"The self-styled "quiet man", the secretary of state for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, is proving himself a passionate man when it comes to tackling poverty in our communities.

..."People like me, following Harvard professor Robert Putnam and David Campbell's recent study of the contribution that faith communities make to societies, American Grace, are wondering why there hasn't been more dialogue with a faith sector, which reaches the most disadvantaged in every community in a way few networks can. Having said that, the secretary of state's attention is at least focused on the right area.

"What's needed now however is not more thinktank, top-down work on what we should do for "the poor", but rather a sea change in our approach to how citizens engage in their own redemption.

"... My experience of living alongside the disadvantaged in Blackburn, Cape Town and London's Burnt Oak teaches me that what people want to contribute most is their creativity.

"This month a young American, Rye Barcott, has been in London to launch his already well-received non-fiction title, It Happened on the Way to War. ... "Barcott made one strategic intervention of $26 - given to a nurse to set up a vegetable-selling business - that within a year was funding a small clinic, now a leading health-care facility.

"More crucially what he gave was time. Time to listen to citizens' ideas, time to help them work out for themselves how to unlock the support they needed.

"At one end of the parish I serve there's a part of Burnt Oak with very high levels of deprivation, but with a creativity and energy that its citizens want to be harnessed.

"They deserve the "participatory development" found in Kibera. Duncan Smith is right, though not in the way he supposes. It's not all about money. No, it's about listening and giving people the gift that costs the most: time."

Full Article: The Guardian

His reforms are a trial run for what a local welfare working group chaired by economist Paula Rebstock has recommended here.

Rebstock had a rather narrower assignment - to "reduce long-term benefit dependency". She took what she called "an actuarial approach", recommending "investing" in unemployed people early so they could contribute to the economy. Yet this different approach led her to almost exactly the same proposals as her British counterpart.

Lincoln University economist Paul Dalziel, in a recent critique, says Rebstock fails to address the policy shift 25 years ago away from full employment and other policies such as low-interest home loans that helped low-income working families.

"If we follow the welfare working group's example in failing to address the historical forces that have given rise to the current situation, but only put more pressure on beneficiaries through lower income support and more draconian job-search requirements, the result will be an intensification of poverty," he says.

In Britain, the Archbishop of Westminster has written to Iain Duncan Smith expressing his concern over the potential impact of new and planned government welfare policies on the most vulnerable members of society.

In a strongly worded letter, Archbishop Vincent Nichols refers to the department's own figures which show 50,000 families losing £93 a week as a result of the welfare reforms. He also referred to reports from the Caritas Social Action Network regarding growing concerns over the repercussions of the changes and the effect they are having on making social problems worse.

The Archbishop quotes the De Paul Trust, a member of CSAN, reporting homelessness increasing for the first time in 10 years and youth homelessness rising by 15 per cent in the last 12 months.

Sources

• New Zealand Herald
• Independent Catholic News
• Image: The Telegraph (Getty)