Beginning the Big Society in the Early Years.

The article discusses the effectiveness of the British government's Big Society Policy plan, which emphasizes social responsibility and local community involvement over state control, in terms of its ability to provide citizen empowerment through an examination of decentralized policies on early years services for families and young children in Great Britain. The author explains arguments for the diminishing of "Big Government" in order to empower citizens and charts the development of early years policies by the Labour party government. Other topics include the Conservative party's introduction of payment by results for Sure Start children's centres, local control of funding through the Early Intervention Grant (EIG), and the role of the voluntary sector in educational services.