The Role of the Big Society for Delivering Cross-Community Education

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed the limitations in the education system that could have been resolved by the Classroom 2.0 programme of blended and networked learning. This chapter presents the Emotivate Project that took place before this crisis and showed how it is possible to deliver cross-community education to provide evidence in support of the big society and free schools agenda. Cross-community education is called School 3.0, and lessons from this chapter could be learned so that it is possible to deliver education in such a way that pandemics do not bring the education system down in the way they have during COVID-19.

Implications for Public Policy

The failure of higher private consumption to increase happiness significantly due to environmental disruption, relative competition, adaptation, our materialistic bias, etc. are relevant for public policy, especially in making higher public spending in the right areas like environmental protection, research, poverty elimination, etc. more welfare-improving than a ‘big society, small government’. Some soft paternalistic measures such as nudging people to save adequately for old age may also be needed in the widespread presence of imperfect rationality and foresight.

Bridging the Gap 2021- Summary Report

Differential Attainment Healthcare professionals are among the most respected, valued members in any society- and also the most regulated. It attracts some of the most talented, innovative and resilient individuals who are keen to do good. Respect, job satisfaction and autonomy are fundamental to the experience of any professional, and often valued above financial or material reward. Doctors are no different. Education and training of the healthcare workforce is a lengthy and resource intense process. No nation-state can be truly self-sufficient. Hence workforce migration is a reality where various pull and push factors lead to professionals moving across countries and continents, in the service of populations. Society is divided along many lines and steeped with structural inequalities. Many of these are the result of thousands of years of history, legacy and societal wrongs. Healthcare services and professionals reflect similar patterns of the 'big society'. The phenomenon of differential attainment (DA), which is the subject of this report is simply a manifestation of such structural inequalities. DA or differential outcomes for doctors due to their age, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, socio-economic deprivation or influenced by migrant status - rather than motivation, ability, effort or enterprise. DA is fundamentally unfair. Those affected by DA are either unaware or unable to counteract the influence on their careers. DA leads to demoralisation, disengagement and poor outcomes for professionals and their patients. It takes its toll not only on careers but on lives and livelihoods. DA leads to a huge under-utlisation of human resources- a true waste of talent and enterprise. This report- BTG21 focuses on DA in the medical profession exploring the career cycle through the themes of recruitment, assessments, career progression, research & academia, leadership roles, awards and professionalism. BTG21 is people-centred and in tackling inequalities offers solutions on career fulfillment and wellbeing- by an ideological shift of hearts and minds. Thematic Synthesis BTG21 summary report is the culmination of a thematic synthesis of evidence covering the full spectrum of medical careers. It presents lived experiences (collected through mixed method approaches) capturing patterns in peoples experiences through an online survey, and in-depth qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of professionals from across the career cycle, range of ethnic heritage, medical specialism and country of origin. Followed by consensus developed through workshops by a triumvirate of experts, stakeholders and grassroots professionals. There are 5 primary causes of DA- bias, social class & deprivation, immigration status, geographical and individual factors and impacts every stage of medical professional careers. The thematic synthesis reviews are published in the Sushruta Journal of Health Policy. Recommendations The Workshop discussions, recommendations (the 10-point plan) include policy enablers, immediate actions and research questions in the following areas; Tackling bias Embracing diversity & inclusion Celebrating the contribution of migrants Leveling the playing field Inclusive leadership & accountability Removing structural barriers Review-Reform-Rethink assessments Redefining professionalism Disaggregation-intersectionality-benchmarking of data Support-flexibility & Wellbeing

National Social Investment Funds: The U.K.’s Early Experience of Big Society Capital

Over the last 15 years or so, Canadian social enterprises have consistently identified lack of access to financing as an important barrier to their growth and sustainability (e.g., Bridge & Corriveau 2009; Mulholland et al 2011; Treurnicht 2011; McIsaac & Moody 2013; Malhotra et al. 2010; Flatt et al. 2013; CTFSF 2010). Social enterprises in other jurisdictions have echoed a similar complaint (e.g., SEUK 2011, 2013). The same period has also witnessed the emergence of “social investment markets” in several jurisdictions. Social investment markets offer the promise of providing social enterprises and other social purpose organizations with the types and amount of financing they need, outside of mainstream commercial markets. Keywords: CVSS, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Working Paper Series,TRSM, Ted Rogers School of Management Citation:

The elimination of political demands: Ordoliberalism, the big society and the depoliticization of co-operatives

This paper focuses on the British state’s attitude towards co-operatives, focusing mainly on the Thatcher (1979–1990) and Cameron (2010–2015) governments. After the 2008 crisis, the Cameron-led government, under the umbrella of its Big Society project, developed measures to shift responsibility on British society for the development of the co-operative model as a contribution to self-help, the pursuit of economic growth and the rebuilding of social bonds. We trace the origins of these efforts to the Thatcher governments, where these attitudes towards workers’ cooperatives were consolidated. In so doing, we find the concept of ordoliberalism rather than neo-liberalism alone, particularly useful for explaining the nuances of the governments’ relationship with the cooperatives; including the symbolic backing of co-operatives for their perfect embodiment of self-help and the entrepreneurial spirit, integrating them into a social policy of total competition and economic growth and the constant legislative and financial control of state support. This exemplified and operationalized a larger governmentality later also pursued by the coalition, aimed at entrenching a competitive order and the bourgeois spirit of self-sufficiency through the deployment of the agenda of popular capitalism. Both the Thatcher and Cameron governments, in the spirit of ordoliberalism, instrumentalized cooperatives as part of a project that sought to govern through society to reshape and depoliticize it. This was an attempt to simultaneously eliminate British society’s political demands while recasting the role that the state is expected to play in social and economic policy.

Austerity and the Big Society

This chapter will examine welfare and penal policy under the Coalition Government. The politics of austerity will be explored arguing that the Coalition used the cover of the financial crisis to undertake a fundamental retrenchment of the welfare state. This chapter will argue that Cameron’s notion of the Big Society should not be dismissed as a political gimmick or rhetoric. It reflects an aspiration for a recasting of the relationship between citizens and the social state. This recasting is presented as a fiscal necessity but is actually driven by a politics that is underpinned by the othering of the poor. Cameron and the Coalition’s claims to social liberalism followed a series of policies that shredded the social state.

The Rise and Decline of Soviet Morality: Culture, Ideology, Collective Practices

In the article, it is proposed that the collapse of Soviet society was presaged by a growing crisis in late Soviet morality. On the periphery of late Soviet morality, collective cultural practices are seen to have successfully functioned based on a limited ethics of virtue. In the absence of an alternative to Soviet ideology, social regulation started to draw upon values intended for the reproduction of local communities. A growing contradiction between the limited values of the new social class/corporate entities and the need to develop universal values for a big society is currently the key ideological legitimation problem facing the Russian political order.