August/September 2013 Cover Story: Revisiting the Big Society

NEARLY FOUR years after the Big Society was launched, where is the Prim Minister’s big vision? What impact has it had on the sector? Is it still relevant to the sector? Is it a good idea that has never taken hold? Is it dead and forgotten? Or even: was it ever relevant? Like much of the Big Society, it is surrounded by endless questions.

Let us begin with the idea itself. What is the Big Society? In his 2009, Big Society Lecture David Cameron set-out the principles of his vision: “We need a re-imagination of the role, as well as the size of the state…Our alternative to big
government is not no government – some reheated version of ideological laissez faire.”

Here Cameron was clearly presenting a concept that was different to the state-first idea of the Labour Party and subsequent post-war governments, but also different from the Free Market Conservatism that underpinned the “No
such thing as Society” of Thatcherism and is still shared by many of Cameron’s Conservative colleagues.

The state & civil society
The state-civil society dialectic is therefore key to understanding the emergence and development of The Big Society as a very idea. It is also the main source of criticism for opponents, who suggest that his Big Society vision is just a cover for reduced state government cuts: a narrative that originated within the Trade Union movement and was adopted by some in the Labour Party including for a time the leader Ed Miliband. Along the way, the usual suspects like Polly Toynbee have waded in calling the idea “a big fat lie”.

But such a criticism doesn’t take into account that David Cameron’s vision predated the cuts and the cuts agenda has been transparent enough, not needing any cover or side-show idea. Within this, the sector has criticised Labour’s approach to the Big Society Idea.

Joe Irvin, NAVCA’s chief executive, challenged the Labour Party to provide a viable alternative to the Big Society that equally put civil society at the centre of things. Irvin said: “Labour in Government had a good relationship with voluntary groups. When the Conservative Party came up with the Big Society it put Labour on the back foot. The task for Labour is to work out how it will respond to this. Labour has yet to come up with a viable alternative. But it has to come up with policies that appreciate and value what communities bring and nurture voluntary action.” Despite some interestingfl irtations from Miliband, the sector is still waiting for Labour’s response. Given the ineffectual nature of Miliband’s leadership, it could be waiting some time.

This in turn has highlighted how the left-right axis of traditional politics has been turned on its head. Jesse Norman in his seminal work The Big Society: The Anatomy of the New Politics, states: “We have lived so long on a diet of top-down prescription and centralised government.” This accurate analysis also serves Norman’s central critique that Fabianism is at the heart of the problem of this centralisation.

Essentially, adds Norman the Big Society: “Has two interlocking threads, which focus on the state and the individual. We start with the state. Is it working? Is it well-suited to the social and economic problems of the 21st century? Can it support us as a nation when we fall sick, when we are out of work or when we retire? Can it educate us and protect us properly? And if it can do so now, can it
continue to do so in the future?” These are difficult and complex questions. Is the Big Society equipped to deal with them all?

According to Norman, The Big Society: “Is not ideologically opposed to the state, but deeply concerned – on the basis of overwhelming evidence – about the state’s current ability to meet social needs and to support British society.” Which in turn: “Runs utterly counter to the state-first Fabianism of the modern Labour party.”

Localism & the community
The paradox of the Big Society though is that it is a centralised government initiative purporting to promote and reinvigorate localism and community activity. It is from here that the politics of the Big Society disperse: with supporters and opponents making their committed assertions.

Dan Gregory, an independent advisor working with Social Enterprise UK, says: “Some were too dismissive of the Big Society idea while others got a little too carried away about how important it was and what colour socks Nat Wei was wearing.”

Has its top-down approach been its undoing? Gregory thinks it has. “When
it arrived the Big Society was seen by many, but not all, in the sector as the right idea at the wrong time from the wrong direction. For example, a topdown from Government rather than grassroots and community-led and in a time of fiscal pressure, very hard to sell as a convincing ideology rather than as a timely convenience.”

It is therefore the transference from rhetoric to reality that the Big Society starts to struggle. David Floyd, managing director, Social Spider, an organisation that undertakes commissioned work and partnerships, and develops and manages its own projects, says within the central idea there was much to be welcomed and be encouraged about.

“Whether or not you we agreed with it politically, there was something worth thinking about in the Big Society vision, as originally outlined by David Cameron in opposition, in terms of re-imagining the relationship between citizens, civil society and the state at a time when the reach of the state needed to be re-evaluated.

“The New Labour vision had ultimately amounted to building a better society through central government spending — even if the ultimate delivery agents were private companies or voluntary sector groups. There was a clear need for an alternative view on how to growing needs with limited resources.”

Floyd also picks-up on the view that the vision has failed because of the economic environment. “It would have been interesting to see what this vision might have developed into in practice if we hadn’t seen the collapse of the global economy from 2008 onwards and the subsequent swinging cuts in public spending.

“As it was, the early years of the Coalition government, the Big Society rhetoric
about shifting power to local communities and enabling people to get involved in delivering public services differently in reality amounted to many public services being either scaled back or, in some cases, disappearing entirely, and people being told they now had the power to step in and fill the gaps for free, in their spare time if they wanted to.

“In terms of services that have continued to be funded at a similar level to previously, such as health services, the effect has been that most providers have bunkered down to protect themselves as much as possible for the long fight ahead.”

In late-2011 Social Spider published a report on the possibilities for Big Society
ideas in mental health and noted with honourable exceptions, in most local areas, these kind of approaches are further from being adopted now than they were previously.

Politics of localism
The politics of local organisations feeling left out of the idea and development process of the Big Society has further undermined the idea. Floyd says: “I think there was a large degree of complacency from large service providing charities and social enterprises in post-2010 with many either being really angry that the government had launched the initiative without inviting them to sit on a steering group to co-ordinate and/or stating that ‘Big Society is what we do already’.The assumption that voluntary sector organisations, by virtue of being voluntary sector organisations, are rooted in, and representative of, communities is not
one that’s backed-up by evidence.“ An interesting, if somewhat controversial analysis.

But Floyd adds: “In reality, if the more radical possibilities of Big Society had come to pass, and large numbers of people within local communities had found ways to come together to help themselves and each other, this would have been just as much of a challenge to the approach of large charities and social enterprises to deliver big public contracts as it would have been to the approaches of private sector outsourcing companies and services delivered directly by the public sector.”

Within this narrative, for Floyd, the only element of Big Society thinking that has survived the battles of the last three years is the apparent belief that, ideally, public services should be delivered by organisations that aren’t the government — irrespective of who they are.

Indeed, the ring fencing of Big Society money for charities to deliver public
services has proved controversial in some quarters. The think-tank IPPR North has called for Big Society Capital funding to be reserved for small community groups. Funding from the public sector has focused on commissioning services as opposed to providing grants for charities that are tackling specific issues. Though of course, smaller community groups are not well placed to compete with private sector companies and larger voluntary organisations for public sector contracts.

Ed Cox, director of IPPR North, says: “We know that small community groups play a vital role in supporting the social and economic health of poor neighbourhoods – they’re the youth clubs giving young people places to go and support groups for people going through a diffi cult time in their lives.

“Yet it is these organisations that are being hit hardest in the areas that desperately need their support. Where richer communities are better able to rely on volunteers and local philanthropy to see them through this lean period, the socalled big society fi nds it harder to survive in the communities that need it most.”

Big Society finance
Much of the money behind the Big Society comes from Big Society Capital, which was set-up to work with large grant makers and other social investors to create new forms of fi nancing, available across the different development phases of community assets. In its first nine months of operation it undertook: £56 million of investment commitments to 20 social investment finance intermediaries (SIFIs); £39 million of capital from BSC and its coinvestors has been signed and delivered to 15 SIFIs; 13 new SIFIs have been created and 23 frontline organisations have benefited from financing made available by them as a result.

On initial viewing these are quite impressive figures. Though Big Society Capital’s original capitalization was, the sector noted, tiny compared with mainstream players, with its funds of £600million, but, significant to a small and still embryonic sector. Cathy Pharoah, from Cass Business School’s Centre for Charity Giving and Philanthropy, observes: “Big Society Capital will face the same fundamental challenge as other top-down initiatives in the history of social investment, namely: how to deal with the tensions between social and
economic returns.”

Sir Ronald Cohen, chairman of Big Society Capital, is convinced that this model will help transform the sector: “Big Society Capital has ambitious aspirations to transform the social impact investment market in the UK. We have a passion for this enterprise and we are delighted with the significant progress made during our first year of operation.”

Gregory offers some entertaining views on those who have embraced the idea and embraced the Big Society name as a brand: “For the likes of the Big Society Network and Big Society Capital, there will be long-term risks in having adopted the language. How does Third Way Capital or the Back to Basics Network sound?”

Politically toxic
So where are we now? Like something in Alice in Wonderland, The Big Society has come to mean whatever you want it to mean. There is no doubt it represented a good vision, but this seems to have become lost. Floyd notes: “What we’re left with, now that the wider Big Society vision in terms of self-help and community involvement have been abandoned, is a situation government has no overall vision at all for how we’re going to meet rising social need with dwindling resources.”

Here we are in a diffiult place, as far as the Big Society is concerned. Furthermore, Tony Armstrong, CEO of Living Streets, says: “The Big Society has become something of a politically toxic phrase.” He then reinforces the oft-repeated view felt by many in the sector: “We were doing this kind of stuff anyway. If it is about giving charities a stronger voice and a better, more level playing field to deliver work and developing and enacting policy; then great. The problem is that it has become associated with the cuts and the Big Society is a figleaf to say we are decimating this part of public spending and the voluntary sector. Has there been a follow-through in providing the resources or the framework? I would say: not really. “

Another, and often forgotten part of Cameron’s Big Society speech was this element: the “Big Society needs the engagement of that significant percentage of the population who have no record of getting involved – or desire to do so.” So Big Society participants are those numbers who have never contributed before: an admirable objective, but one always destined to fail. “If people are doing it on a volunteering basis they need some support structure. It is a little naïve to say people should volunteer more,” observes Armstrong.

In his Big Society book, Norman concludes with a huge ambition for the Big Society, providing an anatomy, of what he calls the new politics. “The ultimate test of the Big Society will lie in whether it can genuinely rebuild our economy and revive our society.” Though this is unlikely to develop in the way Norman hoped.

Summing up the whole Big Society idea, Gregory notes: “There is something important in the idea about answers to social problems lying not only with Government: although an irony that it is a government idea.

“But Big Society is too narrowly about society taking on some of the burden that has fallen on the state: ‘Big Society not Big Government’, rather than the wider mutual relationship between the public, private and social sectors. Similarly, Labour are exploring how the private sector might pull its weight through more responsible capitalism and ‘pre-distribution’ but seem to be missing a trick in terms of the social sector. How about a bit of Big Society, not Big Business?”

So while the Big Society has never really developed in the way its advocates hoped, its legacy of thinking about the nature of the society in which we live is a worthwhile one. But a new narrative needs to be created to address this challenge.

Andrew Holt is editor of Charity Times

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