The big society agenda is often dismissed as nebulous, but it turns out that while few can agree on what the policy really means, everyone seems to agree that it shouldn’t mean cutting funding for the voluntary sector. Look at the explosion of press coverage this week as Liverpool pulls out of the government’s vanguard programme, the Citizens’ Advice Bureau warns of major budget cuts and volunteering centres face closure.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the big society project is approaching a crisis. But while the budget cuts are far and away the prime culprit, this crisis is of everyone’s making, including the voluntary sector. Charities have known these cuts were coming for a long time, and they cannot expect to be immune from them. Like the public sector, they will have to innovate and change.
Getting the big society back on track requires several key changes of attitude. Central government’s culture of silo working has, if anything, been reinforced by the coalition’s insistence of the primacy of departmental policy making. This means that the government’s big ideas – from the big society to localism and decentralisation – mean different things in different bits of government. Frontline public services need a clearer sense of what ministers think the big society means and a coherent policy framework for implementing it.
Local government needs to respond as well. Chief executives are generally highly sceptical about the big society – understandably so, given the fact that they are struggling with their own deep budget cuts and the need to maintain democratic accountability for services. There is anecdotal evidence that in the rush to manage the coming cuts, some councils are imposing big reductions on voluntary sector partners at very short notice.
NLGN’s forthcoming research in this area will try and provide councils with a much clearer sense of how to make the big society a reality. Councils need to focus on building the trust, free time and neighbourliness which are the seedbed of voluntarism. Then they need to open up their services so that citizens can get involved. There are costs associated with this – bringing volunteers in to run a homework club probably requires at least a little professional coordination and ICT support – but handled cleverly this approach can still be very cost effective.
Finally, the voluntary sector needs to change too. It has grown rapidly over the past decade, often on the back of government funds. The market in which the voluntary and c0mmunity sector operates is going to change dramatically over the coming years. That probably means fewer paid staff and smarter ways to catalyse volunteering. It may also mean developing new ways to fund social change through trading, charging and financial mechanisms such as social impact bonds. The VCS will need to use the new right to bid for council services as a lever to access public money – charities will probably have a clear run at smaller community services.
What underlies all this is a major shift away from seeing the world in terms of institutions, contracts and funding. Instead, we need to start looking at communities and networks. The evidence suggests that higher social capital tends to mean less crime, more health and greater wellbeing. This is the hidden wealth of neighbourhoods, and over the coming years we have to learn to value it just as much as financial capital.
Simon Parker is director of the New Local Government Network
