Working Partnerships

We have`Working in Partnership`as a mantra put out in all directions from the GIRFEC bill.  In fact we have the same mantra put out across the whole of Government. It seems innocent and few people question it. Isn`t it best to build consensus and get along and agree with each other?  Well yes. That would be ideal if this was not POLITICS which it is.

Agreeable as it may seem at first, this language is not innocent.  It has been deftly crafted in order to anaesthetise the opposition - that is if there still is one - and have us all dumbed down and in need of a great lawyer in order to contest it. Because why should it only be stakeholders who have their say, and not the rest of us?  Surely what we have is a democracy and it is the electorate who give  consent or not to a government`s manifesto so that they may represent us?

Well, not any more.  And it is this idea of stakeholders, working in partnership, which governments now use to undermine democracy. First thrashed out in the United Nations` Agenda 21 this document of hundreds of pages is so dry it is almost inpenetrable but is available on the world wide web.  Nevertheless, the ideas it contains about sustainable development are being sneaked into the plans of different nations across the globe. Probably because of its unique history and political culture many in the USA are beginning to see the connections between sustainable development, the United Nations, and the push towards a one world dictatorial government.

We have seen that stakeholders are non-governmental agencies and in the child care industry they are pseudo charitable organisations like Barnardo`s and the NSPCC who have a massive stake in the fostering and adoption industry. It is no surprise then that in their role as consultant and adviser to the Government they lobby for more and speedier child adoptions, particularly babies. Population control is an Agenda 21 issue and that includes control of children. See the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which is being used to undermine parents.

Martin Crewe is the Director of Barnardo`s in Scotland.

 

His previous experience includes seven years as Regional Manager with the NSPCC. He has served on the Boards of several voluntary organisations including the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) and was also a 'business excellence' assessor with Quality Scotland for five years. Trained as a scientist he completed his PhD in geochemistry and worked on the first geological map of Greenland. He gained an MSc in Social Services Management in 2006. In other words his background does not make him an expert in child care.

That matters little because according to Barnardo`s website, Martin Crewe was still a key member of the Scottish Government / COSLA partnership developing the Early Years Framework for Scotland and is currently involved in the Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) programme!

In addition we have the unbelievable statement from Andrew Flanagan, the chief executive of the NSPCC, that `doing less could mean more.` In other words he insinuated that his role should be merely to advise Government and never mind the services. And what is his experience with children? In the Guardian article it tells us: `While still in his 40s, Flanagan had run a sizeable chunk of ITV, was powerful enough to drop Chris Evans from his radio show for sulking, and sold Glasgow's chain of local newspapers to a US media giant for £216m. He was a regular feature in the power lists: less than a decade ago, Flanagan was sandwiched on the Guardian's Media top 100 between the Daily Mail's proprietor and the editor of the Times, at number 38.`

They go on: `Then, in 2008, Flanagan got an unexpected phone call: would he be interested in transforming the NSPCC? The children's charity was still dazed by the triumph of its Full Stop campaign to end child abuse – the most successful fundraising push in UK history, pulling in £250m. After mulling over the offer for a few days, Flanagan accepted.`

`Change` and `transformation` are words used often in Agenda 21. It is revealing that Flanagan was asked if he would be interested in transforming the NSPCC and what that transformation entailed: Doing less.

The Independent reports that David Cameron is prepared to get tougher on teenage single mothers by insisting that they stay with their parents or move into hostel accommodation. In this age of transformation and austerity he is prepared to reduce these mothers to abject poverty. Guess which fostering and adoption organisations will move in to get the babies when the stress gets too much for young mothers?  Because there won`t be any public services to support them.

The writer in the Guardian article is duly impressed by Flanagan and notes that his radical idea was that `in an age of austerity the only way to ensure that donations kept rolling in was to "recalibrate" the idea that the charity would "end child cruelty" any time soon, and recreate the NSPCC as more of a thinktank, than a provider of services.`

Flanagan thinks that the public trusts charities. It`s about time we started to see through them as well as our Government.