At 10am this morning more than 150 children’s centre managers, childcare professionals, youth workers, family support officers and local government commissioners gathered in Westminster for a conference entitled ‘What does the big society mean for children and families?’ The delegates were driven to attend by an understanding – reinforced last week when David Cameron dedicated large chunks of his conference speech to the subject – that the big society idea is not going to go away and so they had better try and understand what it might mean.

The early chat over coffee was dominated by one over-arching question – ‘yeah, but what is it?’ So it was with considerable interest that the audience settled down to listen to the minister for children and families, Sarah Teather MP set out to explain this big idea. ‘It’s a society in which no-one feels small’; ‘It’s a recognition that you can’t do everything from the centre’; ‘It’s about encouraging councils to work in a different way and to innovate’; ‘sure start children’s centres will be at the centre of it’.

In a discussion session after the coffee break two contributions in particular were greeted with warm applause. One delegate said ‘I know what the big society is now and we have been doing it for years’. Another said ‘David Cameron says we are a nation of drivers not passengers, but that is no good if someone is dismantling the car you are in’.

And this gets to the crux of why the prime minister is still finding the big society a tough sell, because most people think it is either over-spun hyperbole about volunteering and community development that is nothing new for the army of people who give their time and commitment to communities already, or that it is a cloak under which to conceal the cuts. Views that have also characterised the Labour response to the big society – fair enough.

But I am beginning to change my mind on this subject and it started at the Conservative party conference – which I attended in a work capacity. You couldn’t be in Birmingham and not notice that every other fringe event had the words ‘big’ and ‘society’ in the title and going to several of those events – as I did – you couldn’t help but notice that the people in those rooms were talking about values and about the kind of society we want to live in.

Today at the conference one delegate cut through the cynicism by pointing out that the discussion of the big society is a great opportunity for all of us to talk about the kind of society we want to build, a conversation I would have thought Labour could welcome and indeed should always have driven. Community Links, a fantastic organisation working with disadvantaged families in east London, have set out what they think the characteristics of big society should be. For them it is one where we all have power, we are all equal, we are all connected, we are guided by those who have least, we are optimistic. What are these if not progressive values?

So, I for one am going to be more positive about the debate on how we create a more reciprocal society, where no-one feels small, from now on. And, of course if it turns out that it was just cover for cuts, then I am sure Ed Miliband and the new shadow cabinet team will point that out.