Big society tsar Lord Wei 'doesn't have enough time to perform role'

[Magda Hassan]

And Clegg wont work past 3 pm as he gets too tired....

Big society tsar Lord Wei 'doesn't have enough time to perform role'

Man kickstarting volunteering revolution finds working for free three days a week is incompatible with 'having a life'

• Polly Curtis, Whitehall correspondent
  
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 February 2011 20.07 GMT Lord Nat Wei has no private income to fall back on, and is cutting his voluntary hours to earn more money and see more of his family. Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian It could become the allegory of the "big society" age. The man appointed by the prime minister to kickstart a revolution in citizen activism is to scale back his hours after discovering that working for free three days a week is incompatible with "having a life".
  Lord Wei of Shoreditch, who was given a Tory peerage last year and a desk in the Cabinet Office as the "big society tsar", is to reduce his hours on the project from three days a week to two, to allow him to see his family more and to take on other jobs to pay the bills.
  A common criticism of the plans, under which the government hopes that communities will take over the running of local services such as schools and charity projects, is that people don't have time to run a public service on top of holding down a job and seeing their families.
  Wei has told friends he is cutting his hours to allow him to earn more money and "have more of a life". He originally worked three full days a week and will now work two days, with the hours split over three, while taking on more non-executive directorships with private companies.
  The role is voluntary and Wei had to to give up jobs in the charitable sector when he was appointed to avoid a conflict of interest. Whitehall sources said that when he was invited to take the role he had expected it to be remunerated but was told only the night before that it was a voluntary post and there would be no salary. Other unpaid coalition advisers include Lord Heseltine and the "digital champion" Martha Lane Fox both millionaires.
  Much of Wei's work has focused on how to free ordinary people from the daily grind to give them more time to do voluntary work and involve themselves in their communities under the big society plans. Since taking the post, Wei has had a relatively low profile and there have been suggestions that he has not made enough impact on the public understanding of 'big society'. The scheme is reported to be facing Whitehall resistance and the stretched capacities of local authorities.
  Wei, 34, is a former management consultant who has no private income to fall back on. He was one of the founders of the Teach First scheme, then worked for Ark, one of the biggest sponsors of academies, before setting up the Shaftesbury Partnership, a social entrepreneurial company.
  A Cabinet Office spokesman suggested that Wei had worked extra hours in the early phase of the programme. "The government remains committed to devolving power to citizens and supporting a big society," he said.
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/...lunteering
  
  

[Jan Klimkowski]

Lord Nat Wei has no private income to fall back on, and is cutting his voluntary hours to earn more money and see more of his family.

It could become the allegory of the "big society" age. The man appointed by the prime minister to kickstart a revolution in citizen activism is to scale back his hours after discovering that working for free three days a week is incompatible with "having a life".

It's a parable.

But then the Tory party's "Big Society" project was always no more than a flimsy cover "narrative" for the dismantling of the British welfare state. The Tories' modern icon, "Thatcher Thatcher the milk snatcher", proudly declared "there is no such thing as society". Her philosophical heirs are fleshing out Maggie's dream.

Warming up the electrodes, turning up the ECT machine to 11....

[Magda Hassan]

Phil Redmond disenchanted by 'big society' progress in Liverpool

Scheme's champion says vision to showcase volunteering and cultural activities in the city has been 'subsumed by the cuts'

• Patrick Butler
  
• The Guardian, Thursday 3 February 2011 Phil Redmond has expressed frustration of the slow progress of the 'big society' in Liverpool. Photograph: Brian Rasic / Rex Features The prime minister's "big society" vision has ground to a halt in the city where it was launched, after being overwhelmed by local spending cuts, according to Phil Redmond, the TV producer appointed to champion the project.
  Redmond, creator of the TV soap Brookside, took charge of the official "vanguard" scheme in Liverpool last year at the behest of David Cameron. The project, one of four across England, was intended to showcase volunteering and cultural activities in the city. But Redmond says in a interview published today that the big society has been "subsumed by the cuts" and little progress has been made locally.
  He tells the Local Government Chronicle magazine: "I went along with it all because I thought it would be a good way of getting things going, but it's been impossible to get any traction because of the cuts everyone is dealing with post spending review trauma."
  His comments follow reports that the prime minister's office is concerned the big society policy is losing direction. Last week one of the idea's architects, Respublica thinktank director Philip Blond, warned of the effect on it of the drive for cuts. Charities have warned that nationally thousands of voluntary organisations could go bust as a result of cuts to council funding.
  The project was put together hurriedly, says Redmond, with its substance worked out only after the prime minister had announced it at the big society launch in the city in July. Its main achievement to date had been to connect "the People's Republic of Liverpool with Tory HQ".
  "A Tory PM comes to Liverpool and says we've got this great idea to get everyone more involved. I'm not going to talk that down it is and remains a good idea. The problem is two days later everyone defaults back to their normal setting.
  "They've been in too much of a hurry. It's all about 'we want to change the world', not 'how do you want us to change the world?'. They turn up wanting to have a big conversation but it turns into a big lecture - telling us this is what you do and this is how you do it. We don't need that."
  In the interview he is highly critical of the government's plans to impose its own 5,000 community organisers into communities across England and says he would have preferred to work with the existing community sector in Liverpool. "We've already got community organisers; they may not fit their model they've got from America, but they're here. We need to facilitate what's there already. [The Big Society agenda] is a bit like ballroom dancing millions are already doing it but it's under the radar because everyone's focused on Strictly [Come Dancing]".
  The city council said last week that up to 500 charity workers would lose their jobs over the next two years as a knock on effect of proposed £141m cuts to the town hall budget.
  Redmond said he wanted National Museums Liverpool, which he chairs, and Mersey fire and rescue service to be at the centre of the local big society strategy. But the former faces cuts of 15%, while the latter could be forced to lay off one in 10 firefighters to make up an £8.5m funding shortfall.
  The other three big society vanguard projects announced by Cameron last year are in Windsor and Maidenhead, Eden Valley in Cumbria, and Sutton in south London.
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/...-liverpool
  
  
  

[Keith Millea]

Big society tsar Lord Wei

Man,you gotta love the lofty honors handed out to these mortals...

[David Guyatt]

Big society tsar Lord Wei

Man,you gotta love the lofty honors handed out to these mortals...

Correction:

Tsar Lord Why?

[Jan Klimkowski]

Phil Redmond is a self-styled "working class hero" who has "devised" several working class TV soap operas, such as Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks.

Cameron's Tories appointed him as a cheerleader for their "Big Society" vision of replacing social services currently provided by local government with a "vision" of everyone working for free through voluntary and charitable groups. He's now speaking of his frustration.

He (Redmond) tells the Local Government Chronicle magazine: "I went along with it all because I thought it would be a good way of getting things going, but it's been impossible to get any traction because of the cuts everyone is dealing with post spending review trauma."

Being a shallow political thinker, he still hasn't sussed that he was being used by the Tories to provide celebrity cover for their agenda of dismantling the welfare state.