The Duty to Involve – another confidence trick?
The ‘Duty to Involve’ or the ‘Duty to be Involved’: who is involving who and why would you care?
The Duty to Involve is now with us – how does it feel to be ‘involved’? Have citizens up and down the country been writing to their local press in an upsurge of local debate and entitlement? Have you noticed the queues outside the town halls, waiting to attend the latest sub, sub group of the Local Area Agreement (LAA) strand on stronger, safer, sedated communities? Seen those petitions flying about with thousands of signatures boosting levels of scrutiny to a new high? Perhaps not, but has anyone seen those enforcers from the Audit Commission starting to flex? The new regime that was supposed to make the difference is nowhere to be seen and those who have experienced similar posturing over the years know only too well that one set of bureaucrats overseeing another set of bureaucrats is going to achieve, well a bureaucratic outcome – pretty much status quo, same as it ever was.
The Third Sector as deliverers of services – overhyped, an idea whose time is done
As seasoned travellers on the highways and byways of community sector life, all of us are used to exercising a healthy scepticism in relation to rhetoric, which can often sound great, and delivery, which disappears down the memory hole.
Government hand washing guidance – the legacy of the CENs
“Community empowerment is local government’s core business”
Simon Milton (in DCLG’s 2007 Action Plan for Community Empowerment)
“Power is never given.”