Childcare is flavour of the week and quickly becoming a political football.  I wish we had an equivalent Robin Van Persie to either land the childcare ball in the net, or kick it so far into the distance that we have to begin a debate that gets us to really consider what we want from childcare.

At the moment the media and the sector are making a fuss as to why it’s taking so long for the Government to respond to the Childcare Commission. I have no idea why people are investing so much energy into this anticipated announcement. It’s not going to solve the fundamental question as to why childcare is so expensive.

The Commission was set up by Sarah Teather MP when she was Minister  of State in the Department of Education. Her approach was quite different to that of our new Minister Elizabeth Truss, unsurprisingly given that she is a Conservative and Ms Teather a Lib Dem.  I might also remind everyone that when the Childcare Commission was launched just before the summer there was great annoyance from the sector about the timing, the questions and the purpose.  The issue will never be resolved until we have a big conversation with ourselves about what we want for our children. At the moment two parallel drivers dictate childcare policy framed within  rather confused thinking about how it can help reduce child poverty. The first policy strand focuses on enabling women to work, and the second to support social mobility in an attempt to help break inequality.

This week the challenges of both policy approaches reflected my week.  First of all I attended the Child Poverty Alliance and was roused by My Fair London campaign’s reminder of the invidious consequences of inequality.  Quoting statistics to make your head roll, I was reminded that London has the largest gap between rich and poor of any city in the developed world, with two thirds of all wealth in London held by just 10% of Londoners.  I was reminded that the consequences of this inequality is bad for us all on so many levels, not least creating a lack of trust between the economic classes, poor child wellbeing (remember the UK  came last in UNICEF’s report), poor health, increased cases of mental ill-health and general all around human misery.

Statistics show that in countries with the lowest levels of inequality, trust levels are five times higher and involvement in the community much greater than in countries where inequality levels are highest. What’s more, where inequality levels are high, children of families on the lowest incomes are already a year behind in their development by the age of five when compared with those who are better off (a fact that made me put down my current book Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens to re-read The Spirit Level; to be honest all of a similar theme).

Given that early education is considered a key factor in addressing this inequality - because it gets people to a place where they are more likely to succeed, and ultimately people with more education earn more, pay more taxes, are more productive, vote and are generally happier - a then access to childcare and education for young children as a driver of social mobility makes sense.

Midweek, I went to hear the Resolution Foundation research about improving  childcare to be an even more effective  policy driver for getting people, especially women, into work. They told us their findings that  showed that two parent households of low to middle incomes (£17,000 to £41,000) are little better off than those on poor incomes. In fact they confirmed what we already know, that instead of taking working parents out of poverty, childcare costs were driving working parents into debt and poverty (an already all too familiar picture at LEYF). At this point, it is worth recalling the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who showed the link between inequality and the financial crises. He pointed out, it is no accident that both major modern crises - the first beginning in 1929, the second in 2008 -coincided with historic levels of inequality.

While there was much ooing and aahing from the Resolution Foundation audience of media, policy makers and charities, the question remained what to do. A  key solution from was to offer parents an extra 10 hours a week at £1/hour for children aged 2, 3 and 4. I was slightly dismayed by this idea, given that Governments past and present have so far steadfastly refused to pay even the going rate for childcare, meaning providers like ourselves already subsidise the cost of childcare to families by up to £500 per child per annum. How then would we get any Government to pay for an additional  properly costed  contribution of  a further £3billion?   This and finding out  what happens to the current £7billion is what the Childcare Commission should be addressing? Not tinkering with deregulation, alienating the sector and suggesting some regressive tax breaks.

In essence, the fundamental issue is exactly what David Cameron has already said himself:

More unequal countries do worse according to every quality of life indicator.

David Cameron, Hugo Young memorial lecture, November 2009.

The Government therefore needs to weave the two strands of its policies together more coherently. Employment and social mobility should be one, so all families are supported out of poverty, not into it; and early education is delivered in a way that supports the longer term aim of creating a more equal society with all its attendant benefits.

I was going to blog about babies and business which hit the headlines last week – namely how the newly appointed pregnant CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer will not take maternity leave and bring her baby to work, and the CEO of Addison Lee, Liam Griffin wants his staff to be able to bring their babies to work. I only hope the babies like being tucked under desks and that proximity to Mum or Dad is sufficient to constitute good childcare.

However, as London has launched the 30th Olympiad at a fantastical and slightly bonkers opening night, I felt it was only right and patriotic to comment on the Olympics – not least the fabulous efforts of all 23 LEYF nurseries to complete our own ‘Olympic torch’ relay.

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I felt morally obligated to watch the opening ceremony – the only time in my life I have done this.  Like the Eurovision Song Contest, I tend to avoid these big blockbuster affairs as they tend to be jingoistic and mawkishly sentimental (a combination that leaves me feeling slightly nauseous). However, this year I along with 27 million others made do with the TV version. Frankly, I would have preferred to be there, as no doubt the music, lighting, fireworks and atmosphere would have added to the whole experience.  (As it happened, I had a friend who miraculously had got a ticket and gave up to date commentary.)

I really liked the involvement of children, and the focus on them as our next generation of sports people was joyful.  I also loved the Chaos Choir, although at the beginning I did wonder whether we had all arrived in Pandemonium. Indeed if this is the City of Hell, I am going to try harder to get to the Pearly Gates. At least now we know why the NHS is always in trouble; the doctors and nurses are all taking dance classes. (No wonder you can’t find a nurse on the wards to plump up the patients pillows, they are all out the back practising their jazz swings and selling the beds to Danny Boyle’s production company.)

I loved the parade which included 204 countries, some of which were new to me.  In fact it was a bit of a geography lesson, as we heard of newly named free countries and so many from the Pacific Islands. Most touching was the representation from those countries which have recently or currently experienced war, civil unrest, hunger, piracy and environmental disasters. Their ambition to attend was heartening. I really hope they get medals.

And wasn’t it fantastic that we have women in every team for the first time? No more room for complacency on the issue of women’s equality across the globe – and such a great way for us to teach our own children not to be casual about what has been hard won! It reminds me of a great film called The Source made in Morocco recently, where women went on strike from their wifely bedroom duties until the men would get them piped water. It was a modern story but the issues and attitudes went back centuries.

I thought Sebastian Coe’s speech was heartfelt too, as he reminded us of the reason for the Olympics: linking sport with culture and education; celebrating the joy achieved from effort and helping build a better world through sport practised in a spirit of peace, excellence, friendship and respect.  It’s a shame more of the athletes and their organising colleagues did not pay more respect to him by listening instead of jumping around, chewing gum and playing with their phones. Role models for the next generation, I hope not.  If anything, that was much more evident from our friends in the military and the beautiful and orderly formation of a respectful Chelsea Pensioner troop. The behaviour of the 1000 volunteers was also praised and will no doubt bring a tear to David Cameron’s eye, as a little bit of his Big Society dream comes alive in London over the next few weeks.

In the end, the Olympics is here and I wonder how many camp beds we will need at LEYF?  Will we be Happy and Glorious like James Bond or will John Milton’s vision of Pandemonium be the legacy? Let’s hope that many people are touched by the harmony that sport can play in developing our modern society and that those young people who lit the Olympian flame will salute the democratic spirit of the Olympics and reflect it in the way they shape the future.

It wasn’t Big Society or social value that got Mr. Cameron out of Downing St to celebrate social businesses, it was money; or at least the draw of it. Big Society Capital, long planned and much mooted by Mr Hurd MP, finally launched; but had it not been for the Prime Minister helping out on the PR front, it’s unlikely many social enterprises would have even noticed.

Of course, there is no doubt we need risk and working capital in the same way that any business does. But how will this shiny new opportunity work? Essentially, Big Society Capital (BSC) is a wholesaler which will lend to social investment finance intermediaries (SIFIs), who will in turn lend to social businesses at a slightly lower interest rate than your average High St Bank. I can only hope that spending on both BSC and all the SIFIs will be kept to a minimum, or the £600m available will soon be frittered away; I also hope that the lending process will be attractive and accessible, and sensibly match the interests of socially motivated investors with the need for capital in the social sector.

At LEYF we have been investigating how to get investment to repeat our model across London for some time now.  We certainly found a lot of rhetoric that did not translate into any meaningful investment; partly because many investors just don’t get social value as a part of an investment return, else the offer to businesses was considered so risk averse that it simply was not viable.  Our real breakthrough was winning a contract to work with the Social Business Trust (SBT) which has brought together six large businesses which cover all elements of investment, finance, business management, communication and compliance.  For us, this has led to us being treated like a proper client, and with the offer of serious money to inject into a thoroughly considered and fully costed growth strategy.  As the team making it happen, SBT get the three elements right: social, business and trust.  This last element, trust, being the actual glue that enables us to form the kind of relationship that will allow real growth, expansion and business sustainability.

I hope the launch of BSC will allow for more SBTs, and the more we use this means of investing for growth, the more confident we will become in the market place. There is of course a risk that smaller and lower economic value businesses will not attract funds through BSC. Nonetheless, it still represents a genuine opportunity for some larger mainstream public sector services to enter the market. The key fact to remember here is that social businesses are set up to respond to a market need, but in a way that adds explicit social value. And if we want to increase this value, we have to saturate the market with social enterprises; and investment can help with this. As Bollinger, sponsors of tomorrow’s Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race,  proudly declare “Life can be perfect”; and so it can, as long as we have the chance to raise more glasses and celebrate a social enterprise takeover in today’s capitalist society.

This weekend the TV presenters continually referred to the joy and happiness created by the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.  Images of laughing people enjoying street parties, smiling at cameras and looking the epitome of happy, connected and positive citizens dominated our TVs.

Why then do we need Action for Happiness, a new organisation set up by Professor Richard Layard, Geoff Mulgan and Dr. Anthony Seldon to challenge the level of unhappiness in the UK, which despite our material comfort is much higher than 50 years ago?  They want us to focus on what really makes us happy: healthy relationships and meaningful activities, such as lifelong learning and doing things for others; they want us to reject the dominant culture of materialism and self-obsessed individualism.

I suspect Action for Happiness likes Royal Wedding street parties, however sadly infrequent they may be to make much difference in the long term.  What they appear to be more concerned with is the more enduring negative impact of our predilection for regular reality programmes, such as The Only Way isEssex, which although parody materialism and self- obsession also retain a sneaking admiration for both.  This particular programme amounts to one hour each week of amusing but vacuous discussion about the key challenges in life: seemingly hair extensions, nails, Botox and men telling women to be serious and “none of your lipstick and nails talk”.  It does not take long to realise that Action for Happiness has its work cut out.

Many years ago (1993), Professor Richard Layard gave the Annual Margaret Horn Lecture here at LEYF on the economic value of happiness.  As always, it was a thought-provoking lecture, at the end of which I tentatively asked whether we should measure the happiness of children, which to me is the real acid test of a happy society.  Some years later, in 2009, Professor Layard produced a report called A Good Childhood, commissioned by the Children’s Society and penned together with Judy Dunn. They noted that children in the UK enjoy good health and can look forward to long lives; they have foreign holidays and a wealth of consumer goods; 90% of children over 11 have their own mobile phone, whilst 80% of 5-16 year olds have their own television.  However, despite the level of material goods available to them, children were on the whole more stressed, more violent and less happy than their peers of the seventies or eighties.  They concluded that children did not thrive in a  consumer culture that promotes ‘excessive individualism’, and in effect children would only truly succeed in a society where people care for each other, promoting each other’s good as well as their own.

When David Cameron became Conservative leader in 2005, he said gauging people’s feelings was one of the central political issues of our time; his mantra was happiness, happiness, happiness.  In fact, this is now to be examined as part of the annual Office for National Statistics nationwide Integrated Household Survey.

But what will it tell us about happiness?  Will materialism be an issue in this age of austerity? Will self obsession be the type commonly associated with depression and despair?  Or will we find an increased level of happiness as people begin to rely more on each other and their own abilities and get a kick out of that?  Either way, happiness is squarely on the agenda – and probably a more important issue for the UK right now than a referendum on AV, especially for children.

So what do we know: the UK was last in the UNESCO Well Being report; A Good Childhood told us that our children are miserable and we need to think about them more.  We have a Social Mobility strategy to address key issues such as increasing child poverty, a widening gap between rich and poor, expensive childcare and Children Centres under threat.  Do we need to hear any more?  Probably not.

What we do need is to finally put children at the heart of Government policies.  The decisions we make today have to be the basis for creating happiness, not for us but for all of our children.  We don’t need any more reports or strategies; we just need to put the child’s voice at the centre and then amplify it, until it rings in our ears and we are forced to listen properly and finally act accordingly.  Nelson Mandela summed it up perfectly when he said:

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

Related articles

• Happiness: Lessons From a New Science, By Richard Layard (independent.co.uk)
• Charity says spreading joy is they key to happiness (bbc.co.uk)
• Will buying a stranger a coffee enhance your wellbeing? (telegraph.co.uk)

I have learned that if I am to truly avoid all contact with the world of work, then I need to go abroad without a phone or internet access.  To this end, I recently spent a lovely few days immersed in the renaissance art of Florence.

On my return came the announcement that the Department of Education had allocated £60m of hard earned tax payers’ money to over 100 so-called voluntary and community organisations. The serenity of the Botticellis soon evaporated into a sort of Sir Henry Taylor level of gall and indignation – as his saying ‘where there are large powers with little ambition, nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes’ came rapidly to mind.

Why was I feeling so cross? Principally because the purpose of the grants was to enable organisations to play a more significant role in reforming and delivering services for children, young people, parents and families – and with a particular emphasis on early intervention and tackling the needs of the most disadvantaged groups. What weasel words.  Is this not another way of wasting our time and effort, whilst looking at ways of cutting funds for children services.  Funding the usual suspects is hardly an innovative way forward.

Maybe I am being unfair, but in these difficult times – where organisations like mine are losing significant contracts to provide for children in need and run children centre services – it’s hard to stomach sums of over £100k plus being allocated to endless support organisations, many of which should be partnered up and formed into single entities.  According to the department, the aim of these grants is to free organisations up from dependency on grants… well there is little need to become sustainable if all the central costs are funded by tax payers.  What is the point of the Transition Funds? Was this not designed to support such organisations become sustainable? In my book, that’s £160m of money that could be better spent providing real services to children and their families.

I was also baffled and bemused by the other big decision (worth £1m over two years), which saw the strategic lead partnership for the early years and childcare sector allocated to a group of organisations, none of which are either specifically early years or childcare. I suppose what galled me more was how this would pay for at least 65 full daycare places with family support in my organisation for vulnerable children in high need. Instead, this is something we currently have to raise our own funds for, since such children not yet on the Child Protection list no longer constitute high priority. So much for applying the principles of early intervention…

The allocation of all this money is supposed to develop a vigorous and responsive sector, freed up from the dependency on grants and better equipped to operate within a payment by results environment; it is meant to make such organisations commissioning ready and look at innovative approaches to lever private investment. What strikes me is there is quite a tension and I will be intrigued to understand how organisations funded by the department can offer independence, challenge and innovation. Let’s only hope Jonathan Swift’s comment that ‘power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent’ remains high in all our minds.

Alongside the delight of being Chief Executive of LEYF, I am also chair of Paddington Farm Trust.  Established as a charity 20 years ago and now operating as a social enterprise, the Trust provides farm holidays and educational activities for people living in poor urban areas (people more typically disadvantaged by poor physical health, mental illness, economic pressures or simply life circumstances).  The farm itself is based in Somerset and was donated to a group of far-seeing community activists from Paddington at the end of the reign of the GLC; Big Society already successfully at work back in the 1980s.

So this weekend, my fellow trustees and I worked on the annual strategy; and most importantly focused on how we can make up the shortfall from losing our grant which previously made up 12% of our income.  On top of that, we are equally unsure how many of our regular visiting groups (themselves supported by their local authorities) will cease to visit.

Whilst a holiday may well be seen as a luxury in these austere times, supporting the fragile wellbeing of lonely, elderly poor people, those coping with mental or ill health and those recovering from drug and alcohol dependency (not to mention children of all ages from ugly concrete inner city estate) is critical.  Many of these people are already suffering the consequences of a lack of early intervention and have seen their lives unravel by circumstances out of their control.  Few of us are ever more than a few small steps away from disaster; we all try to organise our lives to avoid it, but some have no margin in the face of such overwhelming obstacles.  Last year’s Marmot Report confirmed the five key indicators which could help predict future health: life expectancy, disability-free life expectancy, child development at five, young people out of work and households on means-tested benefits. The report examined local authority data and found inequalities in all areas, leading the government to announce a desire to improve the health of the vulnerable. Quite right; so don’t limit their chance of having a holiday with such huge benefits, from better health to learning new skills.

Back at LEYF, we have always taken a group of up to twelve children to the farm for five days without their parents. The holidays have been universally successful, and the benefits to children and their parent(s) huge. We have never had to come back early and the trust between parents, children and staff has been wonderful; a very clear example of Big Society in action.  Recently, however, we have found it harder to get parents to agree to the ‘risk’ of allowing their children to go on such a break.  Caught between guilt and anxiety, they have reluctantly rejected the offer – not least worried they will be seen as bad parents if anything goes wrong.  Is it any wonder?  Today’s parents are constantly scrutinised by the press, the government and statutory agencies – and so many have lost their self-confidence to do what feels right for them and their children.  In addition, they are operating within an invidious horribleness (again perpetrated by mainstream media), that adults who work with children are closet paedophiles who, given half the chance, would harm their sons or daughters. The shocking truth is that actually children are at much greater risk of harm from within their own family.  What we really need is to put more faith in the fortitude of warm, trusting individual relationships as the basis for more positive human relationships in general.

I left the farm more determined than ever.  And then listening to Radio 4 on my way back, an interview with Francis Maude MP challenged him with the findings of a survey in the Independent on Sunday, proclaiming that while 67% of people had heard of the Big Society, 41% thought it was a cover up for cuts to public sector services.  Is this right?

I had just been on the farm with a bunch of volunteers like Steve, who is designing and building an outdoor classroom from trees in our coppice, which in turn were planted by volunteers from BTCV.  None of them needed encouragement to give their time so generously; they already wanted to give something back to society.

Despite its social enterprise business model, the farm is under pressure because we simply don’t know if we can rely on some of our regular customer groups. LEYF is also facing cuts in contracts for children in need, leaving us nearly one million pounds short this year. But will these cuts affect our attitude to Big Society – or will it simply make us more enterprising and determined; angry and more relentless in our fight for what we believe to be human rights?  It’s hard to say right now, but while I am surrounded by people who are altruistic and unselfish, my spirit remains uplifted and I will continue to find ways to overcome the inhibiting attitudes and self-fulfilling prophecies of the doom and gloom brigade.

Related articles

• Cameron not for turning on plans for Big Society (independent.co.uk)
• PM launches Big Society fightback (bbc.co.uk)
• Cameron’s “big society” relaunch repeats old errors (newstatesman.com)
• Have no doubt, the big society is on its way | David Cameron (guardian.co.uk)

What would Lord Shaftsbury, Mary Carpenter or Dr Barnardo make of the ongoing political battle of what to cut and what to save?  What would they make of the government’s sudden hands-off approach, as the local authority squeals how their hands are tied and the rest of the sector stands by frustrated, trying to work out their own place or possible options in this brave/scary (delete as appropriate) new world?

Many charity and voluntary sector organisations are being criticised for keeping far too quiet whilst they try to save themselves.  Forget that approach, have some spirit and pluck; we might as well go down fighting under government opprobrium and local authority cuts.

At LEYF, we are nothing if not hands on.  And like most social entrepreneurs (fundamentally optimistic), we are disturbed to see how rapidly the original intention and real potential to develop and extend this big society seems to be evaporating before our very eyes.  Whilst the designated carer or white knight (aka third sector) of this new world paradoxically faces cuts in the region of 40%, we find ourselves no less immune – needing to magic one million pounds worth of ‘efficiencies’ out of the mutual-inspired hat. And with a good chunk of this due to a drastic reduction in places for children in need, I can only say ‘poor souls’… whilst echoes of the Victorian hymn ‘Suffer Little Children‘ reverberate around the back streets of Westminster and other similarly challenged London boroughs.

However, our philanthropic forefathers (and mothers, naturally) were not ones to roll over in a fiscal crisis, and neither must we. Our task now is to lead and balance criticism of the cuts with a practical and pragmatic set of solutions that can be woven into a clear and coherent philosophy.

But what does this mean; what can and in fact must we actually do..?  First of all, we need to decide what we want.  If early intervention is the mantra, what should it look like?  If Graham Allen wants bankers to invest by developing social impact bonds, what does this impact need to look like to convince them?  If we are to become truly persuasive and achieve our goals, we need to rethink the short-sighted nature of our current response – which at best is all about Children’s Centres (as if they were in every case the embodiment of perfection) and at worst saving individual settings without a sense of responsibility for the bigger picture.

And let us remember the crucial role of professional childcare at the heart of the debate, especially for those children from poor and disadvantaged families.  Let us certainly not forget all we have learned from the huge range of research carried out over the past 10 years – such as the fact that attending high quality preschool has a positive impact on the development of every child, and is even more essential when making a difference to the outcomes of the most dispossessed amongst them.

Our social business model at LEYF gives a great many parents access to such quality daycare for their children, providing both with the range of opportunities they need to step up and make a difference to their own life chances.  Let’s see more of this: we need to help parents believe in self-efficacy, with more consistent and effective dialogue between parents and professionals to help give them greater confidence in supporting their own children; we need to create a more family centred approach to safe guarding; instead of closing libraries and stopping funds for reading recovery (another gross irony in 2011, the National Year of Communication), we need to fund services that will encourage parents to read to their children, since this is undeniably another critical factor in the educational success of young children.

Elsewhere, let’s examine improvements to commissioning; apply the Total Place model and use carrot and stick to induce cross borough collaboration.  And if you’re lost in translation, start by reading pages 8 and 69 of the Graham Allen Report ‘Early Intervention: The Next Steps‘; it will help us mull over the many options.  Remember the wise words of Winston Churchill, and let’s make sure that ‘out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge’.

Whatever your individual circumstance or priorities right now, we must find a way of weaving a simple but effective message, stating how together we can mitigate any further risks to the futures of those children we care for.  As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, ‘It is today we must create the world of the future.’  So whatever we do, let’s do it with a real purpose and enthusiasm; and as always, with the child at the heart.

This has been an interesting week or so for the sector…

Firstly, Graham Allen MP (who spoke with such conviction about Early Intervention at our annual Margaret Horn Lecture in November) finally launched his much anticipated report at the Gherkin.

It was a room full of bankers and Early Year’s people – and I was most amused to realise that I knew quite a few of the bankers. We have been working with bankers for some time, in the hope of developing a social investment plan to extend our training programmes for young apprentices. However, the event did remind me of a wedding – the groom’s family in one corner and the bride’s in the other, with no one sure how to bridge the gap and mumblings as to whether this partnership would last (a comment also made by Graham Allen himself who recognised the challenge of developing social impact bonds).

The deputy Prime Minister, looking quite boyish, confirmed the commitment of the coalition Government to Early Years and social mobility, whilst assuring us of the need for investment in a fairer society. My only real concern here is the use of the phrase ‘school readiness’. While I know that every child has to be ready and able to succeed at school, I do hope that we also want to give children a happy childhood, because that is what so many of them are really missing.

Elsewhere this week, ACEVO invited Sarah Teather, Minister for Children and Families, to breakfast.  Here she presided over the launch of a very special taskforce – including yours truly, amongst several other experts from across the sector.  Our task it transpired is to support the Minister in converting the government’s objectives into a coherent vision for Early Years.  Sarah Tether appears keen on the principle of co-production, a concept very familiar to us in social enterprise.  However, like most modern jargon, it’s a clumsy expression that obscures good intentions, namely to work alongside people and get their views as part of a process of contribution and mutuality.  It’s a great approach for people like me who enjoy talking and networking with colleagues.

On my return to my own lovely team, I was able to reassure them that charities such as the Children’s Society, Action for Children and Spurgeons all struggle as we do – with complex contracts and barriers to commissioning.  In the spirit of the Big Society, it seems that sharing, connecting and linking together is the future, one of which I particularly approve.

On this very subject, last week we put our own head above the parapet and urged everyone else to do the same – with the hope of ensuring that if Children’s Centres were to close, the right ones would be chosen for the right reasons, and those that were needed would remain. The response has been heartening, particularly from parents and those professionals who really believe in finding the means of supporting children from poor and vulnerable families. Sadly, there are still too many people working in the world of children and families who have remained ominously silent.

Nonetheless, it would appear that our long-held belief that Children’s Centres should be intergenerational is finally gaining support. We are now working with Gulbekian and the lovely Beth Johnson Foundation to start testing our model.  We hope that once we begin to articulate a specific and successful approach, more people will believe as we do, that this is the way forward for us all.  This certainly fits with the notion of Big Society, and so has the backing of many senior Government ministers and Lords of the Realm.

We must remember that an intergenerational approach is more about attitude than the simple idea of having a building where older and younger people have services; to be truly intergenerational means to engage and form relationships across the generations, which in itself is not just about the very old and the very young but every generation in-between.

With this in mind, I invite you all to devour, discuss and share our ‘Ten Steps to a Sustainable, Intergenerational Children Centre’, part of our broader review of recent research relating to the current situation, ‘Children’s Centres: A Way Forward’.  As always, I welcome comments, challenges – and more ideas!

Instead of shimmering with the particular energy of disaffection (Alexander Pope), let’s take last week’s call to arms and convert this critical debate into positive action.

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• Will social impact bonds solve society’s most intractable problems? (guardian.co.uk)

Our 4th Annual Margaret Horn Lecture last Thursday evening went off with a bang. We were oversubscribed which raised the thorny question of health and safety and how many people can be fitted in a room.  Fortunately, the LEYF staff were all willing to stand in the aisles – capacity for which was also limited!

Our choice of speaker in Graham Allen MP was prompted by our belief that we have to do something active to get it right for children. In the words of Marge Piercy, we really believe that children are everyone’s business; they are our heirs and our future. And I would like to think this fairly reflects the beliefs of Margaret Horn herself. So Graham certainly drew the crowds; and as a satisfied parent of our own Bessborough community nursery, he was a great advert for parent loyalty!

Whilst Graham’s understated style belied some of his message, he did warn that a tsunami of social disaster was waiting to befall us if we didn’t act now – in the face of a growing underclass, both excluded from society and with no reason to engage in this new big society. He then pleased me endlessly by reaffirming the importance of intergenerational approaches to everything we do – something I have advocated for a very long time and which should be the central philosophy of all Children’s Centres.

The audience, among which a good number of local authorities, were remarkably sanguine as the lecture unravelled the possible implication of the cuts – many of which seem unnecessarily savage and don’t align either with government suggested financial targets, nor the idea of a Big Society.  It’s something that surprised many of us – not least a certain Polly Toynbee, who was aghast at the apparent mood of submission so ripe in the air. In all fairness, mind you, local authority officers are effectively gagged while they await their own fate.

Graham Allen thinks that one way we can address the costs of early intervention is by getting banks ,venture capitalists and philanthropists – yes, all in the same sentence – to create social impact bonds.  He tells us bonds could be anything we want them to be (although he rejected my call that they be James). In fact, only last year Dame Clare Tickell gave us our lecture, during which she reflected on the Action for Children and New Economics Foundation report Backing the Future which costed out social bonds. Let’s see if Graham Allen can get that money out of the banks; maybe we could give them some positive PR in return and charge accordingly.

For some time now, we have been told that measuring impact is critical in all this; to clearly show everyone what social return they will get on their investment, whether its from the fees they pay or donations. For our part, earlier this year we employed a company called PVC to help us measure what we do.  Karim Javeri gave a summary of progress so far, noting that what has been most interesting was the value to parents of simply attending nursery.

One final thread to com out of the debate was that of the new jargon in certain circles: scaling up and replication. At LEYF we have been investigating if our own approach might be socially franchised across the country, giving local authorities a model they can put to good use when it comes to early intervention, especially in poor neighbourhoods. Maybe now Chris White MP has managed to get the Social Enterprise Bill through the House of Commons, we will have more chance.

As I stated from day one, this blog exists fundamentally to provoke a response. So let’s prove the critics wrong. Let’s show that actually we do still have sufficient passion to challenge stupid ideas; we do have enough energy to keep rejecting limited policies and ineffective decisions. Let’s make sure this new Coalition understands what is really needed if we are to carry on putting the child at the centre. After all the future is in their hands.

Related articles

• Sure Start children’s centres told to charge for some services (guardian.co.uk)

Global Entrepreneurship Week kicks off on Monday. Who cares you say? Well, we do – particularly since every year we hold our Annual Margaret Horn Lecture on Social Enterprise Day, 18 November.  This free event, created four years ago to provoke debate around Early Years and Social Enterprise, was named to honour a woman who helped first establish and then gave 40 years of her life to our organisation.

During her lifetime, Margaret Horn achieved many things – and certainly did her bit for Big Society in a quiet, dignified and very community spirited way. If anything, this makes me thing that Big Society is very much like fashion; it comes around every ten years in a slightly re-shaped form, and those who were there the first time around may well recognise its form, only may be less certain how to wear its refashioned clothes.

At our event this year, we look forward to hearing Graham Allen MP expound his views on early intervention. I am glad that early intervention has not gone out of fashion, but equally hope it does not become just another cliché. At LEYF, early intervention has real meaning; as we watch children and young apprentices thrive in a place which supports and challenges them, introduces them to the new and extends their opportunities. Oh, I hear the cynics among you yawn, aren’t you marvellous! Touché.

Still, do come and hear him speak, then drown your cynicism in a glass of wine and a chat with us afterwards. If Big Society is to start anywhere, it may as well be at a bar with light refreshments.