Mike joined the charity as Chief Executive in 1999 and since then has overseen an expansion of services from Canterbury to across Kent. He is actively involved in the supported housing sector and Chairs both the East Kent Homelessness Forum and the Executive Board of Providers. Email Mike
Big Society is causing confusion
Blog entry August 10
We have known since mid-2008 that the public sector and the poorest in our society would pay for the economic downturn, but I don’t think we appreciated to what extent. The October Comprehensive Spending Review announcement is awaited with trepidation. The odd thing is that we are not even being allowed a period of self-delusion. The announcements are coming thick and fast.
The changes to the Housing Benefit system that will form part of the spending review are amongst some of the most worrying. Why? Because they are a mix of the unavoidable austerity measures and ideological approach. Some commentators have said that the impact of the proposals will amount to social cleansing, pushing those on high levels of Housing Benefit out of highly priced accommodation into the poorer areas. These areas are already overflowing with the problems associated with poverty, homelessness, criminality and social exclusion.
It is difficult to see a way of planning for an increase in demand when funding is being cut and people on JSA (Job Seeker’s Allowance) are going to be forced into rent arrears through a 10% benefit reduction after the first twelve months of their claim. One of the governments’ senior DWP ministers said in the House of Commons recently, that the jobs created in the voluntary (civil society) and public sectors were not real jobs and that was one of the main reasons for reviewing the Future Jobs Fund (a fund which allowed us to create employment opportunities for the long term unemployed and socially excluded). It was also stated that it is the private sector that needs to create the (real) jobs and drive us out of recession. Interesting from two perspectives; firstly it is somewhat disconcerting at best and patronising at worst to hear the government rubbish our chosen careers; secondly and more importantly to hear the self-delusional rhetoric inherent in the “plan” for the private sector to provide the jobs. The jobs do not exist, if they do they are, in the main, low paid and the people filing them will require state subsidy to acquire and keep a roof over their heads. This will in turn keep the poorest areas poor. So the cycle of deprivation, poverty and homelessness continues, making these areas fertile ground for the loan shark, drug dealer and other forms of organised crime.
Organisations like Porchlight are looking to identify their place in this new landscape. The much heralded “Big Society” has been launched, but as yet it is difficult to interpret how we as a charity, serving some of the most excluded and unprotected people in our society, will work within this proposed framework. One thing is clear however, we (the sector) need to put service users at the front and facilitate a transfer power from state to community. The only way this is going to happen is if we transfer the power we hold to the people we serve and act as a guide through the current mine field of bureaucratic in-fighting and confusion that currently exists.
