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 ...

A few months ago I wrote to the various policy machines at the three big parties, I also called UKIP but their best suggestion was to search out their local candidate. None of the parties replied so I thought I would update my blog with the content; just a flavour of ideas...I'm not writing a report... Employment Service; getting people back to work We should be encouraging the public sector to work with clients instead of acting as a referral agency to private providers. Providers are extremely savvy at adjusting their aims when market environments changes, the new system is far superior in terms of delivering accountability but perhaps quality is sporadic. The third sector has been furthered from the discussion and the large providers are not actually assisting the ‘hardest to help’ despite claiming for them. Flexible target contracts to assist the hardest to help would be of huge benefit; the current system discourages this and a flexible contract would see morally ...

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...

As the profile picture may suggest every now and again I like to chuck a line in the water but have always eaten my catch and generally fish from the shore. Discards have always troubled me, as has the price and availability of fish. We live on an island yet some of our more plentiful fish are treated with premium prices; this of course is in part due to the desire to eat meat but also because we are accustomed to white fish and no bones. Personally I am not, bones melt away or can be taken out with the spine, and a fork is pretty handy for taking away flesh. Fish stocks need preserving but so does our sanity in food consumption, there has to be a middle ground that allows us to support the fishing industry while staying ecologically aware. Hugh's Fish Fight doesn't do ideas, they informed me they are just campaigning on the message so I wanted to outline an idea that last year I sent to Natalia Manas-Sentis the EU Minister for Fisheries and Richard Benyon MP. Idea ...

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...

The recent riots have saddened many of those who work in service provision but perhaps have come as less of a shock to them than the incumbent Government. In the last decade, and it continues, a ‘class’ structure has resurfaced but it has now been formed in educational achievement. Education has become the single most important differentiator in this nations social structure; be it voting in elections, finding/applying for a job, reading a contract or applying for assistance for benefits/courses/pensions etc education is creating our segregated society. I fear that this is a hugely misunderstood factor in creating equal opportunities and a continuation of this attitude can only see to further distance our stakeholders. Having worked in education at all levels, in employment, in health and on many community cohesion projects there is a clear lack of ambition throughout communities that begins and ends in learning. We have become a society divided by educational achiev...

In 2009 I worked for an organisation that I will name Inglorious and use the pseudonym DirectWorking or DW when discussing them, I hope this short experience gives a picture of why I decided to share my views. DW provided health related benefit contracts (Pathways to Work) for the Government and supplied support for the hardest to help. I joined DW as I had experienced a fragmented level of service support while working at a residential mental health organisation and felt hugely enthused by an organisation whose motto was ‘Helping the Hardest to Help’ So I set about to do exactly that; having had good experience in a range of services including mental health I was particularly happy to take on any difficult and outstanding clients with mental health barriers. In my first full week I was assigned a catatonic client who at first refused to divulge any information apart from letting me know I was making her health worse; unfortunately for her I revelled in th...