Mutuals are the future for public services
Author: The Guardian - Mar 31, 2010
The government today announces a "mutual manifesto" as it unveils plans to allow people to own and run a plethora of local services including council estates and SureStart centres.
The dossier includes measures to allow users to take over the running of their local services. It has been known for some time that the government would put mutualism at the centre of its manifesto, but not that the government would extend their aspiration to mutualise health and social care to council housing and SureStart.
Labour will also announce that 115 Labour groups or councils will commit today to becoming "co-operative councils" along the lines of Lambeth, which is currently consulting on plans to make all its services part-run by its users.
The document details plans to:
• Allow parents to join with the staff to run a network of local children's centres as part of a "federation" of SureStart centres. The plan will see five federations set up, each made up of around 20 SureStarts.
• Allow council housing to be opened up so that tenants can join together to run their estates. The government document says it will aim to help cooperatives and mutuals to access public land on which they can build more social housing.
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