Whatever happened to the Big Society?

The coalition’s flagship ‘Big Society’ agenda came under fierce attack from delegates at the Locality convention in Manchester this week.

Community sector representatives expressed such inflamed criticism of the Big Society that even I – with an abundance of reservations about how well the Prime Minister’s vision for a more fruitful civil society is being implemented – found myself wanting to drag a protective blanket around the DCLG official who was subjected to such niceties as, “I’m sure you’re normally a very able civil servant but your speech today was a profoundly weak, party-political broadcast on behalf of the Conservatives”.

Alison Seabrooke, chief executive of the Community Development Foundation and chair of that particular session, had to wade in at one point to defend Claire Cooper, the DCLG’s deputy director for the Big Society, saying: “Having been a civil servant myself I can say that you do have to speak the party line, and I think we should all remember that Claire is not the government, she just works for the government.”

Nonetheless, most of the delegates’ criticism was based on justifiable concerns about how community organisations – unless they are large, financially robust and able to take on contracts to deliver public services – can get more involved in the Big Society at a time when their resources are stretched and yet demand is forever increasing because of council cutbacks to vital services.

Unfortunately, though, Cooper’s two main lines of defence were like a red rag to a bull: 1) “The average budget reduction at local authorities is 4.4 per cent, which is not that much at all so it’s not the end of the world,” she said, and 2) “75 per cent of voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations receive no public funding whatsoever, so we shouldn’t get too bogged down in worrying about the importance of cuts to councils’ VCS budgets”.

Her points did not take into account either the significant variations in how different local authorities are implementing the cuts or the fact that a large chunk of those 75 per cent of VCS organisations that don’t receive public funding will be small, unincorporated community groups that are are under pressure to make a difference in disadvantaged neighbourhoods that neither the state, nor the market, is supporting.

Instead, her arguments served to highlight what delegates reported to be the biggest structural flaw in the Big Society agenda: that because of its very nature – encouraging communities to “do it for themselves” – it will probably work better in those areas that have higher levels of capacity, funding and skills than in neighbourhoods that are in need of serious investment, regeneration and improved public services.

What struck me about this conference session, which was entitled, ‘Whatever happened to the Big Society?’ (presumably because ministers don’t really seem to be talking about it anymore) was that, more than a year after the coalition first unveiled its Big Society vision, people’s concerns about it are much the same as they were back then. Government policy and rhetoric around the Big Society has, it appeared from this session, failed to fully excite and endear to it the public and voluntary organisations for which the Big Society-branded opportunities are intended to benefit.

And even if some people have grasped the good intentions behind the concept of the Big Society, few believe that it can be wholeheartedly embraced while the government is simultaneously implementing its budget deficit programme.

Anna Coote, head of social policy at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), who was also speaking during the session, referred to a statement Cooper had made earlier in the session (“The reality is that [the country] is facing the biggest budget deficit in peacetime history: this is a massive deal and nobody’s immune from it.”), and said: “I profoundly disagree with the claim that the cuts are inevitable. The cuts are a matter of political choice and are being implemented because this government has taken the decision to tackle the economic crisis with austerity rather than investment.

“The Big Society is simply a bid to replace paid labour with unpaid labour because the government has decided it can’t afford, because of its deficit reduction programme, to pay public servants to deliver crucial services.

“I warn you, things will get worse for society – because of this government’s choice.”

Strong words, but will they have ministers and the Prime Minister quaking in their boots enough to respond in the way that the sector wishes? If the chorus of cynicism during that conference session is anything to go by, it doesn’t seem very likely.

Picture by Andrew Parsons