COMMENTARY:  Adult learning and the Big Society

Whatever people think about the Big Society, the reforms behind it are real enough and learning will be critical if we are to get to grips with their implications, writes CHERYL TURNER

A poll at the end of January found that while nearly half of us support some of the underpinning principles of the Big Society, such as transferring power to local communities, charities and volunteers, over 60 per cent of us still don’t understand what it all means. The disparity between the view from Number 10 and the way many of us see the Big Society is significant. The reforms designed to realise the Big Society vision are underway and, if they deliver as intended, will create a paradigm shift in relations between the state and civil society. Structural change of this magnitude would be formidable at a time of economic confidence and growth. When it is coupled with deep fiscal uncertainty and cuts in public funding, the argument for informed public debate, powerful advocacy and effective responses couldn’t be stronger. Learning is at the heart of how we get to grips with the proposed new deal with government (national and local), and with our neighbours. As Raymond Williams argued, the need for learning accelerates in times of great transition so people can interpret change autonomously, adapt to it successfully, and, ultimately, shape and control it.

Although the learning implicit in the three defining goals of the Big Society – social action, community empowerment and public service reform – is complex and considerable, it remains remarkably low key in public debate. The exception is the role of informal adult and community learning (IACL). The importance of socially purposeful, learner- negotiated provision to social action and solidarity is recognised in the skills strategy’s intention to ‘reinvigorate and reform informal adult and community learning such that it builds the Big Society’. It is also reflected in the commitment to train 5,000 community organisers. A key issue will be the impact of the new minimum contract level for Skills Funding Agency allocations on provision through smaller, third-sector providers often working with the most marginalised communities.

Community empowerment, as framed by the Localism Bill, will decentralise power and give local councils greater freedoms, more decision-making authority and control of local finances. Local people will have a raft of new rights – to challenge councils over service provision, express an interest in running services, and buy public assets. More information about government activity (local and national) will be available in the interests of greater accountability. Learning is essential if this ‘people power’ is to have real meaning, if communities – and elected members and public-sector workers – are to make sound, informed decisions, and if structural inequalities that limit participation (civic, economic, social, educational) are to be challenged. To take one example, top-down technical solutions to information supply that are not balanced by bottom-up skills develop- ment will fail to break existing patterns of disadvantage in IT competence, media literacy and internet access. The learning divide between those with internet access and those without will continue to widen.

Public service reform, the third Big Society ambition, has major workforce development implications for community groups, public- sector employees, enterprises and councillors on the frontline. Opening up the market to new service providers and introducing more outcomes-based commissioning will stretch the skills of providers and comm- issioners as both negotiate new metrics, including social value. The sustainability of new mutuals, social enterprises and co-operatives, whether these are employee ‘spin-outs’ or voluntary organisations exercising their ‘right to challenge’, will depend on their business skills and acumen as well as their expertise in service design and delivery. The durability of these new enterprises is important to both economic and social policy as it will contribute to local economic growth as well as the stability of local services. These skill needs must be on the radar of Local Enterprise Partnerships.

Debate about learning and the Big Society against a background of cuts means thinking creatively and outside conventional further education models. This entails improving the articulation between publicly funded IACL and the rich sources of informal learning in different forms of social capital. And it means growing the contribution of enterprise. Imaginative corporate social responsibility initiatives, such as the Café Culture campaign that has encouraged employers to offer informal learning opportunities to nearly two million workers so far, are part of that potential but the scope is broader. Development trusts, settlements, co-operatives and other forms of social enterprise have a history of developing and supporting learning and training that meet the needs of the most disadvantaged communities. This includes learning for activism and employment, and peer training for fledgling enterprises. We need to strengthen the links between the learning routes offered by these ‘providers’ and the rest of the FE system.

The ‘Big Society’ may eventually join ‘Back to Basics’ in the attic of unfortunate political phrases, but the reforms it encompasses won’t gather dust. As these drive forward the political positioning and repositioning of the Big Society continues. Does this herald an opportunity for radical community activism or are we experiencing a resurgence and reconfiguring of philosophical individualism? Probably, it’s both. But the only way we will all navigate our way around this new landscape is through learning. It’s time we reasserted the role of learning at the heart of the good society – big or small.

Cheryl Turner is a NIACE Programme Director