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BIG SOCIETY – What`s the Big Idea?. Liam Hughes. Big Idea. Jesse Norman, “Big Society” Philip Blond,”Red Tory” Rowena Davis, “Tangled Up in Blue” Mariam Stott, ed, “ The Big Society Challenge” ( www.keystonetrust.org.uk ) Dennis Pullan, “Lessons for Big Society”
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BIG SOCIETY – What`s the Big Idea? Liam Hughes
Big Idea • Jesse Norman, “Big Society” • Philip Blond,”Red Tory” • Rowena Davis, “Tangled Up in Blue” • Mariam Stott, ed, “ The Big Society Challenge” (www.keystonetrust.org.uk) • Dennis Pullan, “Lessons for Big Society” • Daniel Kahneman, papers on Prospect Theory • RH Thaler and Cass R Sunstein, “Nudge”
The New Landscape • Fiscal crisis and retrenchment • Debt and global competition • Realignment of state, business and civil society • Transformation of public services • Big Society
Conservative Manifesto • More power to communities • Active role in your community • Transfer of power to local government • Local people and staff to have right to apply to run services • Support for social enterprises and co-operatives • Transparent government data
The hidden roots of BS in political theory • “Small battalions” of Conservatism - Edmund Burke to Stanley Baldwin - “Anti-Trust” pioneers • Catholic social teaching • Guild socialism - GDH Cole, H.Laski, co-operatives and mutuals - New Liberalism and H.Belloc • The “Active society” and the “Great Leap Forward …”
Communitarianism • Amitai Etzioni • Robert Putnam • Norman Dennis • Writers of faith - Jonathan Sacks - Austen Ivereigh • The “eclipse of community” - Roger Stein - Zymunt Bauman
A creative muddle? • Big Society, Good Society, Stakeholder Society • Red Tories – neither big state nor big business • Orange and yellow liberal democrats • Blue and purple labour
Asset Based Community Development (J Mc Knight) • What only the state can do! • What the state, business and civil society can do together! • What only we can do, in our neighbourhoods and networks! (Between Texas and Vermont!)
Some Approaches • Contracting in “Easyjet Councils” - Payment for outcomes • John Lewis and co-operative councils - Co- design and shared services • Networks and London Citizens - Holding to account
Some Risks • Hollowing out the state - with no functional replacements? • Accelerated development cycles - from Yorkshire Dairies to Walmart via ???? • The temptations of mutuality - from building societies to ?????!
Some more risks! • Uneven engagement in BS? • Post-code lottery and uneven services? • Blaming the (undeserving) poor • Pulling down the state and NGOs together • Entryism for really big business? • Tocqueville`s prediction
BS and the challenge events • What is BS? – a”fig leaf for cuts” or a huge opportunity for rebalancing state and civil society? (where has the business gone?) • We are already doing it! - it is already there, isn`t it? • You are taking away the infrastructure! - big cuts won`t build BS!