Infantile Disorders Recent issues of Here & Now have criticised the way in which managerial groups seek and extend their power by presenting their own interests as everyone's. This should indicate concerns which differ from all those for whom politics is ultimately an administrative programme. Rival groups' arguments appeal to a general interest which just happens to coincide with their own. Attention paid to this "ventriloquism" can show how disputes within managerial sectors escalate and are contained. But there are pitfalls in discarding the progressive "solutions" supported by professional sectors. A refusal to identify with a specific group makes it possible to float off into a general rhetoric which is no longer tethered to any specifics. Emphasising the need to reject all "progressive" political groups also brings the risk of identifying instead with the apparent negativity of various subcultures. Living within such constraints can amount to no more than continuation of politics by other means. The decks may seem to have been cleared, but the same furniture keeps appearing: scathing critiques of conventional politics, and commentaries on events and actions falling within the "crisis" category which defines the borders of political interest. Off-limits lie the associative, mundane, and often non-political, forms through which our lives are constructed. This is something much more diffuse than the "public sphere" where many try to rebuild socialism. That "public sphere" already divides doing from speaking - and hence brings opportunities for the intelligentsia's aspirations. The associative area is, of course, being subjected to stresses similar to those faced in informal workplace organisation and the like. The remainder of this article considers some pressures faced by one such associative form - toddler and play groups. It would be nice to be able to say that no apology is offered for this choice, but the preceding four paragraphs do amount to some kind of apology. Toddler and under-five playgroups have been affected by the 1989 Children Act. In many ways, the Act consolidated previous legislation; in other ways it responded to the "issues" of the moment (such as in declarations in favour of equal opportunities). As a result, its passage was untroubled by controversy and gained all-party support. (Other aspects of the Act may be discussed in future issues of Here & Now.) The Scottish Office guidelines to the Act ("Regulation and Review of Childminding, Daycare and Education Services for Children Under Eight: Guidance for Local Authorities") place playgroups under the same broad category as child-minding and private and employer-organised nurseries. although allowing for some differences in staffing ratios, etc. They do acknowledge that the "playgroup movement stresses the role of parents as prime educators of their children" and that the "playgroup philosophy is based on parental involvement in all aspects of management and organisation". Nonetheless, the category hides even the basic economic difference between playgroups and paid childcare. Paid childcare is based not on association but on marginal utility: the squeeze between the monetary or positional rewards which a parent gains by working and that passed on to the child-minder. The legislation, with its checks, balances and administrative opportunities, regards association and marginal utility as commensurate. But if they are converging, this is partly due to the legislation itself. The Act wears the fashions of its time. It requires registration of anyone who supervises children, and police checks on their pasts to detect child abusers. All child-care premises must be registered and inspected annually. With a straight face, the guidelines intone that this inspection will "provide reassurance to parents about the involvement of the local authority". When association becomes something permitted by central authorities, its limits fall under the notion of exemption: exemption from registration when two families have a mutual arrangement or for a conference creche used fewer than 6 times in a year. Ample potential here for repressive application of norms! And by diluting the associative principle, it permits administrative intervention under the notion of needs. Rather than standing outside capitalism, a need is already something which can be manipulated in terms of resource allocation. So Section 19 of the Act requires a regular review of services for young children. Responsibility for the review is placed on the Social Work and Education Departments, but many of the facilities under review are outwith their control, and may be based on these different social models. The "two departments" need the voluntary sector to underwrite their legitimacy, but do associations need the departments? The question becomes acute when they organise the recommended "Under-Fives Forum" to seek any "representations which they consider relevant". This is described as an "open process" but is just a prelude to the concocting of a report by the two departments. They are to summarise resource availability, compare this "with known policy objectives" and identify "centres of excellence and known mismatches between supply and demand". These expressions in bureaucratic language have no known translation into dialects of association. After all, what if a particular toddler group was identified as a "centre of excellence"? Its success results from the relations of the people involved. How could this be ported to other situations, even if it was desirable? Political attitudes to processes like the Review can range from "take-over" to "abstention". A "take-over" to use the institutions proclaimed values against it may be presented as more subversive but is based on the general abstention in the "black hole of the social". People recognise and avoid a purposeless meeting intended to underwrite the bureaucrats' Review process. Despite abstention, the legislation and its processes may increase the extent to which Social Work Departments regard voluntary associations as self-administered colonies of their own empires. (Already, it is not unknown for groups of Council bureaucrats under such false impressions to carry out unannounced and uninvited tours of playgroups.) But federated toddler and under-five groups are equally able to give themselves the managerialist veneer of the times. The keynote speech at a recent Scottish Pre-School Play Association conference was delivered by an Educationalist who focussed on training and standards, the setting of objectives, etc. The subsequent Editorial in the Association's Parent to Parent magazine suggests that "his definition of a good manager could just as easily be a definition of a 'good' parent". Again, this indicates how a separate goal-oriented public sphere amenable to administrative logic can emerge from lack of appreciation of the value of association in its own right and with its own limitations.. Alex Richards From Here & Now 13 1992 - No copyright