Steve Richards: But what if the Big Society doesn't work?

While the over-riding motive is not directly connected to our economic situation, lack of resources is why the vision is so limited

Tuesday, 20 July 2010



What a strange government this is turning out to be. Last week it announced without much fanfare a revolution in the NHS, plans that will be costly, chaotic and I predict subject to panic-stricken revisions within months of implementation, but nonetheless epic in their ambition. Yesterday with trumpets blaring, the speech zealously briefed in advance, David Cameron announced that a few volunteers would get the chance to keep open a museum in Liverpool and a few other projects on a similar scale.

While GPs contemplate hiring thousands of consultants and accountants to help them compete in the artificial market envisaged by the coalition, and Whitehall is in a state of semi-alarm as departments seek unprecedented cuts, Cameron gives a speech which offers hope to museum-goers in Liverpool. He claims it as his political purpose, describing the revolutionary activity being carried out elsewhere in more dutiful terms. Indeed, Cameron argues that moves towards a so-called Big Society are his revolution.

He makes the claim sincerely. I have no doubt the speech he made yesterday excites his senior advisers in No 10 and ministerial allies more than details of every pound being cut in the unnecessarily brutal spending round. Labour is wrong to claim that the vision of a so-called Big Society is outlined solely as a disguise for big spending cuts. Cameron and his inner circle were making these plans in opposition when still committed to Labour's spending levels. I recall having a long conversation with Cameron's closest ally, Steve Hilton, in which he agreed that in relation to this agenda, at least, his party had to leave behind its pre-occupation with tax and spending cuts. There was more to it than that. In theory they are enthusiasts for the redistribution of power to the lowest possible levels. If Britain was booming and they were not committed to Thatcherite economics, Cameron would still have made his speech yesterday.

But while the over-riding motive is not directly connected to the current economic situation, the lack of resources is a reason why the vision is so limited. Cameron and others were extolling the virtues of the voluntary sector well before they took over the Conservatives in 2005. Voluntary groups are flattered. But pretty soon the issue of money comes up. Some volunteers work for nothing. In No 10 they enthuse about a company in south London that assigns paid and unpaid volunteers to assist with projects including elderly care. But the company's website shows funding comes from groups including the local council. For schemes on any scale the Government will need to find more than the limited funds in the Big Society bank.

The projects cited in Cameron's speech are not especially unusual. The last government made cash available for all sorts of community projects, many of them vulnerable because of cuts. Funding under Labour might have been channelled differently and had more strings attached, but such schemes were common. Normally none of the initiatives announced by Cameron yesterday would have made the national news bulletins, and might have struggled to make it in to local newspapers. The framing of the puny measures transformed their significance. If Tony Blair had done the same it would have been dismissed as "spin" by some of those who enthuse about the Big Society. If Gordon Brown had announced a Big Society Day, as the Government proposes, he would have been slaughtered for the introduction of the gimmick.

Politically there are dangers for both sides. Empowerment is a popular theme and a populist one. As Margaret Thatcher discovered, voters respond to messages about the state getting off their back and leading their own lives. Cameron projects the argument more subtly, by speaking the language of community as well as the smaller state. The combination of the two makes the Big Society emblematic of his leadership, Thatcherite outlook revised as a progressive creed. One of his close allies once put it to me more bluntly and with great enthusiasm as "re-heated Thatcherism".

The risk for Cameron is that his big idea will not work. Quite often the state can deliver where individuals cannot. Last week the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced cuts to cooling systems on the overheated Tubes, saving a few million pounds. Under the Big Society he would no doubt call on travellers to bring their own personal fans as a more communal and cheaper alternative. Perhaps some would for a time, but in the end most projects in which the state has some connection require investment, expertise and co-ordination.

Michael Stephenson, who leads the Co-operative Party, points out that inviting volunteers to run a museum is fraught with risks. He detects no detailed work as to how volunteers will work with others at the museum and fears a casual shifting of responsibility to people not qualified for specialist tasks. He notes that in Cameron's speech there was no reference to Co-ops, supposedly a fashionable idea in the Prime Minister's circle. Co-operatives have a structure and while they empower those who work for them there are recognisable lines of accountability. Stephenson fears that in this case a museum or other similar projects could go under and the state will not bail them out.

The other risk for Cameron is that while his ambition in this area is sincerely held it is also markedly modest. His projection of radicalism has echoes of the early Tony Blair, when the Labour Prime Minister claimed that the introduction of NHS Direct marked a revolution in healthcare. The change was modest and the grandiose claim seemed even more bizarre when hospitals could not cope with an outbreak of mid-winter flu. Nonetheless Blair gave one interview in 1998 in which he proclaimed the government's radicalism 16 times in relation to NHS Direct.

In contrast to the timid Blair, the recklessly bold Cameron has no problems about the need to affect radicalism as he presides over a shrinking state, newly privileged "free" schools and the attempted transformation of the NHS. He argues that his Big Society is part of the same theme, taking power away from government and empowering local groups. He is correct about the consistency of theme, but while historians will record at length the impact of his economic policies and those relating to health and education his Big Society is likely to be no more than a small footnote.

Steve Richards: But what if the Big Society doesn't work? - Steve Richards, Commentators - The Independent

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Now I think the truly terrifying thing about all this is that Cameron and co appear to be sincere. Becuase it it just isn't going to work. Without control over resources, the "choices" that "people" will be able to make will amount to being whether to eat the mouldy bread or the thin gruel today. And the government is not going to grant the tax-raising powers necessary to raise those resources to "voluntary groups" or "individuals". Probably the most optimistic possible outcome of this nonsense will be a classic postcode lottery, where rich areas raise what amounts to extra taxes to fund services run by "ladies who lunch" while poor areas simply go without. The more pessimistic end of the spectrum runs to total or partial breakdown of sizable chunks of the infrastructure necessary for the existence of a modern state.

David Cameron's 'big society': Partners in the vanguard – of confusion

Local partners in PM's 'vanguard communities' say they have been given little or no information on what role will involve

* Rachel Williams and Rajeev Syal
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 July 2010 20.14 BST



Some of the local partners in the "vanguard communities" that David Cameron said will lead his "big society" revolution were uncertain about what being in the vanguard will involve.

Many involved in the voluntary sector had been given limited information, and some were warning that voluntary organisations hit by funding cuts will be hard pushed to deliver more.

"We don't know how it's going to work," a spokesman for Liverpool city council said. "We have been given no information about this.

"We gather that this is going to be rolled out throughout the city but that's making an assumption based on what we have heard from David Cameron this morning. You might want to ask No 10 or Eric Pickles, the minister in charge."

In Windsor and Maidenhead the Conservative council leader, David Burbage, was more forthcoming. He listed five ideas, including a plan to get help clearing bureaucratic hurdles so energy-generating turbines can be installed at five weirs in the Thames.

He also wants to devise a system raising extra revenue from the owners of pubs and clubs in Windsor to pay for the extra police needed on busy nights in the town, extend a transparency scheme so voters can see where the council's money comes from and goes to, and expand a programme allowing residents to say how they think the budget should be spent.

Another plan is to devolve power over services such as verge-trimming and pot hole-mending to parishes. Burbage said he talked to parish chairmen to see what kind of things they were interested in taking over. No "big society" funding has yet been agreed with central government.

Others in the area knew less. Fiona Winrow, the manager of Windsor and Maidenhead Voluntary Action, the umbrella body for local charities, had been on leave but only found out morning that the borough would be trialling the system and knew nothing about funding other than a "big society bank" would be involved.

"It's very difficult to grasp at this stage what it will actually mean for a vanguard area," she said. "It's a bit like trying to squint in the dark at the moment, hoping to see a chink of light.

"We look at it as a new opportunity but we'd like to have more meat on the bones in order to understand it."

She also voiced concern about how local groups would cope with extra demands, saying grants to the voluntary sector had been frozen for the last five years in Windsor and Maidenhead and an expected "performance reward grant" of £100,000 for increasing volunteer numbers was likely to be halved or removed completely.

"I'm a bit worried there's an assumption that these kind of activities will be free, and they can't be," Winrow said. "There must be some costs – things like set-up costs, expenses, training. The sector is so stretched already it doesn't have the reserves to add any new things to what it's already committed to do. Resources are already extremely tight."

Ged Simpson, a funding advisor for Liverpool Charity and Voluntary Services, said that third sector workers were concerned about whether they will receive the funding to maintain services.

"Many organisations cannot follow the social enterprise model of selling services because their service users have poverty-line level incomes or because they cannot secure public service delivery contracts," he said. "Grant income remains a major part of third sector funding."

In the Eden Valley in Cumbria, one of the most sparsely populated areas in England, community groups are hoping to save post offices and pubs, and expand broadband services, using "big society" support, but do not yet know how the new system will work.

Roger Roberts, the chief executive of Action with Communities in Cumbria, who has worked closely with two of the three pilot projects, said: "We are in a situation where there are going to be some really exciting opportunities, we hope, but we haven't yert seen the structures or whether there are any resources to fund them. Until we do we will not understand what the new opportunities will look like."

In Sutton, Liberal Democrat council leader Sean Brennan and the chief executive of the Sutton Centre for Voluntary Services, Andy Wilson, welcomed the news and said the "big society" idea had been up and running for years in the borough, with several projects to engage residents in influencing services that would now be expanded.

But Wilson, who found out about the project on Friday, warned that volunteering was should not be seen as a way to address cuts in public services.

"It seems to me that even David Cameron hasn't thought it through properly and these four projects will flesh out what it means," he said. "In a sense that's fair enough. It's waiting to be fleshed out because I don't think anybody really knows at the moment."


David Cameron's 'big society': Partners in the vanguard ? of confusion | Society | The Guardian

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Now of course it would be wonderful if the government had a big ol' pot of money which it could dole out to "local communities" to fund various projects. But then, those projects are going to be over and above the services that people expect as standard. And is there to be any oversight on whether the money gets spent properly and not just, say, pocketed? Plus, isn't that to a large extent what the local council is there to do, or indeed (admittedly on a larger scale) what the lottery was supposedly for?

There have already been a couple of shifts in the conservative position, one being the claim that Big Society is not primarily about making savings (=pot of money) and the other being that the austerity cuts are in fact aimed at raising standards (=hyperThatcherism).

Chaos ensues!

The ‘Big Society’ is everything and nothing

July 19th, 2010 by Teacher Talks

There are many problems with Cameron’s ‘Big Society’, but his stated intention is not one of them. Who could argue with the proposition that people should play an active part in solving the problems their communities face? It would be bizarre to suggest otherwise.

There is also some truth to the contention that, as a society, we have gone too far down the line of expecting ‘the state’ – in whatever form – to act as a substitute for personal responsibility. But these are generalities, truisms even. They require a more detailed analysis. But, unfortunately for Cameron, he identified a solution and called it the ‘Big Society’ without properly understanding the problem. The brand came before the brain.

What else can explain the dreadful lack of flesh on the bones of the ‘Big Society’ skeleton? Thirteen years in opposition and Cameron enters Government unable to explain in anything other than the vaguest terms what the ‘Big Society’ is and, more importantly, what he is going to do in order to bring it about (other than make enthusiastic speeches).

Influencing public behaviour is incredibly complex. Consider the prolonged public health campaigns to reduce smoking or the ‘speed kills’ messages which have been with us for decades. Change isn’t easy; we are stubborn beasts. And change is even harder if we are unsure about what it looks like. I am left asking: what – exactly, precisely – is the ‘Big Society’?

Is every communal act – picking up a stray crisp packet – the ‘Big Society’? Or is it more precise - formal volunteering with a charity, perhaps?

Is, as Cameron claimed, the ‘Big Society’ the same as liberalism (and freedom and empowerment)? What about setting up a free school? That must be ‘Big Society’. So too is Government funding for community projects. As is – wait for it – businesses training people to work.

Extraordinary: it’s safe to say bases have been covered. It’s no wonder Conservative activists complained that the ‘Big Society’ was hard to explain on the doorsteps.

There’s a risk that ‘Big Society’ will simply become everything the Government says it is; an endlessly malleable phrase that becomes diluted and meaningless. In the end it will be everything and therefore mean nothing. You name it – it’s all B.S.

His ‘broken Britain’ rhetoric also ignores the fact that lots of people are already admirably active in their communities. What school could operate without its parents associations and voluntary Governors? Is there a town that doesn’t have a local hospice, propped up by hardy volunteers?

There is – of course – a doggedly resistant ‘we pay our taxes’ brigade who sit back, fold their arms and expect an unnamed ‘other’ to sort out their lives for them. A gentle re-adjustment of this balance – to recognise and support the energetic, the enthusiastic and the determined – is no bad thing.

The question though is: how?

While Cameron is undoubtedly a persuasive chap, he really struggles to explain the nuts and bolts of this. This is lifted directly from his speech:

“What is it that we are doing that is stopping you doing what you want to do? How can we stop stopping you? And, vitally, how can we stop stopping others from the things they want to do?”

This is a tongue-twister, not serious policy (he also said ‘Big Society’ is about having ‘neighbourhoods with oomph’, the preposterousness of which requires no further comment). Even when he gets his words in some meaningful order, how will Cameron’s exhortation actually lead to a meaningful and lasting change in people’s behaviour?

It’s simply not enough to say ‘come along old bean, time to do your bit’. Society can’t be organised in the same way as you might run a village fair or a parish council. I fear things are a little more complicated than that.

If nothing else, we have the longest working hours in Europe and I’m unsure how a busy family finds the time to run a tombola stall, let alone set up and run a local school.

My hunch is that the difficulties Cameron has in explaining the ‘Big Society’ disguises the fact that it’s actually a painfully simple concept.

It’s not really about volunteering at all. It’s about the Government doing less and less simply because there is a cost associated and, in times of austerity, all public spending is under attack. It’s about the slow withering away of public services.

It could be that the ‘Big Society’ is a saccharine sweet pill which at first seems pleasant and encourages us to ‘do our bit’. But in time, the pill reveals a bitter truth: ‘If things go wrong; it’s your fault! If you are too old, too weary, too busy, too poor; you’re on your own!’

The ‘Big Society’ is everything and nothing | Teacher Talks

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You name it – it’s all B.S. Indeed.

New Labour's election broadcast on the topic of the Big Society is looking rather prescient:

Labour finds its sense of humour in video lampooning David Cameron's 'big society' | Nicholas Watt | Politics | guardian.co.uk