The current concept of ‘big society’, like any idea formed on the back of a fag packet at the eleventh hour, lacks content, analysis and coherence. Labour’s new leader, formerly a minister with responsibility for the third sector and volunteering, must take this opportunity to give big society – or the good society – the substance it currently lacks.
If it is defined as engaging with members of communities, supporting them and enabling them collectively to improve their locality by influencing the way in which public services are provided, in a manner which is both equitable and socially just, then no-one in the centre or on the left will have any problem supporting it.
From opposition, the process of turning ideas into reality is always much more challenging than when in government. Indeed, in opposition the engine for making change in this area will depend as much on Labour activists outside in the big society itself as in Westminster.
To lead the big society Labour requires a low-cost and deliverable strategy. This must include:
– Supporting the infrastructure of civil society, giving community groups and volunteers ever greater capacity to inform, influence or deliver local services
– Upholding the right of people to receive care and other services tailored to their personal needs, something organised and skilled volunteers are well equipped to deliver
– Celebrating the good practice and achievement of volunteers and their organisations, sharing solutions and learning
– Engagement as a party (and as 200,000 individual party members) in communities and their organisations, especially in positions of responsibility such as trustees of civil society bodies. (A monthly plod through minutes and matters arising does not count as volunteering)
– Councillors to be more the friends of their community activists and more relaxed about the process of engagement; councils to be partners and supporters of the community sector in respect of consultation, involvement and sharing service delivery.
Even as public spending is cut, decentralisation presents opportunities as well as threats. Labour in communities must be more imaginative and outward looking then ever before, to make the sow’s ear that is the ‘big society’ today into the silk purse of tomorrow – and to take the credit for it.
Tom says Labour must take the opportuntiy to give the big society – or the good society – the substance it lacks. I am not convinced that the Tories’ big society will be anything more than fancy wrapping for an agenda to deliver cuts on the most vulnerable. We need to distinguish our agenda for a “good society” which must mean more than – the state’s withdrawn from here you’ll have to approach a charity to find a volunteer. The mutual and co-opertative strands of our party provide a foundation on which we can build a policy with substance. What about co-operative housing, with its successes in anti-social behaviour and tenant satisfaction? Could we be bold and progressive enough to hand over social housing to communities to run for themselves? Providing employment and income for those lowest income groups who live in social housing. It would certainly be different to paying fat cat £200K salaries to remote housing Chief Execs through Housing Benefit and the rents of the poorest in society!
The “big society” is a Tory way of slashing public services and getting community volunteers to fill the gap. Thatcher tried it and it didn’t work then so why should it now? If you live in the countryside, as I do, you will already know that the same dozen people run the kids clubs, the village hall, the fundraising, the social events, sit on school governors, parish councils and numerous voluntary groups. As with school governors the more you heap upon them the less people come forward and more powers to Parish Councils has meant that fewer and fewer have the time or inclination to stand. This policy is deeply flawed and we4 should have nothing to do with it.