—Check against delivery—

I want to focus my speech tonight on the tremendous journey people have been on here in terms of radical reform to our care and support system. But I also want to talk more generally about One Nation Labour’s commitment to big reform of the state and public service transformation.

Rooted in devolution of power and resources, a major shift from dealing with the impact of failure to prevention and people power driving improvements to public services and communities in the future.

Historic changes which will redistribute power from the state to citizens and communities, reduce inequality and get more for less from public investment as we exercise tough controls on spending and borrowing while dealing with the long term challenge of an ageing society.

I want to begin by paying tribute to In Control and many of the people in this room for the groundbreaking role you have played in transforming the landscape of social care over the past decade.

I say so on behalf of the tens of thousands of people who you will never have met and who will never have heard of in control but have dignity and greater equality in their everyday lives because of your vision and values.

Friends, I have been fortunate to have had a ringside seat over the past three decades as many radical social policy changes have shattered barriers and opened new horizons for disabled people and their families. As an admiring observer, grassroots activist and occasional leader I have both witnessed and participated in transformational change.

The closure of the large mental handicap hospitals and in the Northwest the successful integration of people with learning disabilities into local communities in ordinary houses, in ordinary streets.

Going to work as a young volunteer at the age of 14 in the mid 1980s for a small North Manchester voluntary organisation which was the 1st in the country to import the philosophy of “normalisation” into this country. A belief that people with learning disabilities have a right to equality of citizenship and the rights and duties that entails.

Setting up a voluntary organisation at the age of 19 also in the 80s that truly sought to build equal relationships between volunteers and service users and become an integral part of the wider community.

And finally, being the Health minister who along with my good friend Anne McGuire turned individual budgets into personal budgets and moved them from the margins to the mainstream.

For me, there are many common lessons from each of these radical changes.

Changes need visionaries with big ideas who abhor injustice and inequality. They depend on passionate, tenacious individuals and networks of individuals who as professionals, volunteers, carers or people who use services, beyond their role or label see themselves as activists and advocates.

They require leaders who can inspire others and achieve complex organisational change. They require hard edged evidence of better lives for people but also efficiency and effectiveness in the use of finite public resources.

They require people with the courage to last the course, the capacity to keep growing the networks of advocates for change and the arguments and confidence to take on the critics.

Most radical social policy changes worth fighting start with powerful opponents and face constant sniping from critics. Sometimes vested interests who want to maintain the status quo and preserve their power. Sometimes, good people scared that lives will get worse not better and sceptical of latest jargon and Buzz words which too often shut too many people out who could have become agents of change.

Then there are those who mistake mission and values for a rigid ideology. Like the care worker I remember who allowed a young woman with learning disabilities to come out on a social evening without any underwear citing her right to choose.

Or the care providers who do nothing to try and change the pattern of life for residents who stay in bed all day or spend their day alone participating in no meaningful activities, again citing choice.

So, what of the critics of Self Directed Support and personal budgets who are currently getting a lot of coverage and seeking to reverse the policy of successive Governments.

Firstly, and this may surprise you. Some of their criticism about delivery and implementation on the frontline is right.

In too many local authority areas the implementation of self directed support is contravening non negotiable principles. Artificial and unnecessary limits are being placed on how people can choose to use their budgets, too often unnecessarily narrowing the type and range of support people can access and people receiving public funding from a variety of sources - adult services, social security benefits and the NHS are not receiving an integrated budget.

Of course across the board cuts are placing a great strain on the system but they are the result of decisions being made by this Tory led Government not the personalisation agenda, personal budgets or Self Directed support. It is misleading and disingenuous to claim otherwise.

In acknowledging some of the validity of criticism about delivery however I want to challenge the critics on their attitude to the fundamental principles which underpin self directed support.

It is my contention every citizen irrespective of their need for support has the right to maximum self determination. The right to dignity and to retain control over one’s own life. The right to choose the types of support and activity which will most keep yourself healthy and improve your quality of life. Those who use public funding should have the same right as those able to fund themselves to be aware of the available budget and control how that budget is spent rather than be presented with a existing range of services on a take it or leave it basis.

Of course, people will need and too often don’t get varying levels of information, advice and advocacy to exercise this control but that has always been central to the self directed support model.

Let me give some examples of where control matters and how it challenges conventional services.

The elderly couple who need respite care and with support would rather go to the small hotel on the coast which has been a favourite family destination than a residential care home at half the cost.

The disabled person who would rather have lunch at the local pub than at an adult services run day centre.

Or my friend in his mid 50s who is recovering from a life threatening brain injury which has affected his mental and physical capacity. He goes to the local gym, twice a day, seven days a week. Where he exercises, swims and benefits from the hydrotherapy pool. It has made him fitter and stronger, boosted his confidence and crucially given him a social network which has alleviated his loneliness and depression. His only alternative option would be to attend a day centre for mainly older people two or three times a week.

I will never forget the disabled person who said to me when I was Care Services a Minister, “I want a life not a service.”

So, how does all of this connect to Labours vision for a better future for our country.

As Ed Miliband has made clear this is a time for big change not tinkering at the edges. Partially, because of the great challenges we face. The ageing society, the waste and tragedy of youth unemployment, insecurity and too much exploitation in the workplace, work and family life balance, climate change and the constant threat of fundamentalist terrorism.

But there is also a more fundamental reason which Ed gets. For too many people politics is broken. The expenses scandal played a big part but so does the gap between people’s fears and aspirations about their own lives and their lack of belief that politicians live in their real world or can change the things which matter to them.

Their wages are being frozen or cut while their household bills go up year after year. No set of statistics can change that reality. They are worried that their kids are struggling to find work or have no chance of getting that first step on the housing ladder and as migration and globalisation impact they feel increasingly insecure at work and in their community.

They are sceptical that mainstream politicians care, let alone have any answers, and feel alienated from mainstream politics.

That is why as we set out our offer to people from now until the election we will continue to offer big change. Building on our commitment to build an extra 200,000 houses per year by 2020, extend childcare to 25 hrs per week  for working parents of 3 and 4 years, freeze energy bills until 2017, introduce a compulsory jobs guarantee for 18 to 25 year olds, restrict the use of zero hour contracts and abolish the bedroom tax.

Our first task will be repair and renewal which will be essential as we deal with the legacy of a Tory led Government which has borrowed more, invested less and will leave behind an NHS and education system going backwards and rooted in the wrong values.

But then moving to the transformation which the vast majority want but need persuading can be delivered. As Ed said in his remarkable conference speech last autumn our country can be so much better than it is today.

A new economy where Government supports Business to create new high value jobs in all parts of the country, where no vested interest is left unchallenged by Government if they are exploiting consumers and respect and dignity at work becomes the shared mission of employers and employees.

A new politics which opens up politics to people from a far greater variety of backgrounds and widens citizens participation and influence over decisions which influence their lives.

But most relevant for the purpose of this speech a new society which recasts the relationship between the state and citizen.

Ed Miliband and Jon Cruddas have made it clear that major resources and powers will be transferred from the silos of Whitehall to City regions and local councils. Public investment will be switched from cleaning up the mess of economic and social failure to preventing that failure occurring in the first place and citizens and communities will have much greater control over the public services which affect their lives.

This approach is not only consistent with our values but a recognition that our cast iron commitment to tough controls on public spending and borrowing combined with the demands of an ageing society mean that we will have to get more for less on a long term basis.

As David Cameron boasted in a recent speech the Tories believe in a withered state for ideological reasons. No longer claiming it is a necessary evil caused by the deficit and abandoning all references to the big society.

For One Nation Labour radical change means moving away from a false choice between big and small state. For example, If we are to create the new jobs of the future we will need a more active Government supporting business but when tackling intergenerational poverty, poor educational attainment or alleviating the isolation of older people we have learnt that relying too heavily on top down Government run programmes without wider coalitions and agents beyond the central state will not deliver transformational change.

Families, neighbours, community networks, voluntary organisations, faith groups all have a crucial role to play. Frequently, change occurs through community leaders and activists, a lot of the pioneering work which has turned neighbourhoods around historically has happened because of local innovation.

But sustainable change only happens when in addition to professionals working for public services coming together, putting aside artificial organisational boundaries and pooling budgets  local residents take control, influence their peers and encourage a sense of personal responsibility and community pride.

But it is not just that the state alone cannot deliver change, too often the state fails in its fundamental duty to citizens.  In my surgeries and case work service I am frequently dealing with people who have been let down badly by one public service or another. That is the same for all of my parliamentary colleagues. No one has taken responsibility for helping them sort their problem, they have been passed from pillar to post and frequently treated with a lack of respect. These constituents are disproportionately on low incomes or social security.

This makes people of the centre left angry just as much as the failures of the market, and makes us the reformers of a state that treats people like this. Of course, they are people who are often disadvantaged through income inequality but they are also victims of another inequality.

The power inequality which too often exists between the state and the citizen. Where people, mainly poorer or vulnerable people, have no voice, no control, no redress over the public institution which has let them down.

Of course, not always but usually more affluent, more articulate people can challenge poor service, demand answers and in some circumstances go elsewhere. Such inequality of power is as bad for society as current levels of income inequality. It is dehumanising for the people affected but it also leads to problems spiralling out of control which can affect the wider community such as avoidable family breakdown, anti social behaviour and a decaying physical environment. Extra resources are then needed which would have been unnecessary if the problem had been dealt with properly at an early stage.

Of course part of the solution is investing in better leadership and management and making a reality of personalisation by replacing a “conveyor belt” culture with respect for the dignity and individual circumstances of every citizen using public services.

But there must also be a redistribution of power from the state to citizens if radical change is to take place. We welcome the greater role for neighbourhood budgets some areas are adopting, where residents have control over some resources

As Ed Miliband has said parents should have the right to trigger action if their children’s school is failing. Self directed support should become the norm in social care and further developed in Health. As we seek the integration of Health and social care, council and NHS commissioning coming together in personal budgets for people with long term conditions could be one means by which to achieve transformational change.

Building on existing projects joint budgets should be allocated to lead professionals working with the most challenging individuals and families in every community. Those budgets should be used imaginatively to tackle poor parenting, poor educational attainment and the worklessness which is often intergenerational. They should be linked to a rights and duties contract drawn up and monitored with those individuals and families.

This approach is in stark contrast to an approach that sees a multitude of agencies spend vast amounts of money separately on a relatively small number of families and individuals while making insufficient difference to a cycle of deprivation and too often anti social behaviour.

Ed Miliband has shown strong leadership in making it clear that One Nation Labour will stand up to private sector vested interests which act against the public interest.

By committing to a radical redistribution of power from the state to the citizen and communities he is demonstrating an equal commitment to tackle public sector vested interests where they are letting people down and widening not reducing inequality. He is also underlining the imperative of getting more for less from public investment on a long term basis in the future. Both are essential as we offer people the big and necessary changes which can help them to believe in a better, more optimistic future.