Only "minority" support for same-sex marriage

This letter appears in today's Derby Telegraph:

Only "minority" support for same-sex marriage

THE law and most people accept that should a same-sex couple wish to live together then they should and indeed are able to do so ("We are winning the fight against anti-gay army", Narvel Annable, Opinions, March 13).

The question that raises so many objections is the term "marriage".

This country is (still) predominantly Christian and the definition of marriage within the Christian church is one that may only be undertaken between a man and a woman. Rightly so, as procreation is a significant part of marriage.

Mr Annable then states that as the three main party leaders support same-sex marriage this represents two-thirds of the population! They may represent two-thirds of voters but these are a minority of the population due to the majority having no trust in politicians.

These are the same politicians who deny the people of this nation a referendum on such issues as EU membership, human rights, immigration, the NHS, law and order and illegal wars.

Rod Clulow

Blagreaves Lane

Littleover

Big society isn't new, but the Tories are purging the past

From today's Guardian:

Big society isn't new, but the Tories are purging the past

David Cameron thinks he has nothing to learn from Labour. The hard-won experience of creating community is being lost

by Polly Toynbee

On Monday, David Cameron will again try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on his "big society". It took another near-death blow from this week's report by the Commission on Big Society, which found 78% of voters say they have no idea what it means. What began as a clever replacement of Margaret Thatcher's notorious "no such thing as society" has eluded both popular imagination and real-life substance. Lord Wei, its standard bearer, has retreated somewhat. His inability to define it flummoxed officials, as he issued nothing but stirring anecdotes of good citizens – of whom, thankfully, there have always been many. The Third Sector Research Centre says a steady 25% of people volunteer at least once a month, with twice as many in prosperous areas.

But 5 May 2010 was Year Zero to Cameron's government. Nothing good ever happened before, with nothing to learn from the last decade. Soviet-style, the past is eradicated. The very names of policies that worked well have been airbrushed from the record. For there is nothing new about the big society. Labour embraced communitarian ideas, influenced by Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone call for social capital in an atomised society, and with Richard Sennett's call for mutual respect in poor communities. Neighbourhood renewal schemes were a hallmark of Labour policy, but you would think Labour's "V" initiative for young volunteering or Volunteering England never existed.

Instead, here come the National Citizens Service and a new bank holiday for volunteering – though the commission's report found 80% unlikely to use their day for community activity. Around 2,500 community organisers are to be trained – but the contract was carefully not given to Citizens UK because it is too good at this, and in danger of organising against the cuts. Meanwhile, Timebank, mobiliser of 300,000 volunteers, has been axed by civil society minister Nick Hurd – a great surprise. I chaired its 10th anniversary debate where Hurd praised it to the skies and tweeted a congratulation for "countering the cynicism of the big society". But even it fell in the purge.

Next week I'm summoned to give evidence to the public administration select committee's hearings on the big society. Of course, I'll start by saying it's A Good Thing: whose heart isn't warmed by volunteers improving their own and others' lives? But Cameron's big society words are hollow when he strips the voluntary sector bare. Peter Kyle, acting head of Acevo, the charity CEOs association, says £1.4bn government funding has been cut from charities this year, rising to £3.1bn by 2013 – replaced with a paltry £100m "transition fund". Thousands of applications rushed in and each charity had to prove it had suffered at least a 30% government cut.

In search of big society ideas, I will urge the committee to look at the New Deal for Communities, the boldest initiative ever tried. This week I visited Aston Pride, the NDC that topped the 39 schemes Labour created in the nation's worst areas. Each was given about £50m to spend as local people chose over 10 years. That committed funding drew together communities weary of half-hearted previous attempts, always abandoned when money ran out. The 17,000 inhabitants of this multi-ethnic, high-unemployment patch of Birmingham had 17 often fractious mosques and six diverse churches, but slowly and with difficulty they came together and transformed the place.

A shabby, underused park was renewed, now with beautiful sports grounds; a local museum refreshed; a new health centre reaching people the NHS had neglected; schools springing to life through bringing headteachers together, funding equipment and giving a hot breakfast to every child. The main emphasis was on training and job-finding, with money skilfully levering in funds from other partners. The results were spectacular, with lower crime than the city average, school results and youth employment that rose faster, while antisocial behaviour fell. Small businesses were supported and hundreds of volunteers took qualifications.

Perfect? No. But the change is remarkable. When Aston Pride ended this March, local people were mortified at receiving no recognition, not even a junior official from Eric Pickles's Department for Communities to visit, or a letter of praise for being the top NDC after all those years of giving so much and overcoming such obstacles. Simon Topman, a local manufacturer who took over the chair of Aston Pride after it ran into early trouble, expresses his disappointment, afraid that with all support gone, the area may start to slide back again.

But above all, he is indignant that the government does not want to learn how it was done. This really is the big society, creating new local champions, bringing people together in the hardest places, levering in outside help. Cameron would not like to know the truth: it only happened with money so local people could employ their own chosen professional support – and those things are not free. In Witney, people have time and money – but in places like Aston, with no resources, nothing happens. This is not a little light volunteering in the library – this is heavy-duty hard grind, often quarrelsome, and the people who made it work really are local heroes, whose own lives were changed. But that's all erased from the record. All that hard-won experience in creating community is lost.

However, the big society can still sound great. David Brooks, the currently fashionable US guru, author of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement returned from a London visit to eulogise the big society in the New York Times on Friday. Though a journalist by trade, he seemed to have swallowed Cameron's press handout whole, without inquiring into the truth of any of it. Just about every word of this short article is misleading (including views he attributes to me). He says: "The [big society] legislative package has been a success." There is no such thing as yet. He praises Cameron for decentralising, for giving local communities money to "run things themselves" (what money?) and says "Cameron's reforms are fostering the sorts of environments where human capital grows". Where has he been to see that? He concludes, "No other government is trying so hard to tie public policy to the latest research into how we learn and grow." Or, sadly, how we deliberately forget and shrink. Let's hope New York Times readers are not so easily deceived by travellers' fairytales – so far British public cynicism is rather better grounded.

Read this article (along with reader comments - and the opporotunity to make your own) on the Guardian website:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/21/big-society-tories-david-cameron?INTCMP=SRCH

NHS Voluntary Sector Consultation

To the University of Nottingham, the Innovation Park, Jubilee Campus. The space-age looking Sir Colin Campbell Building there (photo above) is the venue for a consultation between NHS East Midlands and representatives of the Voluntary and Community Sector in the region, on "Liberating the NHS". I'm there, representing the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership (REDP), along with Tonia Frew from Leicester LGBT Centre and Liz Harrison from Leicestershire Centre for Integrated living (LCIL).

The event is hosted by Maqsood Ahmed, Head of Inclusion for NHS East Midlands. This is the third time I've been at a meeting addressed by Maqsood, who was guest speaker at Leicester Council of Faiths AGM in October.

Around 40 people are in attendance, representing a variety of organisations, such as:

African Institute for Social Development

Alzheimer's Society

AWAAZ, Asian Mental Health Resource Unit

Bassetlaw District Council

BME Community Development Project

Centre for Social Justice

Citihealth Nottingham

Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Derbyshire Friend

Derbyshire Mental Health Services NHS Trust

East Midlands Cancer Network

Leicester Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Centre

Leicester LINk

Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living

Lincolnshire LINks

Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

NHS East Midlands

NHS Leicester City

NHS Lincolnshire PCT

NHS Nottingham City

NHS Nottinghamshire County

Nottingham University Group

Nottinghamshire County Council

Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

Nottinghamshire Royal Society for the Blind

University Hospitals Leicester NHS Trust

Opportunities and challenges in the ongoing restructuring of the NHS which are of particular relevance to organisations like ours were front and centre of our discussions here today, such as:

• embedding inclusion and equality into new structures: Department of Health; NHS Board; GP consortia; Health Watch England; local Health Watch.
• role of voluntary sector; supporting groups with protected characteristics.
• effectively engaging diverse patients, carers, excluded groups and those with protected characteristics.
• measurement and accountability of equality outcomes.

REDP is the only organisation from the Voluntary and Community Sector exhibiting today. Normally we have to fight for space at events like these. At EMAS's "Community in Unity" event at Nottingham Council House at the start of November last year, we had to make do with half a table top.

At the end of the session, I'm given five minutes to introduce REDP, say why we're here and encourage further involvement in our project. This appears to be received positively, with a number of strong contacts and definite leads.

- George Ballentyne - Leicester Council of Faiths 

To view George's blog, please click here

Community in Unity Event

To Nottingham this morning for "Community in Unity", an event led by East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS), at the city's Council House. I'm here representing the REDP, along with Project Officer Kelly Jussab and Researcher Carolyn Pascoe.


There's a range of displays, covering different aspects of EMAS's work as well as other patient support services in the region, such as:

• Amaani Tallawah
• Awaaz Asian Mental Health Resource Unit
• Bassetlaw Primary Care Trust
• Community Building Services
• Cooperative Community Action
• Digital Switchover Help Service
• Nottingham University Hospitals Patient and Public Involvement
• Sherwood Forest Hospitals

The morning session begins with a brief dramatised presentation by Amaani Tallawah (whose name means "Peace and Impressive Strength"). This group has been supporting and empowering the African Caribbean community in Nottingham on mental health issues for over 20 years. Right after that we launch into a "World Cafe" consultation (as popularised throughout the region by REDP), involving a mix of practitioners, managers, strategists, service users, patients and their carers. What would appear to be small issues for the NHS can appear insurmountable obstacles to individuals and their families. In these times of straitened circumstances, service providers have to put their heads together and see how to tackle such issues and make the most of their resources, in terms of budgets and personnel.


- George Ballentyne - Core Partner, REDP and Equality and Diversity Officer, Leicester Council of Faiths