Monday Week 2 Chinese Lunar Year

Started Monday 14th February 2007
Words 431
S.I.= 86.2 %

Big Day for the Big Society


Big Society is going to be prominent not only today but also in the coming weeks and months.  The BBC have been running a few stories today with Big Society as the theme.  David Cameron is announcing the next part of the vision of how we transform the fundamental way that we run the society of Britain.

Announced today will be the all important framework of how the Big Society in action may be funded.  A £300 million fund or bank for social entrepreneurship is to be announced.  This may not sound very much but it is a start.  We have to remember that a lot of the function of the National Lottery before the Olympics was won for London was to help local charities and groups.  The micro-management culture of central government has affected the accessability of small groups to this money.  I have had many conversations with local groups who have basically given up applying because the criteria and time involved to access funds is beyond volunteers.  The money pool will hopefully expand as the Olympic projects reach completion, the contractors are paid, and more importantly "snagging" of the finished work is carried out without extra costs that appear to be outside the terms of reference (hopefully PFIs have not been used as an example of good contractual practice).
  
I find the idae of an ISA quite an "exciting" concept.  I have put thoughts on this in my blog 2pointfiveageofman.net.  I will certainly invest in this ISA but it would be even more supportive if the normal ISA was also available so there was a double tax benefit.

Public spending cuts are perceived as a  threat to this process. We have many competing service providers in my local town.  A gym has just been created in a local school that allegedly will have state of the art gym,  it is not apparrent who their customers may be or who pays yet.  The local authority may be competing against itself or another level of local government who has established a outsourced gym provider for the town.  In the   light of crossing patrol people being made redundant I do wonder about the priorities of the people involved and the number of competing entities that seem to be chasing the same people.  The price may not be cheaper since the excuse for price levels is  that this is the market rate because everybody else is charging the same.    

This week 40th Anniversary of Decimalisation.