Downing Street Says » Civil Society

» Monday, April 23, 2007

Civil Society

Asked if there was any response to David Cameron’s speech about civil society, and that the Government was overseeing a "de-civilised culture and was treating people like children", the PMOS said that as a civil servant, he was not going to respond directly to the Leader of the Opposition. However, the PMOS pointed people to the recent report on ASBOs from the NAO in December 2006. That report recognised that our policy in tackling antisocial behaviour through a twin attack approach of support and sanction was effective, as well as being effective in cracking down on other things such as dispersal zones and acceptable behaviour contracts. We had also put in place parenting classes and advice to address poor parenting. Therefore, in terms of a society in which people took responsibility, we had set out measures to try to achieve that.

The PMOS reminded journalists of the support that we had given teachers by giving school staff statutory powers for disciplining pupils for the first time. All of those were measures of civic support. In terms of the overall picture, nobody was going to pretend that these problems arose when this Government came to power; they had been there for a long time. The important thing to ask was had we taken measures to back neighbourhoods or teachers and parents? The answer was that the Government had.

Put that there was an international report published that said that the UK was the worst place to bring up children, and didn’t David Cameron have a point, the PMOS replied that with regards to various reports, it depended on what they were measuring. The important thing was how was the performance of children measured? For instance, if they were measured by school results, then they were performing better that ever before, therefore, it did have to be put into the mix. People also had to resist the temptation to smear an entire generation of children by the misbehaviour of some.

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Civil Society

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