The CSR is a big test for the Big Society
Today many people – public service workers, users and welfare beneficiaries – will start to learn their fate. Soon after, I suspect, we will find out whether the deficit plan and the fear it is bound to instil in so many people will knock a vulnerable economy back into stagnation.
Fewer people will care, but it will also be a big day for the Big Society. It was widely noted that George Osborne’s June budget statement and supporting documents did not mention David Cameron’s big idea. It is important to its credibility that there is some reference to the idea tomorrow.
On the one hand, there needs to be evidence that the concept has helped shape the decisions being made. I understand there will be a strong localist theme in the statement and plan. The basic deal is that local authorities get less money but more freedom over how they spend it. This is the right strategy and it is credible to link it to a Big Society approach.
On the other hand, advocates of the Big Society need to emphasise its relevance in the context of austerity. The point here is not, as it is often characterised. that communities will be expected to provide voluntarily that which was previously funded (although there will no doubt be some of that). Even if Labour had won the last election and cut less deeply, less quickly there would still have been a gap between social aspirations and what the state could guarantee. Big Society champions have to show how their perspective can help close this gap.
One way of thinking of this is through the liberation of three types of hidden or dormant assets:
At the level of the individual we know that people accept that they should engage more and give more back to society. While three quarters of respondents regularly tell pollsters that local people should have more influence over local decision-making, fewer than a quarter say they are prepared to participate in community activity themselves. The Big Society is about releasing this asset by making it easier, more enjoyable and more powerful for people to engage.
At the level of the community, we know that even deprived neighbourhoods have many human assets. For example, there are often strong social networks but these are hidden from policy makers and service providers, different networks don’t always join up and many people who could join in are isolated (these are all findings from the RSA Connected Communities project in New Cross). The Big Society is about a deeper understanding of community assets and how to foster and mobilise them.
At the level of organisations a huge amount of benign social potential is wasted. The reasons are many ranging from unclear mission, lack of ambition and an overload of external demands and targets to a failure to engage and innovate or the deadening impact of organisational culture. The Big Society approach challenges organisations in the public, private and voluntary sector to maximise the social multiplier effect of their actions (this is what the RSA 2020 Public Service Commission meant by ‘social productivity’).
In the face of a lot of bad news tomorrow, people who think (for reasons good and bad) the Big Society is vacuous or a scam will have an easy script from which to read. The rest of us, with a more positive inclination, need to sharpen our argument and deepen our evidence that whatever the immediate context our country cannot flourish in the long term unless we get better at mobilising social assets.
Comments
6 Comments on The CSR is a big test for the Big Society
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mas on
Tue, 19th Oct 2010 9:09 pm
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Matt on
Wed, 20th Oct 2010 3:40 pm
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Bernard Mason on
Wed, 20th Oct 2010 4:56 pm
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Mas on
Wed, 20th Oct 2010 5:08 pm
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carl allen on
Thu, 21st Oct 2010 5:53 am
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john/steve on
Thu, 21st Oct 2010 8:40 pm
“While three quarters of respondents regularly tell pollsters that local people should have more influence over local decision-making, fewer than a quarter say they are prepared to participate in community activity themselves.”
Maybe a lot of people are not so much looking to take over “decision making” but would rather that others would free them to be able to make decisions for themselves – ie. the emphasis on butt out!
“we know that even deprived neighbourhoods have many human assets”
Come on!! We can’t pretend to still be ‘discovering’ this kind of thing. Most low income communities I’ve worked in are far more active than middle class areas.
I’m interested in what this means “mobilising social assets”? I always think it gets overlooked in the ‘fee paying schools vs poorer more intelligent kids not doing so well in comprehensives’ debate that going to a school for toffs equals access to a toffs social network (and other toff stuff). Can social assets be mobilised better across classes? If so will the middle classes be less surprised at the many human assets they discover elsewhere? 
My concern is how The Big Society will work in practice. From my own experience I have found that ‘official bodies’ do not really want to hear what people have to say. When I have written to, for example, government departments I have received a dismissive response, a standard response or simply been ignored.
I have been told that community groups are considered by many ‘authorities’ to be a nuisance. They would prefer people to mind their own business and let them get on with making decisions on people’s behalf without interference.
On the other side of the coin is the disillusionment of people, who would like to have their voice heard, with a system that has for so many years, Labour and Conservative, deliberately discouraged people from being involved in local decision making.
In effect there is, in my local experience, a status quo of opposition in hand with despondancy which prevents people from being involved in decisions which affect their community.
There will need to be quite strong statutory compulsion on ‘authorities’ combined with equally strong encouragement for local people, if ideas contained within the theory of The Big Society will be manifested in any really meaningful way.
Dear Matthew
I find it hard to believe that Mr Cameron has the least idea of what society is, let alone what constitutes a great one.
I do believe that if you wish to achieve one, you will need to explore other avenues than those proposed by the grossly over privileged
Quite a thought provoking question that – what does constitute a great society?
Post CSR … Looks far more like a case of a “Do it yourself Society” than a “Do it together Society”.
At Experience My Culture we have always believed that in our own communities we often simply don’t see what is going on in the next street because of artificial cultural barriers like age or education. We love the RSA’s Connected Communities project as a way of helping to get past these barriers. Experience my culture is a great place to show what your own culture means to you, it is also the place to show how it is not a barrier to sharing ideas. On Experience My Culture you can use our ‘group’ function to show the rest of the world what they’re missing in your network. Register as an individual and tell us about your community, or tell us about your group, team or club. If you think we can help in other ways drop John or Steve a line both @experiencemyculture.com.
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