The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has published an article on the Centre for Policy Development’s new report, “Big Society and Australia“, which offers an analysis of the Big Society policy agenda being implemented in the United Kingdom and potential impacts if such changes were introduced in Australia.
The CPSU article observes that “On the surface, the UK’s Big Society appeals to widely held values about citizen empowerment, co-production, diversity and autonomy. In reality, it’s being used to transfer public wealth to corporations, disempower non-government organisations and weaken the public sector.”
The article also describes how “Under the UK’s Big Society changes, the UK government has outsourced services to ‘any willing provider’…In reality, existing corporations have dominated the outsourcing process and, despite Cameron’s enthusiasm for philanthropy and social investment, these alternative revenue streams have failed to meet expectations… The thinking behind the move is that the private sector is intrinsically more efficient than the public sector.”
Read a the complete CPSU article here.
Change can happen faster than you think – help us seize the moment and point to the alternatives.
