Big Society blogger Gordon Hunter casts a critical eye over the pathfinding mutuals announcement made this week by minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude. 

So much for Mr Pickles’ mantra: “localism, localism, localism”. Is it all B**S** or Big Societyspeak? 

If you want to deliver local services, you need to be one of the big fish like 3SC, the giant consortium bidding for employability and volunteering programmes.

Or you could become a “pathfinder mutual” (member owned, navigating dangerous waters!). We’re told that the 12 pilots are staffed by public servants galvanised by the entrepreneurial spirit, enthused by the prospect of generating surplus from essential, tax-funded welfare services like health and social care, further education, learning disability, sheltered housing and rehabilitation. 

The pathfinders will be assisted by scouts like , Peat, Marwick, Goerdeler & PriceWaterhouseCoopers (the world’s biggest accountancy firm). They will blaze a trail for other statutory bodies to follow - Does this sound a bit like privatisation?

For localism read giantism, for pathfinder read privateer.