Eric Pickles wants to tackle ‘family problems’ by integrating local services, according to a speech he made today.
Speaking at a community budgets conference, he said a ‘’massive, crucial culture change’’ in the way local authorities shared data is needed if progress is to be made.
It’s not the first time that the Pickles has called for agencies to come together to tackle social problems. He first raised the idea in October 2010 when he said that governments should be ‘‘getting different organisations and agencies to work together in a way that simply has not happened in the past’’.
The speech seemed to bypass typical Conservative anti-state rhetoric, calling for government to play a more active role. Parents who fail to deliver for their children have always come under heavy fire from the Conservative Party but the summer riots have refocused the party’s attention on the issue, in an all together different way. They seem to have accepted that where parents have failed the state will have to step in. Last week David Cameron announced the creation of a troubled families unit.
As Pickles said in his speech: ‘’During the summer riots, the common refrain was where are the parents? Why aren’t they keeping their kids indoors? Why weren’t they with them in court? The whole country got a sudden, unwelcome insight into our problem families. The ones that make misery in their communities and cause misery to themselves.”
“The moment some children are born their life chances are simply written off. From day one their lives are defined by the problems that surround them. Drugs. Alcohol. Crime. Mental illness. Unemployment. They grow up in chaos and their own lives are chaotic.”
Pickles added: “Someone’s got to show local leadership to deliver this on the ground. And that should be you in local government.”
His speech was not just about a rhetorical commitment to plans for local agencies to take a greater role in tackling social problems. He also announced a pilot scheme which would give local communities more control over budgets. There will be “two Community Budgets for neighbourhoods, that will be co-designed by local people... and two Community Budgets for a whole area that bring together all funding for local services into one place. A single budget. That will get to the heart of what barriers stop you from controlling the purse string.”
Calls for a more proactive state might be surprising coming from a Conservative minister but they are framed in a thoroughly Conservative manner: localism. The recent riots provoked murmurs of deep-rooted problems within less affluent parts of British society. Although they have called the riots “pure criminality”, the Conservative Party have been alluding to these problems for years through their broken society rhetoric, and family breakdown is still touted as a significant reason for Britain’s social problems.
Citing these social problems in the Conservatives’ short-term response to the riots carried the danger of bringing back memories of Cameron’s ‘hug a hoodie’ moment from 2006, so the government pushed for tough sentencing in the immediate aftermath of the riots. However, with Pickles fully aware that the government need to show they are taking long-term action, he won’t miss the chance to push through his localism agenda at the same time.
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