One of the most corrosive consequences of Thatcherite inequality has been a growing divide between those who pay for the welfare state and those who use it, with a corresponding understanding gap about why it matters and what it costs. This matters – not only because, unchecked, it will erode the foundation even of current welfare provision. It strikes at the core of the progressive vision of the good society as organic, participatory, and fair, and tends rather towards a conservative conception of the welfare state as a safety net.
Unless we take big steps towards our vision of a better society, there is a real risk that our positive but incremental progress will be swept away by an undertow of inequality and disengagement that we have not tackled head on. This means much greater universality: a state that helps everyone and makes a difference everywhere. And it means building the confidence, activism and participation to challenge a conception of citizenship that says if you pay your taxes and buy your Lottery tickets, you’ve done your bit.
There is one step towards a solution that could potentially provide the capacity dramatically to expand public service provision and at the same time develop activist, participatory citizenship: a new civilian national service scheme. We could use new volunteer capacity for so many things: to massively boost the care available to the elderly, to improve staffing ratios in care homes and make it possible for many more older people to stay in their homes – without raising charges out of reach for many. The capacity of national service volunteers could give us the potential not just to increase and improve the level of childcare in this country, but to do it through direct provision – to build a neighbourhood nursery in every community.
And then there’s graffiti removal, clearing rubbish and reclaiming brownfield land, cleaning, decorating and preparing social housing for new tenants, basic maintenance and handyman services; in fact, the possibilities are almost endless – limited only by our vision of a better society.
For example, a specific objective could be to bring back park wardens – and with them the capacity to plant and maintain green spaces and create new play areas in the first place. This small achievement would have some much-needed but far-reaching knock-on effects: we could use the new parks and facilities for after-school football and sports clubs overseen by volunteers – for the price of a football, five-a-side games in the park with shirts for goalposts can deliver higher levels of physical activity, healthier lifestyles and reduced obesity without the need for massive infrastructure investment.
In fact, simply making parents feel that it was safe for their children to go to the park by themselves would have a dramatic effect – provided we first use our volunteers to tear down the ‘no cycling,no skating, no ball games’ signs that advertise a vision of communal space as lifeless and useless.
So how could such a scheme work? A modular system would allow volunteers an element of choice, with compulsory core units such as home care for the elderly or childcare, as well as an initial training module. Then there could be some choice – park work, decorating, environmental improvement. The scheme should also include development, with the training and experience of modules leading to recognised qualifications, and, for those who stayed for a second year, more responsibility and team leadership roles.
Who would volunteer? Perhaps the most obvious target group for a new national service scheme is those who are already most likely to take gap years – school leavers going on to university. National service would offer them all the benefits of a gap year in new experiences and skills, meeting new people, and ‘giving something back’ – and they wouldn’t have to pay for it. Government could take the opportunity to build a new social contract with young people ready to play their part by remitting a significant proportion of their university tuition fees.
What about older people at or near retirement – they could participate in the scheme, and continue to receive their existing pensions or benefits with a small allowance for expenses, but earn free NI credits towards an enhanced pension after two years volunteering. National service, or modules within it, could be offered to jobseekers or those on other benefits – but crucially without the compulsion that would make the virtue of the rich a burden on the poor.
We could open out the qualifications structure that would be part of such a scheme to those already at the front line of public services – perhaps with support from trade union learning funds. Care assistants or childcare workers could have their existing skills formally recognised and developed into team leadership roles that would see them agreeing to lead, train and support other volunteers on placements in their area.
The broader a national service scheme is, the easier it will be for the first answer to ‘why would anyone join?’ to be the best answer: ‘because they want to help.’ Mass participation would change the dynamic of volunteering. Why wouldn’t public sector workers want to have their skills recognised and work with volunteers to improve the services they provide – and why wouldn’t school leavers want to learn from them? And tuition fee remittances, pension benefits, qualifications and other enhancements as well as expenses would make it clear that the work has a real value.
What would it cost? Well, plenty. Piloting schemes, rolling them out, allowances, remittances, expenses, NI credits, administration – it all costs money. But so does care for the elderly or children, or park wardens, or the capacity to give tenants decent homes to move into.
Of course, we might be wrong. It may be that what now holds people back from past levels of voluntarism and engagement with their communities is not lack of time or confidence that individuals really can make a difference. It may be that people don’t make the effort now because they genuinely couldn’t care less. But we don’t believe that. If it turns out to be true, we will need to do some serious thinking about where we go from here. But if we are too afraid of finding out, too afraid to look people in the eye and ask them to help us build and participate in the good society we believe in, then we really have been wasting everyone’s time.
One of the most corrosive consequences of Thatcherite inequality has been a growing divide between those who pay for the welfare state and those who use it, with a corresponding understanding gap about why it matters and what it costs. This matters – not only because, unchecked, it will erode the foundation even of current welfare provision. It strikes at the core of the progressive vision of the good society as organic, participatory, and fair, and tends rather towards a conservative conception of the welfare state as a safety net.
Unless we take big steps towards our vision of a better society, there is a real risk that our positive but incremental progress will be swept away by an undertow of inequality and disengagement that we have not tackled head on. This means much greater universality: a state that helps everyone and makes a difference everywhere. And it means building the confidence, activism and participation to challenge a conception of citizenship that says if you pay your taxes and buy your Lottery tickets, you’ve done your bit.
There is one step towards a solution that could potentially provide the capacity dramatically to expand public service provision and at the same time develop activist, participatory citizenship: a new civilian national service scheme. We could use new volunteer capacity for so many things: to massively boost the care available to the elderly, to improve staffing ratios in care homes and make it possible for many more older people to stay in their homes – without raising charges out of reach for many. The capacity of national service volunteers could give us the potential not just to increase and improve the level of childcare in this country, but to do it through direct provision – to build a neighbourhood nursery in every community.
And then there’s graffiti removal, clearing rubbish and reclaiming brownfield land, cleaning, decorating and preparing social housing for new tenants, basic maintenance and handyman services; in fact, the possibilities are almost endless – limited only by our vision of a better society.
For example, a specific objective could be to bring back park wardens – and with them the capacity to plant and maintain green spaces and create new play areas in the first place. This small achievement would have some much-needed but far-reaching knock-on effects: we could use the new parks and facilities for after-school football and sports clubs overseen by volunteers – for the price of a football, five-a-side games in the park with shirts for goalposts can deliver higher levels of physical activity, healthier lifestyles and reduced obesity without the need for massive infrastructure investment.
In fact, simply making parents feel that it was safe for their children to go to the park by themselves would have a dramatic effect – provided we first use our volunteers to tear down the ‘no cycling,no skating, no ball games’ signs that advertise a vision of communal space as lifeless and useless.
So how could such a scheme work? A modular system would allow volunteers an element of choice, with compulsory core units such as home care for the elderly or childcare, as well as an initial training module. Then there could be some choice – park work, decorating, environmental improvement. The scheme should also include development, with the training and experience of modules leading to recognised qualifications, and, for those who stayed for a second year, more responsibility and team leadership roles.
Who would volunteer? Perhaps the most obvious target group for a new national service scheme is those who are already most likely to take gap years – school leavers going on to university. National service would offer them all the benefits of a gap year in new experiences and skills, meeting new people, and ‘giving something back’ – and they wouldn’t have to pay for it. Government could take the opportunity to build a new social contract with young people ready to play their part by remitting a significant proportion of their university tuition fees.
What about older people at or near retirement – they could participate in the scheme, and continue to receive their existing pensions or benefits with a small allowance for expenses, but earn free NI credits towards an enhanced pension after two years volunteering. National service, or modules within it, could be offered to jobseekers or those on other benefits – but crucially without the compulsion that would make the virtue of the rich a burden on the poor.
We could open out the qualifications structure that would be part of such a scheme to those already at the front line of public services – perhaps with support from trade union learning funds. Care assistants or childcare workers could have their existing skills formally recognised and developed into team leadership roles that would see them agreeing to lead, train and support other volunteers on placements in their area.
The broader a national service scheme is, the easier it will be for the first answer to ‘why would anyone join?’ to be the best answer: ‘because they want to help.’ Mass participation would change the dynamic of volunteering. Why wouldn’t public sector workers want to have their skills recognised and work with volunteers to improve the services they provide – and why wouldn’t school leavers want to learn from them? And tuition fee remittances, pension benefits, qualifications and other enhancements as well as expenses would make it clear that the work has a real value.
What would it cost? Well, plenty. Piloting schemes, rolling them out, allowances, remittances, expenses, NI credits, administration – it all costs money. But so does care for the elderly or children, or park wardens, or the capacity to give tenants decent homes to move into.
Of course, we might be wrong. It may be that what now holds people back from past levels of voluntarism and engagement with their communities is not lack of time or confidence that individuals really can make a difference. It may be that people don’t make the effort now because they genuinely couldn’t care less. But we don’t believe that. If it turns out to be true, we will need to do some serious thinking about where we go from here. But if we are too afraid of finding out, too afraid to look people in the eye and ask them to help us build and participate in the good society we believe in, then we really have been wasting everyone’s time.