This has been an important week for Labour in developing clarity about what we think is wrong with the Conservative notion of the ‘big society’. Indeed this is challenging territory for us as a party.
On the one hand we have been keen to demonstrate how much of the big society agenda did in fact build on Labour’s record in government. In addition, following the banking and global financial crisis, the voices within the Labour movement that had been arguing for a greater role for co-ops, mutuals and innovative social enterprises emerged more clearly to the forefront.
On the other hand Labour has been distrustful of putting a label on the vast amount of voluntary and community work that is already happening in our communities up and down the country every day. We have also been critical of the ‘big society’ being the ideological driver behind cutting our public services.
For Labour two major criticisms of the big society are apparent.
The first relates to the lack of a framework of support for voluntary sector organisations. It seems that every day more and more stories are hitting the media about cuts to voluntary and community organisations, throwing their very existence into peril. The government has talked about support only in terms of the big society Bank (not yet operational), the Neighbourhood Grant programme and community organisers. But resources allocated so far to the first two of these programmes are small compared with the huge amount of money the government is withdrawing through cuts. Meanwhile, the government’s Transition Fund has already closed and little is yet known about how the community organiser scheme will operate or interact with community workers who are already established, paid or unpaid.
Secondly, there is a lack of acknowledgement from government of the seriousness of problems facing some of our communities compared with others. This is important because communities do not start from a level playing field and the government needs to do far more to recognise that many of the cuts are falling disproportionately on the poorest communities.
Clearly the Tories tapped into something when they began to use the language of the big society. A view that people could volunteer more, should have more say over what happens to and in their area and that different models of delivering public services can be developed.
But such thinking is neither new, nor original. Labour now needs to be bolder in proposing a way forward for our public services in a time of public spending restraint; harnessing the vitality and innovation of the voluntary sector to strengthen service delivery has long been a plank in Labour’s policy agenda. We must harness it again.
Had we as a party and society learned from the Community Development Projects of the 1960s and 1970s, our approach to public services reform in the last parliament may have been different. The 1979 book In and Against the State hinted at the problems of public services being necessary but how they could become non-responsive to local needs and overly bureaucratic:
‘The ways in which we interact with the state are contradictory – they leave many people confused. We seem to need things from the state, such as child care, houses, medical treatment. But what we are given is often shoddy or penny-pinching, and besides, it comes to us in a way that seems to limit our freedom, reduce the control we have over our lives.’
We should be developing an approach based on the view that involving the voluntary and community sector more in public service delivery helps to create more responsive public services that are better geared to meet the needs of the communities they serve. We, too, should recognise the need to make commissioning more community- and user-orientated. The government, however, must acknowledge the complexities existing in our neighbourhoods and the diversity of voices they contain. It is essential that commissioning involves more than listening to those with the loudest voices.
So it’s time for Labour to reclaim the territory of partnership with the voluntary sector and local communities in developing responsive public services. This approach can and should include a strong role for the state in coordinating the commissioning, regulation, funding and standard setting for our public services while supporting service delivery models that put service users at their centre. This means seeing a role for social enterprises as an engine of growth, especially in some of our poorer areas.
isn’t it that those things,child care,houses,medical treatment are also needed by the ‘ poorest areas ‘ where people pay less Tax and this what creates the schism because those in work are paying Tax to support those who earn less or nothing.This is the rut where the Tories can tear open our society and encourage the ‘haves’ to higher ground using bogus moral values? That…. “leave the poor behind,we have no responsibility for them” …of course they spout much rhetoric to the contrary and then blame “the previous Government” .We need to hear more about how the “poor” are infact just another commodity to the ‘haves’ ! how much developers/builders have made out of them,how much fast food trade make out of them,whilst plying trade for Pharmeceutical Industy because poor food encourages everything from arthritis to heart disease,diabetes etc etc. “” The Welfare State is nothing but Charity”” this should be the Tory motto ( in public of course because it already is behind closed doors,we’ve all heard it) Who works for charities? why,volunteers of course.
Although I agree with most of what is put in the comment to this post I have to point out that the “Who works for charities? why,volunteers of course” line isn’t exactly correct. While at many grass root levels it is still largely volunteers doing the job in many areas any at many levels from Chief Executives to Door to Door ‘collectors’ the representatives are either paid employees by the charity or employees of fund-raising companies. Some Chief Executive and other ‘senior’ member salaries are frankly staggering and even the door to door collectors can be on a nice little earner which is the reason why some are quite pushy when the make their visits. Sadly and in far to many cases working for charity stopped being what the perception of it is long ago, especially for most in ‘the management’ side of it and, with regards to the article itself, it is why ‘we’ have to be a little bit more cautious when we decide who we want to work with.
the voice of the community usually rises in issue led responses ,not as something as imposed from outside assistance whether paid or voluntary,more difficult to garner from the less affluent ( humiliation and shame are not great show offs ! ) So, a mechanism which genuinely facilitates this ‘voice’ (already sounds like Labour) and then community led response. Local government all too often becomes prey to exploitation for profit and a different ‘voice’ develops ,an authoritarian ,paternalistic one,that is not rooted in the people it should serve. The home counties will not recognise this model , there daddy keeps everything green and white and clean . Yes yes Tories say we need to generate monies for services,oh really ? or profits for service contractors ? hhhmmmmnnn ?
of course AF I should have thought ! I guess I meant the more foot ploddy people who actually interface ‘charity’ out of the goodness of their hearts (who are probably simply largely being exploited as well – gawd,what are we come to )
Well yesterday I listen to Angela Evans (Prospective conservative candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan) talking about the BIG SOCIETY to an audience of unpaid volunteers, how naïve can you get? They have been working in the Big Society for the last 20/30 years, Its nothing new. Just has a different name; I’ve just read in the Metro that a Cancer Research Charity shop has to close in Devon, because the Volunteers have been order to employ a manager to implement health and safety regulations, at a cost of 25,000 a year, about thirty volunteers took over the running of the shop 5 years ago after they were threatened with closure over poor profits. Is this what they mean by the Big Society?.
Scope use to run care homes it sold them off closed them down and stated it would become a political group fighting for peoples rights, yet it’s still a charity. The children’s charity says it does more now then ever before, it also closed down it’s care homes, and now runs a phone help line which basically tells you to phone the police, yet it is still Charity. A charity these days means a lot different them my day