York university at the forefront of social policy

With the Tour de France Grand Depart looming the next day the whole of York was in a state of some excitement when I visited the Department of Social Policy and Social Work.  What made it doubly exciting was the range of conversations Professor Jonathon Bradshaw had arranged for me.

Himself an expert on comparative social policy made an interesting start to the day when he painted an informed picture of the state of the social policy landscape in Britain and its likely implications in the near future.  Like a forward sounding echo it was easy to see the road he described as one Australia is likely to travel in part at least. Technically falling unemployment is accompanied or helped by "zero hours contracts", underemployment and an increase in working poor (two thirds of children defined as being poor are in working families).  When the government does not look after the bottom of the labour market then the state picks up the casualties and in effect subsidises low wage employers and adds to the profits of these companies; a poignant point for us in
Australia.

My meeting with Dr Christine Skinner , Chair of the Board of Studies of the school and an expert in child support was enlightening as we discussed the attempts of both Australian and British governments to enter the intimate and vexed space of troubled family relationships.  After borrowing policy ideas on this issue from our CSA Britain is now steeping back out of the space and closing its version, acknowledging that it has become a "toxic brand"!  In what seems like fee for service taken to extremes parents volunteering for its replacement, the Child Maintenance Statutory Scheme will pay a fee for government involvement in the future.

Dementia and the relationship between health and social care were the main topics of my meeting with Karen Bloor Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Health Science.  One concern that emerged is that as we get closer to the desired nirvana of integrated health and social policy allowing better outcomes for clients we may be opening the door to individual aside budgets for health care, in turn leading to mean testing for health care.  Interestingly Britain, with similar demographics in population ageing to Australia is finding that it is co morbidity, not age that is leading to spiraling health costs.

Dr Wendy Mitchell of the school has been working on many of the issues we are struggling with as our NDIS starts us thinking about people with disabilities as employers.  The Social Policy Research Unit has developed videos on this to use to train social workers for their role in this.

Next I met with Professor Gillian Parker and our conversation concentrated on the relationship between hospitals and aged care, and dementia.  Of interest will be the upcoming research from Gillian's team will be the upcoming evaluation the department is undertaking of  music and dementia programmes as well as research into social isolation for adults accessing community care.

Dan Meyer I'd Professor of Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and visiting fellow at the school in York.  His area of interest is lone parents and I was able to discuss with him the comparisons he makes between the US and UK.  One programme that struck me as innovative and worthy of a further look was occurring in the US.  After years of noticing that putting those falling behind in child support payments into the criminal justice system was not working, 8 States are experimenting with bringing these parents into employment, parenting and other programmes.  At first glance it seems to be working!

Nicholas Pleace is the Director of the School's Housing Policy.  It was interesting personally to see the effect of policies from the 80's and 90's as I worked on the frontline of homeless and housing charities in the UK. Of real note was that in 3011/12 housing expenditure was half that of Defence.  I don't have the Australian comparator on me but I'm guessing its nowhere near.  As I left Australia the debate was around the federal government having no role in housing.  Here even conservative MPs can be heard regularly on the news discussing the role the national government must take in provision of housing. All is not benign of course with the relatively new bedroom tax affecting those in receipt of housing or housing benefits.

My last meeting for the day was with Dr Gill Main, researcher in child wellbeing.  One of her main areas of interest and work is the Good Childhood Report along with the Church of England's Children's Society (another of my former employers!).

Many many thanks to all those who shared their time with me, and especially to Jonathon for arranging the day!

NEF

My last day in London and a meeting with a hero of mine (if an organisation can be a hero) and a close call with a cyclist which turned into a visit with a housing commissions tenancy support worker.

Spent the time with NEF considering how we work up alternative narratives to the mainstream conversation about our current situation without just spending the time re-butting those myths.  Myths such as "unemployed people are lazy", "Australia has an immediate and terminal debt crisis fueled by welfare payments" were amazingly similar in both our working lives.  Something to take hope from that we are working together in the same area but at the same time makes you wonder why we can't all be a little more generous to each other, and how on earth the economic myth as the world order took such a tight hold when most people don't understand economics anyway (and I include myself in that).

Leaving NEF and I got "run over" by a cyclist who hadn't seen the red pedestrian crossing light.  He was incredibly apologetic and wouldn't take "no worries" as a simultaneous message of forgiveness and dismissal.  As we got talking I found our he was a tenancy support worker on his way to a nearby housing estate for his weekly "clinic".  I went along and learnt about some of the concerns and joys of the local tenants.  Also some of the successes of the tenancy enforcement team (hopefully a photo of their successes is posted).  The actions of this team seemed somewhat harsh and celebrating the eviction of tenants as a success seemed poor form.  However the residents told me of how safe they felt now, how they were able to step out after 7pm and how this hadn't been possible for the eight years or so their previous Neighbour had run his drugs business from his flat.

As I leave London for the northern city of York I would like to thank all the people that gave so freely of their time to me this week.

Strong themes emerge

The relational state was the topic that put the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) on my travel agenda.  Whilst at the ALP roundtable on youth unemployment comments were made about the importance of relationships and connections in getting work for young people.  Our own research with young people had recently changed name from "Young People in Transition" to"Being A/part" to recognise the same thing.

The relational state concept then, being developed by the IPPR as an antidote to the "New Public Management" seen in the UK under Labour and then the austerity agenda driven by the current government, www.ippr.org.seemed to offer some genuine way between the big and small government agenda.

We at Anglicare Australia have previously noted (in State of the Family report 2013 "Paying Attention" and in recent writings on Civil Society that real change occurs for people in relationship with others.  These themes are seen in the IPPR literature too.

"Tough love", being it it for the long haul, radical fundamental change in people's lives emerged as success factors for change in IPPR's reckoning.  It was ironic that these were the findings of our last two State of the Family reports.

Another unrelated theme coming thorough from my visits is the importance of a diversity of funding for the think tank organisations I am visiting.  Under cuts and deteriorated relationships with government they are surviving on private donations, commercial activities (that still underpin their mission) and the private ownership of their premises.

On a seemingly lighter note IPPR support the cutting of payment of rates for pubs recognising them as contributing between 20,000 to 120,000 pounds to their community each year.  Let's drink to that!
www.ippr.org

Sweet music
I was lucky enough to attend the evening service at St Paul's Cathedral this evening.  The choral directors as said to be some of the best in the world and when the voices and the acoustics of Christopher Wren's incredible dome come together it's certainly easy to believe.

Tonight as special in another way too though.  The cathedral choir masters had reached out to children in a school in a lower Socio economic area, and over the last few months worked with a dozen or so six year olds teaching them to read music, train their voices and ultimately perform in the cathedral tonight.

The cultural clash of their parents just wanting to burst into applause, and the rather solemn atmosphere of the sung Evensong was quite nerve wracking for a while!  In talking to the choral vicar later it was clear that the children had benefitted from the best in teaching and the plain assumption that they could do it.

The strictly enforced "no photography" rule went out the window though!

Meeting with Professor Edward Melhuish from Oxford University 

This meeting was a personal indulgence to some extend in getting back to one of my passions - early childhood development.  Professor Melhuish (or Ted as he insisted) has been producing work for many years which shows the efficacy of universal (though voluntary) full time pre-school for children three years and upwards.  Of course governments (even those who say they are interested in evidence) are not always going to follow the recommendations of an academic institute.  Interestingly once the moment had been picked (being during the time of the previous Labour government in Britain) the programme has stuck and survived an incoming conservative government coming in on a overt cost cutting agenda.  Not only did the new conservative government not cut they scheme they expanded it, reaching out to two year olds from the most deprived 40 % of families.

Interestingly The Prof will be amongst the first to see what effect that will have as he is undertaking a Longtitudinal study of the first children to go through the programme and their cohorts that didn't have access to it the previous year.  Incidentally the take up rate in the UK (which is just about identical to all other Northern European countries) is just over 98%.

Ted has met with the Australian Productivity Commission to make this point for the upcoming report on child care.  I wonder if developing data about the increased productivity of having parents back in the workforce wouldn't be more persuasive.

We also talked at length about the ground where family support programmes and child protection meet as Ted has been advising the NSW Health Department on some of their early prevention programmes.  One of Ted's colleagues is currently trialling "Family Nurse" where a nurse is assigned at first knowledge of pregnancy and remains involved for the first year of life.

NCVO

After arriving at 8.30 to a warm and sunny London (yes really) I made my first meeting a visit to the headquarters of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).  I met with Karl Wilding the Director of Policy and given that his research interests are the relationship between government and the sector and the place of the sector in the society, and that my questions were about exactly that (about working with conservative governments at times of economic downturn, about the policies that the philosophy of "Big Society" has given rise to and about his thoughts on the role of our proposed Centre for Excellence.)

It certainly seems like the convergence of Big Society and the austerity measures have taken their toll on the sector's funding and upon its relationship with government.  One particularly worrying development is the recently passed "Lobbying Act" which seeks to govern how much effort goes into influencing in the period prior to an election.  Although it sets out to limit "campaigning" it is untested as to what is captured.  Would reports such as State of the Family or the Rental Snapshot be safe?  Questionable apparently.  Of course what this sort of legislation can do is act as one very big gag clause.

One idea I really liked is the NCVO's Day in a Life programme where people from government and the sector spend a day in each other's workplace.  People are matched for content area and level of authority and the feedback from last year's participants was very positive and indicated a much higher appreciation of each other's situations.  Given that very few people in leadership positions in Australia have worked in both sectors; given that Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald described the partnership in Australia as a dance with one partner doing a tango and other a waltz, it would seem an idea worth exporting!

NCVO also produce an almanac of facts and stats about the sector.  As the cliche goes "knowledge is power" and I am newly convinced that this information is vital for us as a sector to take our place in society.

Thanks to Karl and all at NCVO for making me feel so welcome, and for holding up a mirror to the very conversations we're having in Australia.

NCVO

Britain here I come!

Counting down the days to a week of meetings in Britain about social policy, pensions and poverty.  After yesterday's meetings with Politicians at parliament house I'm going to add a meeting with the UK Dept of Pensions and social services to talk about the benefits and pitfalls of a single payment social security system.