TECHNOBUREAUCRACY ANO CITY LIFE the Urban Aid Programme was established. Responsibility for the Programme was located in the Home Office, which was also responsible for the Community Relations Commission. The blame for the poverty of the urban poor was placed on the urban poor themselves and location of the responsibility for the Programme in the Home Office (also responsible for the police, fire brigade, secret service, etc ...) emphasised the fact that this project and the others that followed is in actual fact a policing operation. Speaking in 1968 James Callaghan, then Home Secretary, cutlined the purpose of the Urban Aid Programme. « ... to provide for the care of our citizens who live in the poorest or most overcrowded parts of our cities and towns. It is intended to arrest, in so far as is possible by financial means, and reverse the downward spirai which afflicts so many of these ar as. There is a deadly quagmire of need and apathy » (9) The Department of Education and Science, at about the same time~· announced their Educational Priority Area (EPA) « action-re arch project ». The aim of the EPA's was to raise education standards by attempts to compensate for the children's nadequate home background through what is called « positive cliscrimination ». The areas were characterised by: « •. .lo economie and social status of parents, poor amenities in t e home, high demand for free school meals and large nu bers of children with linguistic problems » (10). Then n 1969 the Home Office set up the Community Developme Project (CDP). The brief was based on three important sumptions. Firstly, that it is the « deprived » themselves w o are the cause of « urban deprivation ». Secondly, the probl m can be solved by overcoming apathy and promoting self-h lp. Thirdly, changes in locai and centra! government policies ere to be brought about by locally-based research into the roblems of these areas. In 19 O the Conservative Party got back into power and proceede to introduce yet more schemes to deal with the innercity « pr lem ». In 1971 a Community Programmes Department wa set up to administer the various programmes for which th Home Office was responsible and which was also to set up n projects such as the « Neighbourhood Schemes ». (9) Han ard 2-12-68quoted in Gilding the Ghetto, p. 10. (10) CD , Gilding, the Ghetto, p. IO. 15
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