The Centre for Social Justice attacks Coalition's record on family and voluntary sector, but praises progress on welfare and schools

By Tim Montgomerie
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One year ago the Centre for Social Justice graded the Coalition on what it regards as the key pathways out of poverty and towards prosperous, independent living (ConHome emphasises just three - family, school and work).

The CSJ has updated the scorecard now that the Coalition is celebrating two years in office. The grades are below (with last year's ratings in brackets):

• Reforming welfare 8 out of 10 (8)
• Education 7 out of 10 (6)
• Drug addiction 7 out of 10 (7)
• Tacklling debt 6 out of 10 (6)
• Family policy 4 out of 10 (2)
• Voluntary sector 2 out of 10 (no rating last year)

The CSJ blames Coalition tensions for the lack of progress on family policy. It says there has been no progress on introducing a married tax break or eliminating the couple penalty in the benefits system. It worries that in focusing on childcare and parental leave it has the same precoccupations as Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. Despite last week's announcement on parent classes it worries that there is a big gap between the Government's words and its wallet:

"The department for education (DFE) has committed to help encourage the take-up of relationship support by providing extra funds for innovative services. overall, however, funding to prevent relationship splits remains below a scant £4 million per year, despite family breakdown carrying an annual price tag of £44 billion."

The Coalition gets the lowest rating for progress on the charitable and voluntary sector. It describes the cap on charitable giving relief as "disastrous". Again the CSJ sees a funding problem; worrying at the impact of spending cuts on the voluntary sector:

"During this past year the Government has set out a vision of social action which is at the heart of mending the UK’s broken society [yet] the charities we need to deliver this agenda have faced unprecedented funding cuts at a local level. More should have been done to protect them in the short-term whilst helping to build their independence over the long-term.The £100 million Transition Fund set up by the Cabinet office is an example of a measure which recognised the sum of the problem and yet was insufficient to meet anywhere near the scale of the need (compare this to the estimated £553 million spent on security for the olympic Games)."

The full report card is here (PDF).

Think tanks give lukewarm reception to the Queen's Speech, urging more radical economic measures

By Matthew Barrett
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Following the Queen's Speech this morning, several think tanks have reacted to the legislation announced (full details of which can be found here). I've collected them below.

8pm update: Open Europe have given their reaction to the proposed European Union Bill:

"The UK government is likely to sell the measure as a guarantee that it will never again be forced to indirectly contribute to eurozone bailout funds - a few papers have already run with that story. At the same December summit, Britain won a political declaration and an EU decision that the article that forced it to contribute to the EU-wide bailout funds, the EFSM, won't be used again (Article 122 - for background, see here and here). However, the legal status of this guarantee is uncertain. It is not part of the treaty change itself, and MPs may argue that a guarantee that isn't anchored in the Treaties could well prove ineffective. After all, the UK has received guarantees before which proved to be pretty worthless (clue: Charter of Fundamental Rights, Working Time Directive). If MPs wake up to the legal ambiguity underpinning the 'guarantee' they may ask for something firmer in return for ratifying the treaty change."

7.15pm update: Nick Pickles, the Director of Big Brother Watch, has commented on the surveillance aspects of the Queen's Speech:

"So there we have it – the Communication Capabilities Development Programme will have it’s day in Parliament. We don’t know what the draft clauses will be or when we will see them, but the Government remains intent on pursuing legislation in the coming session of Parliament. If someone is suspected of plotting an attack the powers already exist to tap their phone, read their email and follow them on the street. Instead of scaremongering the Home Office should come forward and engage with the debate about how we improve public safety, rather than pursue a policy that will indiscriminately spy on everyone online while the real threats are driven underground and escape surveillance."

2.45pm update: The Centre for Policy Studies' Head of Economic Research, Ryan Bourne has commented:

"What’s needed now is for the Government to use the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill to get serious about deregulation and repealing unnecessary legislation, especially for small businesses. This should include reform of employment legislation and the recommendations of the Beecroft report. Unfortunately, the emphasis on being family-friendly will, in some areas, directly contradict this liberalisation. Flexible parental leave, for example, is unlikely to be popular with many employers. In other areas, such as tax reform, planning, infrastructure and energy policy, it’s a case of wait and hope. Though there wasn’t anywhere near enough in the way of growth bills, it was welcoming to see the Government highlight the need to see through pensions reform. Finalising the creation of the single tier pension is a sensible step. This should be undertaken as soon as possible to put the Government in a better bargaining position with the public sector trade unions on pensioner poverty. The decision to continue with the 10 year period of protection for public sector employees approaching retirement will, however, eliminate much in the way of any early cash savings from public sector pensions reform."

The Institute of Directors has commented on a number of the specific measures announced. Simon Walker, Director General of the Institute of Directors, gave his reaction to the Speech overall:

“The Government is right to place deficit reduction and economic stability at the forefront of their programme. However, we need to see them pursued enthusiastically in practice, not just in principle. To restore business confidence, which is the real key to growth, there must be drastic measures to cut costly regulation and continue to tackle the deficit. Tweaking the edges of the system will not be enough – it’s not the number of Bills that matters, it’s what is in them that really counts.”

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A new report from Jesse Norman MP and the Centre for Policy Studies urges the abolition and replacement of PFI

By Matthew Barrett
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In a new report - After PFI - released yesterday by the Centre for Policy Studies, Jesse Norman MP has advocated the abolition of PFI, and its replacement with a new model of public sector procurement. Norman, the MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, sits on the Treasury Select Committee, and set up the PFI Rebate Campaign in 2010, which led Tim Montgomerie to label him "the £1.5bn backbencher", after the expected public savings from the campaign.

After PFI shows that PFI has been one of the costliest experiments in public policy-making, causing more than £200 billion of public debt - the equivalent of £8,000 for every household in the country.

Amongst the detailed recommendations in the report are:

• Placing all past and future liabilities on the government balance sheet as soon as practicable
• Establishing a new central unit across government to monitor all PFI-style projects, to advise on best practice, to educate actual and potential public sector clients on contract management, and to generate greater “shared client power”
• Far greater transparency of existing and future contracts, and of costs to the public sector within contracts
• Mandatory disclosure to government of data on secondary market transactions

Tim Knox, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, comments:

“The extraordinary cost and opacity of PFI under New Labour must never be allowed to happen again. Over £200 billion of new infrastructure is needed over the next decade. We cannot afford to get it so wrong again.”

The full paper can be downloaded here.

Benjamin Harris-Quinney: Almost 50% of black students believe that their pathway to government is blocked by discrimination

Benjamin Harris-Quinney is the Chairman of the The Bow Group

The Bow Group produced its first research paper in 1952, entitled “Coloured People in Britain”. It served as a study into the British Afro-Caribbean community, and the issues and barriers that were faced by these citizens, to integrate and succeed in British society.

Sixty years later, whilst much has changed, the Bow Group’s latest research paper “Race to the Top – The experience of black students in higher education”, sets forth broadly the same aims. This alone demonstrates a disappointing failure in strategy at national, local and party level, in ensuring citizens from all backgrounds have equality of opportunity in our country.

A recent survey commissioned by the Runnymede Trust demonstrated that people from Afro-Caribbean backgrounds are least likely to vote Conservative, and our studies show a similar disengagement with government as a whole.

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Matthew Tinsley: To find employment, older workers need support too

Matthew Tinsley is Economics & Social Policy Research Fellow at Policy Exchange.

The government finally launched its £1billion Youth Contract earlier this month in an attempt to help young unemployed people back into work. Today, the latest set of job market statistics will be published and yet again the focus will be on the plight of younger workers.

Employment prospects for young people are clearly important and helping them into work must be a key priority for any government. However, there remains a question over the impact this persistent focus might have had on unemployed people of other ages. Are we helping young people at the expense of older generations?

Many of the arguments used to back a strong focus of support on younger workers rely on evidence that young people suffer significant scars from periods of worklessness. The argument being that, as young people spend time unemployed their future employment and wage prospects deteriorate. Unemployment today causes long-term damage to their future prospects.

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Professor Philip Booth: Environmental problems and the “Big Community”

Professor Philip Booth is Editorial and Programme Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

The concept of “community-based” solutions to environmental problems should be attractive to both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, given the former’s interest in decentralisation and the latter’s interest in free-markets.

What do community-based solutions to environmental problems involve? Professor Elinor Ostrom, the 2009 Nobel Prize winner in economics, gave us an insight last night at the IEA’s F. A. Hayek memorial lecture which was attended by about 600 people. There is some hard and abstract theory, but amidst that there are important principles that can be enacted in policy. It is a pity that the same intellectual effort is not put into examining how communities can manage their own environmental problems as has been put into, for example, Downing Street’s “Nudge” unit.

Ostrom’s ideas are designed to deal with “common pool resources” and the management of environmental problems. The basic idea is that the specifics of different problems are different along a wide range of dimensions but that the government often does best by setting general rules and allowing those who have an interest in solving the problem to design the specific rules and enforcement mechanisms.

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Christian Guy: The Social Justice Strategy should become the centrepiece programme of the Coalition

Christian Guy is Director of Policy for the Centre for Social Justice.

The ability of the British people to move on and to rebuild distinguishes our country from countless others.  How quickly our determination in the face of adversity rises, and how effectively we recover in the wake of destruction.

Such resilience was evident again last summer, as Britain stared down the rioters, looters and vandals who turned parts of London and our cities into no-go areas.  Before the police gained control, it was ordinary citizens who took a stand.  As each morning came and the cowards went home, it was people of all ages, backgrounds and beliefs who came together to clean up and help those who had lost so much.  This was, and is, what citizenship looks like.

But in our ability to regroup and rebuild, there is one thing we have to be careful to avoid: the tendency to forget.  Seven months on it is easy to forget the sense of siege on the streets last August, the riot vans, the shops and businesses ablaze, our boarded up high streets and offices closing early.

That is why yesterday’s report from the Riots Communities and Victims Panel should act as another reminder to Government that although public order is restored, the threat is far from removed.  In general the Panel’s report contains helpful diagnosis and several valuable, if sometimes vague, recommendations for the political classes.  It is refreshing to read calls for a focus on the 500,000 ‘forgotten families’, often chaotic and dysfunctional, that we so often encounter at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), and it is about time that others in the policy field recognised how absent fathers damage children.  It is right that the Panel called for action in our schools to ensure those graduating the system are literate, numerate and ready for the real world.  Given the links between rioters and educational exclusion (a third of those rioting were excluded the previous year and a similar number persistently absent from school) we should hit schools that wash their hands of challenging pupils without consideration of their welfare.  And our undemanding, revolving door criminal justice system was again the subject of criticism.  There can be no doubt that the re-offending crisis which endangers our communities played its part in fuelling last summer’s disturbances – many involved had no fear of a criminal record because theirs is already a tome.

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Alex Morton: The National Planning Policy Framework changes nothing

Alex Morton is Policy Exchange's Senior Research Fellow for Housing and Planning.

The current planning system has utterly failed. Even after recent falls, the current system has seen house prices triple since the mid 1990s, and rents have soared with them.

At the same time as prices have gone up, housing construction has fallen back, because market forces do not really operate in housing. Analysts like the McKinsey Institute and the London School of Economics say that our creaking planning system puts us at a huge competitive disadvantage compared to our international competitors. On top of this the planning system lowers our quality of life.
 
Planning affects everything else in the country.  The current system leads to so many bad consequences, that it’s difficult to know where to start.  But amongst other things it means:

• A housing benefit bill heading to £25 billion.
• Around half of all areas now ‘unaffordable’ for private renters.
• A social housing waiting list of over 5 million people, almost 2 million households.
• Falling home ownership for the first time since the first world war.
• Ever smaller and unattractive housing.
• A destabilising housing bubble (which areas outside the Euro with more liberal planning avoided).
• The massive diversion of bank funds from small business investment into property speculation (75% of lending was for mortgages by 2007 and mortgage lending is rising while SME lending falls).
• The practice of ‘land-banking’, a necessary part of risk management in our slow and unwieldy system. This makes developers unable to cope with land prices falling and creates a cyclical trend of fewer and fewer homes.
• Destruction of green urban space, London lost greenery at 1.5% a year, while only 10% of England is developed. 67% of green belt is intensive farming or already used.
• Six of the top 50 most expensive cities in the World for office space (there simply isn’t that much derelict brownfield to convert and our system is bad at doing it).
• Destruction of manufacturing as no new sites can be built and old ones are converted (Brownfield first and the collapse of manufacturing as a share of GDP both begin in 1995).
• Land with planning permission costs over £1 million a hectare across England, versus £20,000 a hectare for intensive farming, meaning nothing left for quality construction.
• A quasi-cartel of housebuilders, creating high profit for large developers and less competition over time.

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Think tanks give mixed reaction to Budget

The TaxPayers' Alliance is, on the whole, pleased with the Budget:

“There is a lot of good news in the Budget for families who have struggled in the recession. The cuts in corporate and top rate taxes will improve the incentive to invest and innovate, meaning higher wages before tax. Then a higher personal allowance will mean they can keep more of the money they earn. Unfortunately some of the money is coming from higher taxes on pensioners; there is no relief for motorists from terribly high taxes on petrol and diesel; higher taxes on tobacco will be a boon for criminals selling dodgy cigarettes; and yet another higher rate on Stamp Duty is an unfortunate hike in an ugly tax. But overall this is a Budget that should ease the pressure on people’s living standards and allow most of them to keep more of their money.”

The Adam Smith Institute fears the cut in the 50p rate to only 45p will institionalise the top rate of tax at a new high level:

"It’s encouraging to see some steps in this budget towards greater tax simplification. Cutting the 50p tax rate to 45 percent is a step in the right direction, but the Chancellor should have scrapped this altogether. The danger is that the 45p will become a permanent rate.  It is also very welcome that the personal allowance has been raised, but the reduction of 40p rate threshold will mean that only basic rate taxpayers will benefit from the personal allowance rise. Up to 300,000 people will now find themselves upper rate taxpayers as a result. This will hit single-earner families particularly hard."

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Richard Mabey: The wider debate about bankers' bonuses is about income inequality - and we can win it

Richard Mabey is Research Secretary of the Bow Group.

Sometimes governments get so bogged down in the minutiae of policy making that they lose sight of what they set out to achieve.  With a portfolio of domestic crises, and international conflicts raging, the risk of the Prime Minister becoming a firefighter rather than a visionary is omnipresent.

Just occasionally, however, an opportunity comes along that can be a vehicle for real reform: reform that is proactive rather than reactive.  An example of such an opportunity stems from the recent debate over directors’ pay at RBS.  In the Stephen Hester debacle, comment was generally about how much say the public should have over its own capital, RBS being owned largely by the state.

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