Yudu - Adults Learning March 2011 Volume 22 Number 7

Build the Big Society on what we know works

The Big Society may open up opportunities for the voluntary and community sector, but it will be critical to build on what is already there and not allow good voluntary work to be lost, writes JOHN LOW

Hardly anyone can have failed to pick up on the recent flurry of stories in the national press about the Big Society, sparked off by Dame Elisabeth Hoodless’s remarks that funds for volunteers are disappearing at an alarming rate, and that this is undermining the very idea of a ‘Big Society’. At the same time, under the government’s radical Localism Bill, there are literally scores of provisions for communities to take on new powers – running services, planning their neighbourhoods, developing new housing, and so on.

On the face of it, there’s a lot for communities to be excited about, and many have already started to gear themselves up to take advantage of all these new opportunities. And let’s be honest, it can seem an attractive idea to throw off the shackles of local government and do it yourself. But are things actually that simple? Does everyone really want to run their own show? How easy will it be to manage your own services? Who might you find blocking your way, or competing with you? How is the Localism Bill really going to play out on the ground? What will the Big Society eventually look like, once it’s in place out there?

First of all, at the risk of covering ground people are already familiar with, a few details. Big Society is being co-ordinated (some might argue that’s too strong a word) from the Office for Civil Society in the Cabinet Office. The key ideas are: to empower communities; to open up public services and give communities, social enterprises and the private sector the chance to run them; and to encourage people to play a more active role in society. The main Big Society projects are:

The Big Society Bank Banks will contribute funds (often from dormant accounts) for investment in social enterprises, charities and voluntary organisations. But the money will be in the form of loans, not grants.

National Citizen Service Summer activities for young people (outdoor challenges, community projects). There will be pilot schemes for 10,000 young people in summer 2011 and 2012.

Community Organisers The organisation Locality has won the contract to train 5,000 community organisers (500 full-time with a bursary for a year, the other 4,500 part-time or voluntary). We don’t know yet how this scheme is going to work, nor link up with what’s already there.

Community First A grant fund to encourage social action in deprived communities. The contract for this hasn’t been let yet, so there are no details on how it will work.

The Transition Fund This is a £100 million fund, being run for government by the Big Lottery, to help charities and voluntary bodies gear themselves up to becoming providers of services.

Secondly, what about the Localism Bill? This is a huge piece of legislation that’s already gone through a number of readings. The impetus for this comes from a different department of government: Communities and Local Government. The whole thrust of the Bill is to: reduce bureaucracy; empower communities; increase local control of public finance; make the suppliers of services more diverse (i.e., fewer public-sector providers); strengthen public scrutiny by ordinary people; and strengthen accountability. At its core is the idea of making government smaller (less large local authority departments and big executive salaries) and allowing social enterprises, the voluntary sector and the private sector (anyone, in fact, as long as it’s not the public sector) to take over the running of services. As part of this drive, the Bill creates powers for communities, including:

Challenging local authorities and taking over services;

Buying assets like libraries, shops and pubs – or land;

Creating neighbourhood plans, and decid- ing what gets built in their community;

Proposing neighbourhood developments (no planning permission needed if 50 per cent of residents agree); and

Benefiting from ‘community infrastructure levies’ (charges on developers that go towards local facilities).

If this all seems to add up to a bright new nirvana for the community and voluntary sector, stop and pause for thought. Yes, there are opportunities to go at. But a glance at recent history, and knowledge of what works (and doesn’t work) in the community sector, teach us to be more cautious. Here are four reasons for not setting off in a headlong, unquestioning stampede towards the garden of delights that Big Society and the Localism Bill are dangling in front of communities.

First, there is the importance of building on what’s already there. New governments, all brisk energy and fearless resolve, tend to want to sweep clean and start out afresh. The risk then is that they ignore (or just