Education, Learning disability, media & communication, Music & arts, Young people

Art competition gives voice to youngsters struggling to be heard

Painting, by Jake Rose

Bold, intricate, colourful and thought-provoking – some of the artworks here wouldn’t look out of place in a city art gallery, but in fact these pieces are among the powerful creations produced by young people with autism and related conditions.

Earlier this month, to mark World Autism Awareness Day, a specialist residential college in Wales launched a national art competition (the works here are from the shortlisted finalists), Create! Art for Autism, open to those aged 11 to 25 who are formally diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). The aim of Beechwood College is to show that art can not only encourage learning and instill lifelong skills but boost quality of life and future prospects.

The college cares for students aged 16 and over with ASD and teaches students to articulate themselves through creative programmes including music, 2D art, 3D art, digital media and horticulture. As Beechwood principal Darren Jackson says, “art and creativity programmes can transform the lives of young people who previously struggled to make themselves heard”.

Drawing by Alex Fox-Robinson

There were more than 350 entries from 52 different schools from all over the UK with entries also sent from as far afield as India and Croatia. The judges have chosen six finalists in each category of 2D art, 3D art and digital media art, who will attend an awards ceremony at Beechwood College on July 24th. To support and recognise the work that schools undertake, both the winners and their schools will receive prizes and there is also a “teacher’s choice” allowing teachers to choose the winners.

Ceramic work by Nicola O'Leary

The judging panel includes Brendan Stuart Burns, artist lecturer at The University of Glamorgan, Lucinda Bredin, editor at Bonhams Magazine, Hugh Morgan, chief executive of Autism Cymru and Beechwood principal Darren Jackson.

Painting by Evan Findlay

The finalists’ work will be rolled out into a national art tour open to the public, first at The Old Library in Cardiff and then in London in September. Finalists and other artwork can be viewed here.

Cuts, Health, Housing, Learning disability, Mental health, Older people, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized, Wellbeing

Dilnot: reaction round up

Today the Dilnot commission on social care published its conclusions in its Fairer Care Funding report. Among its findings are that care costs should be capped and the means-tested threshold increased under major changes to the funding of adult social care in England.

The report is a chance to finally fix a shattered system, there will be widespready reaction and analysis later today and beyond to what Dilnot himself calls a once-in-a-lifetime chance to overhaul social care but for now, here’s a selection of today’s responses which I’ll try and update throughout the day.

Sue Brown, Head of Public Policy at the national deafblind charity Sense: “Sense welcomes the Dilnot report, and in particular the key finding that additional public funding for adult social care is urgently required. But we are concerned that the media focus is only on older people which obscures some critical aspects. We believe the report clearly shows that not only can the Government afford to support disabled people of all ages, but crucially as a society we can’t afford not to. It is now up to the Government to fund adult social care so that it gives disabled people of all ages quality of life. For deafblind people social care means communication and mobility support, not just personal care.”

Julia Unwin, the Chief Executive of JRF and the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (a non-for-profit provider of housing and care services): “Today marks the most concrete and credible step for years. I believe that the proposed reforms have the potential to bring about a radical step-change in how we value social care, how we think about disability, and how we all – as individuals and as a society – plan and prepare for longer lives.
It is positive to hear commitments from all the main parties to set aside party differences and consider the Dilnot report with the consideration it clearly warrants.
The JRF now urges the Coalition Government to abide by its promises to deliver a White Paper in the next six to nine months. It would be a tragedy for this, one of the most pressing and defining issues of our age, to be kicked, yet again, into the long grass.”

Jeremy Hughes, Chief Executive, Alzheimer’s Society: “Today’s welcome report could bring to an end the scandal of the colossal Dementia Tax where every year tens of thousands of families are left to pay all their care costs whilst other diseases are paid for by the NHS. The government mustn’t miss this opportunity to right a wrong that is destroying lives. In a new system we must end the postcode lottery that gives different support depending on local authority. The Dilnot Commission has given the coalition government the opportunity to show that it is a caring government. Pending implementation they must also show they care, protecting social care spending in the way they are doing for health.”

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber: “The TUC welcomes the increase in funding for the care of the elderly over the next few years, and the news that social care will be free for those who become disabled before the age of 40.
“The introduction of a national eligibility assessment should avoid a ‘postcode lottery’ and make it possible for those receiving social care to move around the country without losing their care provision.
“The TUC believes that social care should be provided free for those who need it, and funded from general taxation. The Dilnot Commission’s proposals could, however, be transformed into this NHS model by continually reducing the level of the cap on care costs. The government must not set too high a cap – a level above £50,000 per person would mean that families could still face losing their homes to pay for the vital care they need.”

Gordon Morris, managing director of Age UK Enterprises: “The Dilnot commission report delivers a clear call to action to the financial services industry to work with government to develop the innovative products needed to fund long-term care. Existing products, such as equity release and annuities, could present a solution, but far more has to be done to build flexibility into these products to increase access and ensure these products evolve to meet changing financial needs.”

Stephen Burke, founder of social enterprise United for All Ages: “Under the commission’s regressive proposals, the winners would be richer families whose inheritance will be relatively protected, while most families will face a more confusing and potentially costly care system. The proposed cap on care costs will still result in some older people being forced to sell their homes to pay for care and related costs.
“The proposals aim to reform the current inadequate system for funding care. But they would lead to a more complex, fragmented and confusing care system … This could be seen as a care ‘poll tax’ for the so-called squeezed middle.”

An interesting reaction from by social worker “Sarah Smith“: “It is local authorities that take the hit from policies devised by central government, and we can only hope that all parties are brave enough to act together for the country’s interests rather than consider of their own chances at the ballot box. We deserve much better than that.”

Labour leader Ed Miliband: “The last thing Britain needs is for Andrew Dilnot’s proposals to be put into the long grass. We three party leaders are of similar age and the same ­generation. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity which our generation must address.”

Which? executive director Richard Lloyd: “Consumers tell us that long-term care is their top health care priority* so we welcome these recommendations and urge the Government to act sooner rather than later. If private insurance is to play a part in funding long-term care, then we need to learn lessons from the past, where products have either failed to meet people’s needs or have been mis-sold. This will be a new market with a clean slate so it’s important that strong consumer protection is in place from the start.”

Michelle Mitchell, charity director at Age UK, tells the Guardian that the report set out “a clear blueprint” for sustainable reform. Production of a white paper by next spring was ambitious but achievable, Mitchell said. But she warned: “Delay beyond Easter would be indefensible.”

Mark Goldring, chief executive of learning disability charity Mencap, said: “Now is the time for monumental change and it is vital that the government does not bury social care reform.”

John Adams, Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG) general secretary: “Today is about more simply demanding more money – vital though additional funding is – it is about urgent reform of a broken system. The Dilnot commission has taken great pains to build cross-party consensus; ministers now need to match the warm rhetoric with which they greeted today’s report with swift action. The government must find the courage to put its money where its mouth is, succeed where previous administrations have failed and exploit what Dilnot himself describes as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to create a fair and sustainable system of social care.”

Senior Fellow at The King’s Fund, Richard Humphries: “The budget deficit should not be used as a reason for inaction. This is a long-term issue and questions of affordability go beyond the current economic situation. The additional public expenditure needed to fund these proposals is less than 0.25 per cent of gross domestic product – this should not be too high a price to pay for providing a care system fit for the 21st century….Where they have failed in the past, politicians from all parties must now seize the best opportunity in a generation to ensure that people can access the care and support they deserve in later life.”

Su Sayer, learning disability charity United Response’s chief executive: “The report’s recommendations are the first step towards creating a better system which ensures that people in need of care receive it, funded in a way that is not only fair, but seen to be fair….Whether viewing this economically or morally, we cannot afford to ignore these recommendations, which is why we urge all political parties to work together towards a better social care system for all.”

Guy Parckar, acting director of policy, campaigns and communications at Leonard Cheshire Disability: “The system as it stands is creaking at the seams, with more and more people missing out on the care that they need. This report must be seen as a clear call for action. All of the political parties must come together with one agenda and that is to agree a fairer settlement for social care. We cannot go on with disabled and older people missing out on care because of a system that simply cannot cope with the demands placed upon it…Too often disabled people with significant social care needs can be charged into poverty by our social care system. People are unable to work, unable to save, unable to buy a home as any income or assets will simply be taken to cover the costs of care. This is a critically important recommendation that could make an immense difference, and it is absolutely imperative that the Government acts on it.”

Domini Gunn, Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Director of Public Health and Vulnerable Communities: “In reforming the funding of social care, we urge the government to follow Dilnot’s recommendation to review the scope for improving the integration of adult social care with wider care and support system. This must include housing, and housing support, providers and could help drive a more preventative approach, incentivised through funding arrangements.”

Sir Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive of NCVO: “This review makes major strides towards identifying how we can achieve an affordable, sustainable and fair funding system for all adults in the UK. The challenge now falls to all parties to resist turning the review into a political football and to prioritise responding swiftly and decisively. It is the most vulnerable who will suffer if we cannot seize this golden opportunity to improve the funding of adult social care.”

Big society, Housing, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized, Volunteering

The big society bypass


Above, Ian Harvey, from heroin and rough sleeping to charity volunteer, gardening enthusiast and Chelsea Flower Show winner.

The big society concept might be a touch nebulous – as its creator Philip Blond effectively admitted this week – but one transparent element is the fact that volunteers are its backbone.

The drive is a potentially all-inclusive one as the big society dream is of a volunteering renaissance that unites the young (nothing else paid on offer), the more mature (nothing else to do in well-heeled retirement) and the professional (nothing as good as a bit of CSR in the city to justify that fat salary and boost the CV).

But any official messages about big society bypass a huge swath of society; the homeless.

The vulnerable are excluded from the big society agenda and a potential volunteering resource remains untapped, as new research published this week by homelessness charity St Mungo’s argues. The organisation suggests that volunteering can help the homeless move from social exclusion to being active in their community.

Its figures show that only 14% of around 200 St Mungo’s clients and staff surveyed (84 of the 200 were clients) think homeless people are included in society. The report from St Mungo’s, Enough Room: is society big enough for homeless people?, has been released to coincide with the charity’s action week to raise awareness about the social exclusion of the homeless. According to the latest figures, 3,975 people were seen rough sleeping in 2010/11 on the streets of London – a rise of eight per cent from the previous year.

The charity says there’s a real wish among those it supports to give something back. Of the homeless clients surveyed, 70% wanted to volunteer to “give something back to their local community” or to “help other people.”

Investing time in supporting vulnerable people to volunteer can bring long-term benefits – stability, greater self-esteem and social integration and the chance to develop new skills.

I recently came across the Crown Centre in the deprived area of Stonehouse, Plymouth, for example. The centre supports vulnerable people through projects such as the Plymouth Foodbank, ensuring those in crisis do not go hungry. Every week, the centre relies on its 47 regular volunteers to run coffee and lunch clubs supporting 120 service users. Half the volunteers have health or dependency issues and are “supported volunteers”, needing more guidance and supervision than their peers donating time for free.

Back in London, St Mungo’s client turned volunteer Ian Harvey (scroll up to the video above), is the kind of volunteer we could have more of. Ian, a former rough sleeper and ex-heroin addict, has been supported by St Mungo’s to work with the charity’s community gardening scheme, Putting Down Roots. Ian has tuned his life around with specialist support and from involvement in the volunteering scheme; not so long ago he was self-harming and sleeping on the streets, now he’s the proud owner of a silver award from the Chelsea Flower Show and is looking forward to winning gold next time.

Roger is another St Mungo volunteer, a former drug-user who slept rough, he volunteers for the charity’s employment team and encourages clients to improve their basic computer literacy skills. He explains: “I realised that the key to me moving on with my life was training and qualifying. It also became very clear that I would get nowhere without knowing my way around a computer …Since November last year, I have been volunteering for St Mungos’ employment team and have been helping more clients get online with weekly drop in sessions and support with basic computing courses.”

Lorette, a volunteer peer advisor with St Mungo’s resettlement service, explains the strength of the ex-homeless supporting those who still need support: “I think the client feels they can relate to you more if you have been through what they have. You can swap stories and experiences, which I think enables them to open up to you more…Volunteering is great for your self esteem and confidence, especially if you have been out of work for a long time, there’s new skills to learn, great people to meet and a great feeling of self worth that you really are helping people and doing something really worthwhile.”

Yet so far the big society drive has largely failed to include or capture the attention of the vulnerable. As the St Mungo’s research demonstrates, the neediest in society neither feel part of the campaign nor understand what it stands for (although frankly they’re not alone in that latter complaint). A big society, but one that’s currently too small for the vulnerable.

Health, Music & arts, Older people, Social care, Social enterprise, Third sector

Life stories: freeing the minds of dementia sufferers

It was only a picture of a gurgling baby. But to one elderly woman with dementia, it meant the world. “She had dementia, was in a care home and was past the stage where she could really have a conversation,” says Helen Bate. “But she just fell in love with that photo. She would try and wipe the baby’s dribble off, or feed it chocolate. It’s just an image – but it had the power to really engage her and she’s been able to talk to it.”

Bate is founder and managing director of Pictures to Share, an innovative social enterprise creating picture books and other resources for people with dementia. She’s a passionate advocate of people with dementia, who she argues shouldn’t be shut off from the world of books and art just because of their condition. “People make too many assumptions about people with dementia,” she says. “There’s often a lack of imagination in their care. If someone liked looking at good painting, they are not going to lose that when they are in a care home. They may not be able to read any more but they can still enjoy looking at the pictures in our books.”

Bate was inspired to start the business after her own mother, a dementia sufferer, enjoyed looking at a scrapbook Bate’s daughter had put together. “There was nothing else out there,” she says. her first three books were published in 2006 and, thanks in part to charitable sponsorship, she has now produced a total of 11, all designed to combat the isolation and depression which can so often be associated with dementia. The organisation has diversified into producing artwork and is now working on dvds.

“If you go into some care homes, it’s almost as if they assume that because people are old and have dementia, all they want to look at on the walls is pictures of the royal family, wartime or old street scenes. It’s pigeonholing everyone into a very narrow category.” The Pictures to Share books cover everything from sport to shopping and from the world of work to travel.

There’s diversity too in the choice of images: colour and black and white photos both old and new are mixed with reproductions of paintings. The key criterion is that all of the images should be powerful and easy to understand to prompt memories, a chat or simply a smile. “Because of their dementia, certain things won’t work if they are too complex,” says Bate. “And we have to be careful about showing pictures people might get worried about. For example, with a picture of children paddling in the sea where you can’t see any adults around, people could get quite distressed because they think the children are in danger.”

I tried out three of the books with my mother, who has multiple dementia. I was unsure how she would react, but I was delighted to find that the pictures inside captured her imagination. She used to be a great traveller, so it was perhaps inevitable that the biggest hit was the travel book. Its shots of the Taj Mahal and train, plane and ship journeys, really got my mum chatting.

The feedback from other users suggests my mum’s response is not unusual. “It opens the channels of communication that are a bit stuck,” she says. “Relatives find them really useful to get a conversation going, which can be tricky for people with dementia.”

For relatives and carers perhaps the most powerful thing about the books is that they remind us all that behind every person with dementia is an individual with their own interests, likes and dislikes and their own life story. They are not all the same, so let’s free our imagination – and theirs – as we care for them.

Learning disability, Social care, Third sector

“I feel privileged to be different; I wouldn’t want to be the same as everyone else.”


Above, a film about the making of a play about Down’s Syndrome at a Camphill Village Trust community, The Grange in Gloucestershire.

Today’s the start of Learning Disability Week. What’s it like living with a learning disability? A few years ago, my sister, who has Fragile X syndrome, spotted the teenager next door embark on her first driving lesson. “I’ll never do that,” she quietly remarked. Quick as a flash, my mother replied: “You might not, but there’s plenty of other things you do brilliantly.”

Another time she asked why she had Fragile X syndrome. A plain, simple question and one that the rest of us asked for some time after her diagnosis (the answer: the genetic lottery). That was a tricky moment – it wasn’t that she required a literal explanation of the genetic make up that set her apart, but she was struggling to make sense of why there were certain things she found difficult to do and certain situations she felt uneasy in.

Unable to avoid some cliches, we explained that everyone’s different – wouldn’t the world be a boring place if we were all the same? – and talked about her amazing achievements which regularly leave us awe-struck, biodynamic farming among them.

If you’ve no experience of learning disability, you might assume that people like my sister potter along aimiably, existing in a smiley, hand-flapping, blissful state of ignorance, unable to articulate or appreciate the extent of their special needs.

The illuminating and moving film, above, about the making of a play about Down’s Syndrome at a Camphill Village Trust community, The Grange in Gloucestershire, lets the actors speak for themselves:

“I can’t be like Robin or Claire; I’m different.”

“It feels weird being with Down’s Syndrome.”

“To be honest, I feel quite privileged to be different; I wouldn’t want to be the same as everyone else really.”

The playwright, whose brother has a learning disability, recalls the days when those with learning disabilities were ushered away from mainstream society: “I was seven and he was nine when we were separated…my brother was tucked away in a sheltered workshop.. he would be a footnote..something to be forgotten.”

While grim institutional care is no longer the only option for people with learning disabilities, the horrific goings-on at the Winterbourne View care home and new Mencap research on disability hate crime are just two reminders of the massive problems that remain.

For me and my family, the awareness week that starts today means not only appreciating the scale of the challenge when it comes to creating a fairer society for the learning disabled – and demanding action – but celebrating the achievements of those we feel proud to call “different”.

Cuts, Education, Health, Social care, Third sector, Young people

“Sometimes I get cross with my parents because we don’t have a normal life.”

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Above, young carers talk about their role in a Carers Week film.

Next time you feel fed up with doing the household chores, think about Ryan. At 13, he cooks, cleans, does the laundry and helps both his disabled parents get around the house. His father has Crohn’s disease and his mother is disabled.

Aside from the physical requirements of his role as a young carer, Ryan shoulders a huge amount of emotional stress; life is unpredictable because his parents’ health varies from day to day. Getting ready for school in the morning, for example, is hard because he worries about leaving his parents alone and fears his dad will be in hospital when he gets home. The teenager gets frequent headaches, stomach aches and suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, all of which his GP says is stress-related. It is easy to see how being a young carer can adversely affect education, health and wellbeing and lead to isolation and anxiety.

Ryan, who is lucky enough to be supported by a young carers project run by the charity Action for Children, is one of an estimated 700,000 children and young people who have caring responsibilities. Young carers represent over 10% of the UK’s 6m carers, the group of people highlighted in Carers Week this week.

Action for Children is using Carers Week to demand that the government and councils do not ignore the plight of young carers. The charity has released new figures today which show that, in a survey of 23 Action for Children young carers projects, services supporting 1,192 young carers have had their budgets cut by up to 30%. A further 192 young carers are supported by services that have suffered budget cuts of 40% or more.

As Ryan says, he would be lost without support from his young carers project. “I really rely on that time with my support worker to express my worries. It’s amazing to share my experiences with other young carers who understand what it is like to be me. I love my parents but sometimes I get cross with them because we don’t have a normal life and I can’t do the same things as my friends. I used to feel guilty and bad about those feelings but after talking to other young carers I know that we all have feelings like that sometimes and its okay. The young carers project arranges all sorts of activities for us to help us relax and enjoy our time off from looking after our parents. It’s like having a little holiday away from all the worry.”

Budget cuts to support services for young carers save money now but run the risk of undermining young carers’ futures. As Hugh Thornbery, director of children’s services at Action for Children, says, there is already a huge danger that those who need care start relying on children and young people to support them even more as statutory service provision is decimated. This situation, as the charity stresses, effectively means young carers – many of whom spend up to 50 hours a week looking after a relative – bear the brunt of the country’s deficit and might end up paying for it with their futures.

* To find out more the impact of caring resonsibilities on the young, try also checking out the very good Victoria Cares site, a week-long campaign by children’s charity Spurgeons revealing a week in the life of young carer Victoria.

Big society, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized, Young people, Youth crime

Terrors on two wheels become social cyclists: the teens transforming their community

From antisocial behaviour to force for social good; Buzz Bikes, Wales.
It’s as much a symbol of antisocial behaviour as hoodies drinking alcopops at bus stops; on the corner of most streets in the middle of most neighbourhoods in the UK, you’ll usually find a gang of beanie-hatted teens, posturing on their bikes before racing up the pavement and causing the locals no end of distress.

But in the small community of Blaina, in Blaenau, Gwent, a deprived area where alcohol and drug addiction is common and where young people have little else to do but get into trouble, a group of teenagers on bikes have proved the exception to this stereotype. They boys have turned their cycling from an activity that caused local havoc into a force for social good.

The seven young people had faced problems at school, some had had run-ins with the police and all of them hung around the town centre on their bikes. The boys, recognising their problems stemmed partly from boredom and a lack of local facilities, heard about the Prince’s Trust and applied for money from the organisation’s community cash awards scheme. With match funding from the Welsh Assembly Government, Buzz Bikes was born in October 2008.

The outdoor cycling club offers a diversion with bicycle maintenance training, health and safety training and organised cycle rides. The group has designed its own logo, now emblazoned on hoodies and T-shirts, and the youngsters runs a small shop in town hiring and repairing bicycles; if the local police knock on their doors now, it is to hire a Buzz Bike (the boys have loaned bikes to local officers).

Around 50 young people now belong to Buzz Bikes while the core founding members have learned skills including negotiating, budgeting and working in a team. None of the original members has been in trouble since starting the scheme.

The founding members now want to give something back to the charity that’s supported them so in October this year, they plan to do the Prince’s Trust Adventure Challenge to the Himalayas. All team members have to raise £3,700 each for The Prince’s Trust in order to take part in the challenge – hiking, biking and white-water rafting 286 kilometres in seven days. The money raised will go back to The Prince’s Trust to help more young people.

The Buzz Bikes team

I heard about the project earlier this year when it won the Prince’s Trust Community Impact Award, sponsored by Balfour Beatty, to recognise the positive contribution of young people to the community. I was reminded about it while watching a recent BBC story about the Bike Works project in America to teach children who might otherwise be on the streets how to build and maintain bikes. The project has been a runaway success but, with public services scarce, it is a victim of that success – increasingly finding itself providing emergency care by offering children food, or a place to sleep, rather than concentrating on its central aim.

As Bike Works’ director, Kitty Heite told the BBC: “So many kids are falling through the gaps, and it’s the responsibility of society to help them..We aren’t social services, and we could do so much more with Bike Works, with the fun thing, if we weren’t having to do that. Making the voluntary sector responsible for the glue in people’s lives is a little scary.”

Heite’s words stress an emerging theme in the current cuts climate; that an over-reliance on community-based enterprises might backfire and distract organisations from their founding princples. I’m not suggesting that the Buzz Bikes teenagers are expected to (or could) provide a social safety net if local public services decline, but I do hope that their core aims – what the American Bike Works director calls “the fun thing”, the diversion caused by an interesting activity – will long continue.

* To support Buzz Bikes/the Prince’s Trust, visit the group’s Just Giving page.

Cuts, Education, Employment, Health, Housing, Learning disability, Local government, Mental health, Older people, Poverty, Refugees & asylum, Social exclusion

No voice for the vulnerable

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Can you imagine being so desperate for affordable legal advice that you go on an eight-hour, 300-mile bus trip just to get help? I came across such a case seven years ago; a Welsh man facing eviction from his council-owned cottage when the area was being redeveloped found that the only housing legal aid lawyer willing to take on his case was in West London. So desperate was the man to stay in the cottage he had been born in and so great was his fear of homelessness, he made the trip.

Although this tale is from 2004, it highlights the vital safety net legal aid (when the state pays all or part of the legal costs for those who cannot afford them) provides to society’s most vulnerable. The number of solicitors who carry out legal aid work have been falling in recent years (hence the Welsh man’s 300-mile journey) thanks to uncompetitive pay rates, hours of unpaid work and red tape. But now, under government plans to cut the legal aid budget by £350m, the situation could get worse for those wanting to access affordable legal help. It is estimated that around 500,000 people could lose out on legal advice amid the planned cuts as the government wants to remove clinical negligence, family law, education, non-asylum immigration and housing cases from legal aid’s scope.

Today is Justice for All day, with marches and petitions planned by a coalition of 3,000 charities campaigning against the cuts and you can also oppose the cuts at social action campaign site 38 Degrees.

The Law Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, has also launched Sound Off For Justice, a campaign for alternative reforms that it says will save more than the government’s own proposals and protect legal aid funding. The campaign encourages the public to demand the government reconsider its plans and look at the alternative measures which it says would save £384m in the next 12 months. You can record a voicemail for Justice Secretary Ken Clarke against the cuts here. The campaign is supported by, amongst others, housing charity Shelter, the Refugee Council, lone parent charity Gingerbread and housing association Eaves.

Here’s the campaign’s latest video:

There’s something rotten going on when an endless glut of super-injunctions protect the privacy, reputations and careers of the super-rich but a lone parent, for example, is denied basic access to his children because he simply can’t get the afford the advice.

Big society, Cuts, Local government, Private sector, Third sector, Volunteering, Young people

“The kid who talked of burning down the place is now volunteering to paint it…”

Hutton Hall Community Centre - Community Asset Transfer
Hutton Hall community centre, photos by Podnosh

A year ago it would have been pointless painting a mural on the wall of Hutton Hall; it would have been covered in grafitti within a day. But after the building was transferred to community group Comm:pact by Birmingham city council in April, youngsters treat it – and its new exterior artwork – with pride. Read about how to make community asset transfer work in my Guardian piece today.

Saba Salman on social affairs