James Crabtree has written an excellent response to our Service Nation report.  But we maintain the case for compulsion for all young people is weak.  A service strategy must be suited to an individual’s life.

The political debate is still in quite early stages – cautiously testing different proposals (Gordon Brown – 50 hours, Conservatives – The Challenge). In many ways this has been a very fast-moving area of policy and politicians are to be commended for having moved as quickly as they have – the Conservatives haven’t even been in government yet. Our intention with this report was to move the political debate on by trying to get politicians to engage with a broader, more pluralistic lifetime strategy within which their favoured schemes would fit. As such we are not sure that the difference between the so called “Demos “ and “Steve Hilton” model is as stark you suggest. The underlying principle that makes us look beyond a single age scheme is the notion that service should not just be aimed at people failed by the education system but those that have benefitted as well. Hence our proposals for a minimal level of compulsory service for undergraduates and more opportunities for service in the workplace.

The genuine difference turns on whether or not civic service should be universal and compulsory. Far from pulling our punches here we think that the arguments over compulsion and universality are red herrings that prevent civic service moving from the realm of polemic to practical policy capable of implementation.

The inspiration of the menu of options presented in service nation is to meet people’s varied experiences half way rather than imposing a compulsory scheme regardless of the various needs people have. The fixation with the model of post war military service obscures the possibilities for service opportunities in our own very different times. This requires a delicate balancing act between Ciceronian notions of civic virtue and today’s cultural expectations of choice and flexibility. While Cicero and Machiavelli opted for universal conscription this was for small city-states of male citizen soldiers on a scale incomparable to toady days complex and pluralist nation states. In contrast modern variants of civic republicanism work much harder to strike a balance between avoiding domination across polity, economy and household and the common good. A flexible set of service opportunities that modulates elements of compulsion and voluntarism to different life circumstances would better strike this balance.

There is an important, if under looked, difference between trends towards increasing indvidualisation and expectations of self-authorship on the one hand and the selfish egoism that is the targets of critiques of the “broken society” on the other. This is why we recommend making aspects of service compulsory and others voluntary without fetishising either. Compulsion will work in certain institutional settings and not in others. We back a plurality of options because we think this is what will work best for young people – it would be wrong and ineffective to force one model on all young people. With regard to our consultation with young people it’s is perfectly consistent to be in favour of compulsion 11-16 (this is mainly related to the education-related benefits rather than benefits to the community) but against compulsion post 16. We also think it is justified 11-16 as part of young peoples learning experiences though, and a small amount of compulsion is justified for graduates in light of the benefits they get from the state.

This need for a plurality of options was reflected both in the views of the young people we consulted with, and our own views. As other research for V and Prospects own poll has shown, people tend be happy for people younger than them to undertake service but more ambivalent when it comes to themselves. We think at least part of this reticence is due to the lack of flexibility provided by a single scheme imposed on people when they start pursuing varied educational and career routes.

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