There are 3 item(s) tagged with the keyword "Big Society".
Some of the unsung heroes in the aftermath of the riots of earlier this week were the street cleansing crews who returned city centres to some semblance of normality with maximum efficiency and the minimum of fuss. Whilst senior political figures were quick to praise the public response with brooms and bin bags and cite it as an example of the ‘Big Society’, in reality many were turned away as local authority crews had been out from 5.30am and dealt with much of the clean up by the time the public actually arrived.
Much like Colin Firth’s character in the film the King’s Speech, it has taken David Cameron some time to find his voice on his true intentions for the future of public services.
In his recent Daily Telegraph article, he stopped hiding behind Big Society and Localism rhetoric and spoke clearly about something a number of us had long suspected – that he wants a much greater role for the private sector in the delivery of public services.
The Coalition government is formed; the ministerial team are in place and the age old political strategy of blaming the previous incumbents for the finances being worse than initially thought ‘now we have actually seen the books’, has been deployed. So what does this mean for local government? Sadly, budget cuts on a major scale.