16/05/11

By Andrew Holt

Locality has welcomed ACEVO’s Big Society report, and calls on the government to back the report’s key ideas, including recognising that the ‘Big Society’ existed long before the present government came to power.

ACEVO’s report by the Commission on Big Society, Powerful People, Responsible Society, sets out a number of recommendations on how the government can better support the voluntary and community, and public sectors to deliver the Big Society.

As the UK’s leading network of ambitious community-led organisations, Locality backs these proposals.

Steve Wyler, chief executive of Locality, said: “Community organisations across the country, many of them reeling from disproportionate cuts, will welcome this report.

"It is a significant step in liberating the Big Society idea from the ‘year zero’ approach which some in government so unwisely adopted, and which ignored the strong foundations which already existed, not least among many thousands of dedicated and entrepreneurial community organisations across the country.

“The report’s proposed definition of Big Society as a society in which power and responsibility have shifted so that “individuals and communities have more aspiration, power and capacity to take decisions and solve problems themselves” is just what we need. We call on government to back this definition, and if they do so, our members stand ready to help make it a reality on the ground.”

Two Locality members, Alt Valley Community Trust and Burton Street Project, are included in the report as examples of organisations already successfully delivering the Big Society ethos.

Alt Valley Community Trust is based in a deprived area of Liverpool and provides training opportunities for local people.

With social grants and investment it has increased its turnover and been able to provide more services to the community, including a training centre for 14-19 year olds and new facilities such as a café and creche.

The Burton Street Project in Sheffield is a successful community centre providing space for 100 local groups as well as offering training, arts, sport, family support, services for people with mental health issues.

It was set up by a group of local residents who were eventually able to buy the community centre building outright thanks to support from their local authority.

CEO of another Locality member, Peter McGurn of the Goodwin Trust in Hull, was one of the 13 members of the Commission on Big Society.

McGurn said: “The report provides a timely and robust challenge to the Government one year on to demonstrate that the Big Society is more than political rhetoric and to evidence some coherent and practical commitment to the idea.

"The survey data in the report is clear that the Government still has a big hill to climb in convincing the majority of people that its Big Society idea is either clearly defined or adds anything to that which already exists.

“If the aspiration to transfer power, responsibility and decision making to communities is to be genuinely realised then the Government needs to abandon the ‘fuzzy logic’ of the last year and provide a crisper focus and the wherewithal to achieve it: this report provides an excellent insight into what it might look like.”

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