliband spoke of The Government and the Third Sector being partners and not rivals, that our relationship should be founded on mutual respect and the challenges we will be facing concerning social justice. It seems to me that Ed is justifiably challenged by many of the most pressing social issues of this country and in intellectual and policy terms, is genuinely seeking to re-define the relationship Government has with our sector. Ed in my opinion is a big time supporter of devolved, grass roots interventions, putting it crudely a power to the people sort of guy. A Government of facilitators and of funders, working to encourage social change. But most importantly a Government charged with creating the political and policy catalysts that will tackle so many of our quintessentially 21st Century problems. Social Change by citizens for citizens sort of thing.

Being frank, Oliver Letwin also seems to mean business. The Conservatives are searching for a new philosophical framework to build what they consider a new social consensus. Three times over the last month I have heard senior Tories talk about Edmond Burke. David Cameron told a room full of journalists two weeks ago that he “travels back to Burke” when searching for the politics of social change. Some may consider this the same old same old from the Tories, Burke being the Father of Modern Conservatism and all that. The Conservatives however are thinking big, their social consensus agenda will go big on personal liberty and will I should imagine focus on the tyranny of the “brutal mob” (those that are perceived to be perpetrating anti-social behaviour) and how the a Tory government and its authority / authorities  can turn back the tide.

These are two very different views of the world; one of these views will dominate the next 10 years of the Third Sectors existence. We do have a trump card though as I hope very senior politicians such as Ed Miliband and Letwin understand that without the Third Sector the social fabric of this nation would disintegrate. It would leave The Government, any Government bewildered and pretty much impotent. Knowing this to be true, what power our sector could wield if only we acted in unison.

Ed as you are writing the Labour manifestos for the next election and you turned up and so eloquently set out your stall, please expect a rush of expectation from the Sector and rightly so, for decades, indeed centuries, this sector has done what I heard one delegate call “our nation’s dirty work”. Toiled to carve out a good society, a civilised society, we are the backbone of this nation’s civil society.

To the Third Sector, we must set out our stall and that stall must be a united stall. On that note I am off for a cigarette!

Sport: its a rich man's world

Today, StreetGames is launched. StreetGames is a new national charity set up to bring sport to the doorstep of young people who are currently outside sport but want to get involved. From the streets of Liverpool to the beaches of Cornwall we have shown that our approach can empower young people and help breed respect, cooperation and dignity in disadvantaged communites.

A new Street Games pamphlet explains that particpation in sport is profoundly skewed by class. Roughly, the top 20% of the population are twice as likely to particpate in sport as the bottom 20%. In a basket of sports (which excludes football and boxing) the top 20% are 4 times as likely to make it to elite level as the bottom 20%.

Governement strategy is to improve school sport, get that base right and then move onto sending coaches into the community. That's fine - its vital we continue to improve school sport and get more coaches into communities. Deprived estates have fewer clubs than the suburbs.

StreetGames is looking for supporters and patrons. Could you help?

Labour and the family

Hello all,

I am delighted to be able to join the Progress blog. I think its very important that everyone participates in the debate on the future direction of the Labour Party as we seek to renew ahead of the next general election. This website is already proving to be an excellent forum for party members to discuss ideas.

Yesterday, I made a speech on the importance for Labour to focus on supporting strong, stable families in the years ahead. The speech was part of the government's Social Exclusion week, which has been led by Cabinet Office Minister Hilary Armstrong.

The family has been uncomfortable territory for the centre-left after decades in which the right have used talking about the family to stigmatise lone parents and rail against changing modern families. There are indeed difficult questions for us as we consider new ways to support families in the years ahead, but I think its essential that we do confront those questions head on.

I would really appreciate your thoughts on my speech.

Thanks,

John Hutton, Work and Pensions Secretary

Early intervention is the key to the government's plans for tackling social exclusion

Yesterday was a really significant day for all of us in the Labour movement. Significant because at an event in the morning, at the Bromley-by-Bow Centre, we launched the government’s Social Exclusion Action Plan. I was joined by Patricia Hewitt, Ruth Kelly, Beverly Hughes, and Pat McFadden to launch the document, which stands testament to this government’s determination to extend the opportunities presented by life in the UK today to those who are in danger of being left behind.

I really do hope you will take some time to read the document for yourself and post you thoughts here, I’ll check back later in the week to hear what you’ve got to say.

So far you’ve probably only heard some of the more sensational interpretations offered by the media, like the so-called ‘baby ASBOs’. What’s sad about those headlines is that it missed the point of what is a really important aspect of our approach to tackling social exclusion; early intervention. This means that we want to get in early to offer individuals and families who have the potential to slip into harmful patterns of behaviour the targeted and tailored support that will help them to fully exploit their own potential. As a Labour government, we can’t stand by if a child’s life-chances are being written off in the first two years of their life.

We are talking about a very small percentage of the population, less than 2.5, and in order to fully engage them we will have to be bold, determined, and persistent. It won’t be easy, and at times we will have to take tough decisions. Some people simply don’t trust the state and go out of their way to avoid it. This could be for understandable reasons, but we must find ways of engaging with them too. This is where use of the charitable and voluntary sector will be a key factor in our work.

The Tories think what we’re proposing is an example of the ‘nanny state’, and that we should leave voluntary organisations to deal with social exclusion. I say that this government will leave nobody behind and will never shirk from our responsibility to share the benefits of the social and economic progress since 1997 equitably.

I’ve been struck by how often we express our outrage, amongst ourselves and in the media, about the extreme wealth and privilege handed down from one generation to the next by those at the very top of the income scale. But the research clearly shows that deprivation and under-achievement is equally inter-generational. Thousands of people in our country will literally inherit a life with countless obstacles and barriers to taking advantage of the opportunities most of us take for granted. The Social Exclusion Action Plan launched today is our attempt to break this cycle once and for all.

I started my professional life as a social worker, back in the 1970’s. The people I worked with back then, and the lessons I learned, have remained at the forefront of my mind throughout the process of pulling the Action Plan together. It’s important to remember that underneath all of the grind and gossip that is politics in the media age, there remain plenty of people who are motivated by a desire for real change for the better, and that moving into politics is an extension of work in the and for communities. I hope that the Action Plan we launched today will help you remain focussed on why we are here in government, why we’re working so hard after almost a decade, and why the country needs a Labour government more than ever before.