by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron MP, has declared that park services, libraries, etc., could all be run by charities and volunteers.
Pardon me but what? This is privatization of public services by the back door!
Most publicly owned parks and open spaces, often erroneously referred to as “public parks” and “public open spaces”, are statutory obligations to the local authorities, resultant from the Public Health Act of the nineteenth century and thus the authorities, local and county councils, cannot actually and legally, divest themselves of then and the management of them.
Where local users may band together to manage and maintain those spaces the authorities are responsible and remain responsible for them and for retaining them as recreation areas that they were intended for under the Act.
The other question that remains is as to who pays for the materials, machinery, etc., that will be needed even if volunteers are used and who trains them in the use of said machinery. The Prime Minister is not really expecting any volunteers to cut the lawns by use of a human-powered lawn mower or fell trees by use of handsaws, is he?
The way that things are going, and the Cameron/Clegg coalition gets its way, there soon will be no public services, especially not as fas as real front line workers are concerned, in England. Scotland, Wales and Ulster, with the devolved governments, are a different story. The aim appears to do everything with charities and their volunteers.
So, which charity if going to do the waste collection and recycling and which is going to run the parks and open spaces and countryside? The Salvation Army doing the rubbish, the Red Cross and the St John's Brigade doing ambulance service, the Scouts take over the running of parks and open spaces? Well, just a few suggestions.
It is fine and good if people want to take on those services – or some “public” services – but most of them will not be capable of doing them and that is a fact. They do not have the skills and knowledge as to what is required and where and when.
A bunch of retired bank managers, teachers, car salespeople, shop assistants and moms, etc. cannot run a “public” park, for instance. While they may be perfectly capable to run a scout troop, a boy's club, an after school club, etc., and even a library service, parks, refuse collection, and many other public services are a different ballgame altogether.
When it comes to parks they may be able to do some grounds work such as digging beds, clearing debris, weeding and planting, but that is about it, but not that the powers-that-be currently in government would understand that.
This shows that the likes of Cameron and Clegg and the rest of them that sit in the Houses of Parliament do not have a clue of real life whatsoever. Time that we had a real change in government, and I mean a real change, with ordinary people running the country. It is time that we put an end to professional politicians.
© 2011
