Cameron's judgement questioned again.
In May last year there was a very lively exchange on PASC with Cameron's chosen ambassador for the Big Society. Shaun Bailey patronised the committee. Tory MP Robert Halfon tried to stop me asking perfectly legitimate questions. My doubts about Mr Bailey have been vindicated by today's news.
Shaun Bailey, co-founder of MyGeneration, was an ambassador for the government's big society agenda until October
MyGeneration, the charity set up by the government’s former big society ambassador Shaun Bailey, has closed because of funding problems.
The charity, which was established in May 2006 to support young people in deprived communities and had an income of £292,000 in 2009/10, was removed from the register of charities on Monday.
A spokeswoman for the Charity Commission said in a statement: "The charity’s trustees cited funding problems as the reason for the charity’s dissolution".
Bailey, who stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative Party candidate at the 2010 general election, was appointed as an ambassador for the big society agenda by Prime Minister David Cameron last year.
Bailey told Third Sector he stood down from the position in October and had been appointed as a special adviser to the Prime Minister's office, where he was advising the government on youth, crime and welfare issues. He said he had been made redundant from MyGeneration in May or June 2011 when a restructure took place, but he had continued to volunteer for the charity.
Bailey said a job club run by the charity, which had 420 members, would close down but all of the charity's other services would carry on. Bailey said MyGeneration had been funded by foundations and by fundraising. "The job club cost a fortune to run, and continuing at the pace we were going at was proving difficult," he said.
"We saw that in this tough funding environment it was hard to sustain that level of services, so we sought a partner to continue that work. I think it was an appropriate response to a changing climate."
This is what happened in May 2011
Paul Flynn: I am grateful, Mr Bailey, for explaining to me that there are such things as councils. I am aware of it; I did sit on one for 25 years before I came here. Do you regard your own organisation as an example for other Big Society organisations to follow?
Shaun Bailey: No, not at all. What my organisation and I do has very little to do with what the Big Society does in relation to me as an employee. I do those things, I have been doing them for years; I hope to continue to do them for years.
Paul Flynn: Could you answer some of the criticisms that have been made about the way you run your organisation?
Shaun Bailey: Absolutely.
Paul Flynn: Okay, well, it has been claimed that 35 pence in the pound is spent on publicity, and 20 pence in the pound on activities, and this went up greatly during your period as a parliamentary candidate. What is the explanation for that?
Robert Halfon: On a point of order, Mr Jenkin. I think this line of questioning has nothing to do with the inquiry about the Big Society.
Paul Flynn: It has everything to do with establishing the credentials of the ambassador.
Robert Halfon: It is a political attempt to undermine a witness, and I think it is totally out of order. I think it is a disgraceful line of questioning.
Chair: The question has been asked; I am anxious not to get bogged down into this line of questioning, but I would like to give Mr Bailey the opportunity to answer the point that has been made.
Shaun Bailey: All of those claims came from a very belligerent, badly behaved Labour MP. He spoke about things and those figures talk about things that people like he and you do not fully understand. We—hold on.
Chair: Please let Mr Bailey answer.
Shaun Bailey: Hold on. We run a tiny, small organisation. It had to get itself off the floor, and those things there were accounted for badly. So things were put in different columns. People said, “What is activity?” For instance, you are talking about things like all the travelling and stuff. Now, they did our accounts as though that was our staff travel. Actually, I think at that point it was over 400 children up and down the country travelling. That is where all that come from, and the detail of what went on, if people bothered to look rather than make a political attack about what we do, they would be happy about what we do. That particular MP should really ask himself how come I am connected with so many people from his constituency and he is not.
Paul Flynn: Were you investigated by the Charity Commission for the loss of £16,000?
Shaun Bailey: Absolutely not.
Chair: That seems to be the substance—
Robert Halfon: Mr Speaker, this is an outrageous line of questioning.
Chair: Order, order.
Shaun Bailey: You show me where we—
Robert Halfon: This is a disgraceful abuse of the Select Committee. A disgraceful abuse.
Chair: Order, order. This is not the right forum to crossexamine the conduct of an individual charity. I have allowed Mr Bailey to answer your question, Mr Flynn. I think we should move on, and the fact that this matter has been investigated by the Charity Commission means that it is not—
Paul Flynn: We have not had the answer, I am afraid, Mr Chairman, as to whether it was or not.
Shaun Bailey: We absolutely were not. I answered that. We never were and never have been under investigation by the Charity Commission.
Chair: Order, order. Mr Bailey, we are going to move on.
Shaun Bailey: Two things: one is to help spread the message and help develop the movement. Lord Glasman is completely wrong; there is a massive movement around this. If you look at the Big Society network, it is effective and connected to hundreds and thousands of people in a way that I never imagined could be done. Secondly—again referring to Lord Glasman’s part—is to bring some of the reality into the room, because you all here in the Westminster bubble are breathing a different type of oxygen to what we are breathing. I use poor English specifically to make my point. I am in there making points that they might not quite be aware of, and there is a big conversation going on now about commercial power. I am currently engaged in developing a paper—I am writing about that now—for the eyes of the Prime Minister, to say that the Big Society has got thus far, and to get further we need to address—which is the single biggest point at this point—commercial power. The need for an Ambassador is to keep people honest.
Polly Toynbee: Can you explain what you mean by commercial power?
Chair: So that commercial power is about the relationship between the state and big business?
Polly Toynbee: Can you give us some examples?
Shaun Bailey: I will give you some specific examples. I am going to talk about the concept. If you are going to give all this power over, we are where we are, and we have particular mechanisms to give power over, so I am basically talking about secondment, big tendering, all the rest of that.
Bailey: The one thing I would say about those public sector workers is they are a little bit more clued in, because they would ask the question where did the money go in the first place, and clearly with 13 years of Labour government, that is where the money went.
Paul Flynn: I welcome you to come to Newport and explain it to them, Mr Bailey, and I am sure they will give you an interesting answer.
Shaun Bailey: The thing about public services and the size of them, and people being laid off or not, is that many people in the Labour party have stated they would not do the Big Society, but they have stated they would do the cuts. Your leadership has said as much. My point being that the cuts and the Big Society are entirely separate.
Paul Flynn: You speak as a Conservative candidate, do you?
Shaun Bailey: Absolutely, I make no bones about that, but you made a party political point. My point is that your leadership said that it would do the cuts and it would not do the Big Society. The cuts and the Big Society are separate.
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