Archives for March 2011

Could free schools be a key part of the 'Big Society'?

Will "localism" ever really get off the ground?

It's one of the government's big visions: citizens taking control of their own destinies, and weaning themselves off reliance on the state.

But the experience of some parents in Bristol may be enough to dampen the most hardy "localist".

They're trying to get a new Free School off the ground - one of only a handful in the country with government pre-approval, an education backer, a possible head and children wanting to get in.

Bristol Free School prospectus

What they lack is a site.

They want to use council-owned land, and that's where it has all got sticky.

Relationships between the council, the Department for Education and the Free School Trust seem to have broken down.

Recriminations are flying and time is tight: if the school is to open on the site by September, it needs to get moving: parents must decide their children's secondary places within weeks, and local council elections have a habit of slowing down decision-making.

At a recent public meeting about this, one councillor - to paraphrase - told parents that "passion" wasn't enough.

Another threw up "legal and financial" obstacles to the free school, worried about parking and planning permission for the site.

Will it get done? Or will the free school have to go elsewhere?

Other sites may be available, but would have a detrimental impact on other secondary schools in the area, which are already under-subscribed.

In truth, no one really knows.

What it does show though - considering the free school plans have been active for about 18 months - is how hard it can be to get anything done on this scale without buy-in from the existing branches of government, in this case, the council - and to some extent, DfE.

Encouraging people to be active in their community only works, surely, if it's successful.

If not, localism could end up actually increasing cynicism - and undermining its very raison d'etre.

Should pensioners be cushioned from the cuts or should they also shoulder the burden?

Should pensioners shoulder more of the burden, in the age of austerity?

An interesting question for us, given the sheer number of senior citizens in the West Country, and our aging population.

Not an easy one though: the director of a free-market think tank admits he got hate mail when his report on this very question (answered in the affirmative, if you hadn't already guessed) recently came out.

Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, reckons we could save billions from our spending on the elderly, thus lifting the burden from those he says are most affected by the cuts - the young, and those with young families.

The think tank made lots of suggestions, including:

- ending pensioners' universal benefits such as free bus passes and TV licences
- not linking state pensions to earnings from 2011
- raising the state pension earlier than is already being proposed

Mark argues that this is as much about fairness, as saving money.

"The issue is intergenerational equity. There has been a great disservice done to the young. Money paid in has been spent by more than one government. Young people are being left with the liabilities.

"To ringfence particular perks for a generation... is unreasonable."

As you can imagine, this has not gone down too well in the West.

At a convention in Taunton, pensioners told us they are being squeezed by rising costs - of fuel, food and transport - and that they'd worked hard all their lives so they could retire in peace and dignity.

Not that they need to be worried about the IEA report, it seems to me.

Steve Webb MP, the Minister for Pensions, was at the Taunton event, and makes no apologies for championing pensioners' rights in Whitehall.

"A lot of universal benefits are very efficient. These are valuable parts of the mix... scaremongering reports suggesting these should all be slashed alarm people unnecessarily," he said.

But with an aging population, these questions will become more pertinent; balanced, of course, against the hard political reality that most pensioners vote.

We'll find out what the former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe thinks on the Politics Show West.

After all, she's nearly 65 herself.