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Big Society

Big Society. What does this mean for VCS infrastructure?. Warren Escadale Policy & Research Manager VSNW. Big Rhetoric.

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Big Society

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  1. Big Society What does this mean for VCS infrastructure? Warren Escadale Policy & Research ManagerVSNW

  2. Big Rhetoric Create a Big Society which offers “the potential to completely recast the relationship between people and the State; citizens empowered; individual opportunity extended; communities coming together to make lives better”.

  3. Two planks: • Decentralisation • Building civil activity (community / social)

  4. The Big Aim, or how to roll back the state and win friends It cuts costs and promises to build income • Deal with Deficit • Mend Broken Britain • Create a new prosperous economy (not public sector dependant) • Be the good guys – a progressive Small State Conservatism (+ Lib Dems) with ethics: roots in personal and social responsibility “A simplistic retrenchment of the state which assumes that better alternatives to state action will just spring to life unbidden is wrong…. But I see a powerful role for government in helping engineer that shift {from state action to social action}”. David Cameron, November 2009.

  5. Delivering the Big Aims • Draft Big Society Programme (18th May) • Cabinet Office Structural Reform Plan (June 2010) • PSAs gone – Big Society becomes the cross-departmental policy agenda • Spending Review 2010: every departmental plan should focus on ways of supporting Big Society and mutualism

  6. Cabinet Office Structural Reform Plan: Big Society Actions 6.1 Make it easier to run a charity, social enterprise or voluntary organisation 6.2 Get more resources into the sector -social investment, giving and philanthropy 6.3 Make it easier for sector organisations to work with the State 6.4 Develop a social norms agenda 6.5 Build the Big Society by encouraging volunteering and involvement in social action 6.6 Begin development of a National Citizens Service

  7. Key characteristics In • Localism / Decentralisation • Social/Culture Change • Low cost / financially sustainable: Is short term, kick-start investment available? • Transparency • Mutualism • Online Engagement and solutions • Volunteering • Community Action + Responsibility • Consideration for Equality and disadvantage • Innovation + philanthropy Out • High Cost • “Big Government” • Regional tier • Quangos • (Emphasis on) Local Authorities to ensure local democratic accountability?? • Investment vs, Loans?? • Bureaucracy • Upfront payment (work programme) • “A Benefit culture” • PSAs

  8. The contradictions • Seeing the contradictions: • transparency vs. reduced red tape • transparency vs. private ownership • private ownership vs. community empowerment • bigger role for civil society vs. reduced investment • Big society vs. excluding those not able to engage? • social change vs. increased social mobility? • Increased democracy vs. less accountable services • -transfer/privatisation vs. transformation/empowered communities • Active communities vs. less investment/rolled back state

  9. Good looking models: what’s caught the eye so far? • Paddington Development Trust • London Citizens and Citizens UK: Community Organisers • Grandmentoring (Freud) • Community Land Trust? • The Big Lunch • St Giles Trust • Nudges • Clarity • TN2 and Pickering Cancer Drop-in Centre • Sure Start Children’s Centres

  10. The Big Themes? • Ownership/Responsibility/Social Enterprise • Public sector to private (Right to Request) • Community over public sector assets • Empowering communities • Being fair: disadvantaged communities; social justice; mending ‘Broken Britain’ • Work Programme • Localism/Decentralisation • E-Big Society • Innovation and philanthropy • Health agenda: Right to request • Children & Young People • Culture change • Role of Infrastructure • Volunteering • Culture Change • Exclusion, including Financial • What of health and health and social care from a third sector perspective?

  11. A Variety of Approaches • Lord Nat Wei: the Big Society at a fundamental level requires us to get involved and help determine what it looks like in each place where we live; in some places the state needs to be bigger while civil society repairs itself or grows, in others we are itching to take more control and cannot wait for the state to play a more facilitative rather than delivery or even commissioning role; the key is to not fall into “the state knows best and has all the answers” or Big Government mindset and to assume a variety of approaches are needed (18 June 2010, Big Society Network blog)

  12. VSNW Briefing #36 • For further details about the link between the Big Society agenda and the Government’s Spending review 2010 see: The Big Society: step by step (VSNW Briefing #36) http://www.vsnw.org.uk/files/Publications/Big_Society_step_by_step_eia.doc

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