You can’t talk about the key themes of the Big Society - community action, supporting civil society and handing power to local people – without addressing the contradiction at the heart of the coalition government’s policies.
This is that we’re being asked to increase voluntary activity while central and local government removes many of the resources that support such activity. It’s as if David Cameron is trying to jump-start the car while Eric Pickles and George Osborne are removing the wheels.
How do we handle this? Do we turn our back on any kind of involvement and hope that in five years’ time we’ll get a government that’s more enlightened? That isn’t an option for those who are engaged in social action or who benefit from it.
Or do we instead try to cosy up to government in the hope that some of us will be protected if we say the things ministers like to hear and aren’t too strident in our condemnation of actions that are damaging?
My view is that we can’t afford to do either. David Cameron and Francis Maude have pledged their support for voluntary activity and community involvement, and we have to hold them to their word. Some of their actions are damaging the very activity they claim to value. We need to remind them of that at every opportunity.
We need to remember that even if the outcome of the election had been different, charities and community groups would still face funding cuts. Many were already at risklong before the election. More will be now.
But the cuts don’t have to be crude and arbitrary, and they don’t have to be accepted without discussion or argument. Kevin Curley, chief executive of the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, put down some important markers at an event last week and his speech is well worth reading.
Many funding bodies – both in central and local government – are in panic mode at present and they need to be brought back into the world of intelligent decision-making. Not all cuts are necessary and some will end up costing more than they save. Funding organisations – especially local councils, who are supposed to act as champions and leaders of their communities – must be open, show clear leadership and have transparent discussions about where they need to save money and why.
Where does this leave the Big Society, and the idea of the Big Society in the North?
At a national level, there needs to be realism about what can be achieved. The Big Society will not change the world overnight. At the moment the most that can be said is that it is another label for civic action, and it needs to sit within the context of decades of work to build an infrastructure and support for such action. We need to find ways to maintain that support in hard times and innovate to improve and expand what we have. Get the foundations right before you indulge in flights of fancy about turning government on its head.
There’s a message too for the many commentators (like Anna Coote at the new economics foundation) who have criticised the Big Society idea for its failure to focus on social justice and equality. She’s right, but you can’t just wait until we have a different government and try to pick up the pieces; and as we found with the previous government, there’s a gulf between the theoretical framework and what happens on the ground. You have to build with the materials you have.
For the Big Society in the North, it reinforces the need for an independent expression of civil society that is rooted in actions and activists, not in government or political parties. The ‘big society’ idea offers a language that enables us to have conversations that go beyond the old sectoral boundaries of local and central government, the voluntary and community sector, individuals and private businesses. We all have something to offer each other and we need to find ways to do so, fast.
I hope the Big Society in the North provides a chance to use the best parts of the Big Society thinking to reinforce and promote the good things that are already going on, and to challenge all those who see community activity as a soft target for spending cuts.
As Phil Redmond put it in the Liverpool Echo last week, ‘There are times when people can only turn to each other to get things done.’ And when we do that, we don’t need to worry about what government or politicians think of what we do.
Phil Redmond said another interesting thing about his new role in pushing the Big Society idea in Liverpool. ‘Once you give a Scouser a badge of authority and permission to challenge the status quo – who knows where it might end up?’ We all have permission, and need to make the most of it.
