Policy in Practice

When moving to Brighton three years ago I hoped the political landscape of Green, Labour and Conservative would bear insightful and progressive conversation. The reality has been a mixture of ideological entrenchment and partisan positioning. The Green party and Caroline Lucas - their only Member of Parliament (MP) - are formidable in Brighton and Hove. This local influence and national recognition has not only sustained their only MP throughout many swing elections but locally, the Green's spent 2011-2015 in minority control of Brighton and Hove council. As the voice of the green sector, their contribution is vital to political discourse. I (like most) share many values with the Green party but all too often we differ on the approach to sustainable delivery. In this piece I wanted to explore their ardent support of the diesel scrappage scheme and comment on why deeper policy thinking should always come before protest. The background and consequences of 2009 The 2009 ...

The Housing and Planning Act is a mess, it should've been redrafted entirely. However for now, we're stuck with it. Though the Act is a fine example of how not to draft policy the Conservatives have received a lot of negative press surrounding their complete efforts. But are all their efforts on housing so dire? In the 1980's housebuilding was led by housebuilders, development was mostly organic and industry prescribed. We built a lot of houses and locally. In the 90's things changed, local authorities began deciding community expansion and local housebuilding became a lot more centralised.  At first local authorities were equipped to deal with this change, many of the same decision makers remained. Yet as time passed local authorities saw themselves as the deciders and not the enablers. Today the culture of co-operation has almost disappeared with planning being used as a tool of revenue and political gain. Austerity is another conversation entirely and onl...

The Brexit debate has given me a new focus on what’s important for Britain, and I believe it’s the local and regional economy. Small and medium business (SME) employs over 50% of the UK workforce but they appear fairly hampered by EU regulation. These concerns have also been expressed by leaders of other EU nations, with one being somewhat comparable to Britain. Poland has one of the largest populations in Europe, almost 40 million. Their population increase mirrors the UK until three years ago where the UK spiked. House prices are rising every year in part fuelled by foreign investment. Supply has been constrained and demand has been stoked by Government programmes. Proportionate to population they have similar numbers of MP’s, with similar statistics of female representation. Both nations share similar GDP growth and income equality ratings. Interest rates are at historic lows in both nations and like Britain, keeping their own currency has meant responsible integration. Lik...

This week has seen my voice become horse and my flatmates deafened; after two weeks off I’m back to watching political television. Not much has changed; Labour’s failures are still being exampled, the Conservatives look arrogant under pressure and the Lib Dems are meekly squeaking, yet for some reason UKIP are finding a strong platform to vocalise and the Green Party, a party gaining recognition, seem absent. Debates and hot topics have thrown up a mass of ineptitude and the Labour party have particularly disappointed; though Miliband looks more assured as party leader his content seems as sparse as past Labour promises. Two subjects have been strongly debated this week, both giving us an insight into where our future leaders may be heading. The Leveson Inquiry recommended statutory underpinning, an idea Mr Cameron seemed to support until officially suggested, so perhaps a peek into today’s press and recent by-election gives us a clue why. The Rotherham by-election saw a L...

In recent time the Work Programme has gone live and organisations (businesses) have been working with communities to improve their employability. This began under Labour where huge mistakes were made  and private businesses were allowed to bring their own buckets to  shower of money soirées. Since then nothing has changed (apart from an increase in bonuses) and unscrupulous private businesses are still able to tender for huge contracts and provide no measurable service quality either before, or  after they begin. In South Birmingham we have two training providers for the unemployed; one named Pertemps and the other named Intraining; they provide work experience opportunities/employment training and operate as referral  agencies for the JobCentres. The city used to have another main competitor in the way of WorkDirections but they, due to unsatisfactory performance and community complaints, lost many of their contracts. ...

As I listen to members of the Labour party being interviewed during their conference I cannot help but hear echoes of party politics and sound-byte rebuffing of their misjudgements. The Liberal Democrat conference was one of substance, or so it seemed from my perspective, Labour however seem to be enjoying the typical sparring match played out by media savvy politicians who thrive on reminding everyone how evil the Tories really are. But what of polcy? So far all I have heard is vague descriptions and emphatic emptiness; 'things are like this, the current policy can't work, this study says it should be this way; we are going to support their findings!' What about your own findings? Even discussions on crime are riddled with confusion, perhaps there were 7million less crimes but this was a proportionate figure in respect to a national trend established in 1995; and certainly doesn't exemplify Labours commitment to tackling serious and organised crime. It also fai...

Future Jobs Fund Future Jobs Fun or FJF was a great example of policy in theory and not in practice which once again looked at tackling short term statistics and not long term issues. Basic FJF eligibility from the part of the employer and employee included: The job must be new and additional to current staffing Be expected to last at least 26 weeks, a minimum of 25hrs per week and pay at least the National Minimum Wage Be of a benefit to the Community Clients need to be 18-24 yrs of age, have been unemployed and claiming JSA for between 39-52 weeks or be long term claimants who are in areas selected for support due to high unemployment Once again on the surface we can assume that this scheme gives young people, or those in areas of high unemployment, an opportunity to find a job however the drawback to the programme more or less undermines the reason for its creation. When the scheme was first announced it worked with a particular slice of our unemploye...