Herts CVS Group
In a recent speech, the Prime Minister has provided further details about the Big Society and its definition.
What is it?
A culture change where people don’t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers, but instead feel free and empowered enough to help themselves and their communities.
Examples:
- People setting up schools
- Businesses helping to train people for work
- Charities rehabilitating offenders.
How will it work?
By devolving power from Whitehall to ‘the man and woman on the street’. It’s about people coming together and working together.
The rule
“If it unleashes community engagement – we should do it. If it crushes it – we shouldn’t”
The three strands
- Social action: Big Society will depend on people giving their time, effort and even money to causes around them. Government will, therefore, foster and support a new culture of volunteering, philanthropy and social action.
- Public service reform: “We’ve got to get rid of the centralised bureaucracy that wastes money and undermines morale”. Public services will be opened up to new providers like charities, social enterprises and private companies.
- Community empowerment: “We need to create communities with oomph – neighbourhoods who are in charge of their own destiny, who feel if they club together and get involved, they can shape the world around them”.
Methods
- Decentralisation: Pushing power away from central government to local government and even further, to ‘nano’ level - to communities, neighbourhoods and individuals.
- Transparency: Giving people the information that will enable them to play a bigger part in society. For example, by releasing precise data about where crimes have taken place on the streets. In this example, people can not only hold the police to account but also take action themselves eg. by forming a neighbourhood watch scheme, youth club, after school club etc depending on the cause of the trouble.
- Providing finance: Paying public service providers by results to encourage value for money and innovation. Government will intervene to ensure that smaller organisations are not excluded, for example by connecting private capital to investment in social projects.
A Big Society Bank will be created (using dormant bank and building society money and private sector investment) to help finance social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups through intermediaries.
Vanguard Communities
Helped by officials from the Department of Communities and Local Government, four communities (in the Eden Valley in Cumbria, Windsor & Maidenhead, Sutton and Liverpool) have volunteered to pilot the concept of devolved power.
DCLG will also work with communities to help identify and fund a community organiser for each area. These will be trained people who know how to stimulate and organise local support for – and involvement in – community action.
Call to arms
If you’ve got an idea to make life better or if you want to improve your local area, the government wants you to let them know and they promise to “try and give you the tools to make [it] happen”.
For more information, please see the big Society website and blog.
