It's Big, it's Societal, it's the Big Society!

It's here! The Big Society is here! Well, the announcement is anyway and the Big Society Bank and the four 'vanguard sites' across England, for, lest we forget, the Big Society is England-specific as the policy areas it is connected to are devolved to the Scottish Parliament and to the Welsh Assembly. On that note, it will be interesting to see what happens when someone in England cooks up a proposal to somehow bring a reserved issue into the Big Society Big Top but for now it's "Cry 'Big Society for Harry, England, and Saint George!"

David Cameron has pretty much characterised the Big Society as the legacy of his time in office so he needs it to work. Given it can only work if 'the people' make it work I admire his faith. With 53,000 volunteers WRVS knows a thing or two about supporting people to do things for themselves. So, will it work? Well, I am not an apologist for any political party but let's first put to bed the myth that the Big Society is about a) replacing paid positions with volunteers and b) dismantling the welfare state and leaving us all to fend for ourselves. It's just not. Voluntary action, of whatever kind, is never and will never be engaged effectively if people feel they are being obliged to act as part of some mass-dumping-of-public-services exercise by a government who sees community action or third sector groups as some sort of surrogate private sector, whose fangs are being let loose on Nye Bevan's baby because it's leaders couldn't get International Megacorp Plc to savage it sufficiently. Volunteers, whether engaged formally in organisations like WRVS or informally as community activists, may act out of necessity but that doesn't mean they're a bunch of easily-fooled suckers who are going to form a new phalanx of amateur social workers or community nurses as, meanwhile, the dole lines lengthen. Nor does it mean they're a secret army of laissez-faire right wingers eager to bring services into their own personal private sphere. The third sector, particularly in local communities, has always grown into the gaps in UK society because no-one else was doing anything about issue X or problem Y. It is also no longer the case that the third sector is made up solely of volunteers. WRVS has over 2000 staff itself. In other words the Big Society is not about throwing people into the unemployment bin. OK, OK, I can see that if you sweep away the local public-sector-provided nursery then you have a gap and it's that kind of thing that some people fear but I have to say that, leaving the example of nurseries as just that, an example, it's not clear to me either a) that this (i.e. a massive cull of essential services) will inevitably happen or b) just why we have ended up thinking the state should provide all the things that it currently does, even though many of them are great and I love 'em. But many isn't all. And besides, if you look at the 'vanguard areas' there's stuff in there about running a local pub and setting up bus services; both usually private sector ventures. In fact I am not aware that any of the mainstream political parties still tout the idea of some sort of anti-third sector, anti-charity, socialist, state-must-provide-all model and they haven't for decades now. What I do know is that it is simply nonsensical to suggest that the talents, abilities, enthusiasm creativity, invention and drive of 'ordinary people' (oh, save us from that term of reference!) should be suppressed because 'the state does that'. What counts is the outcome, not the method. Look at it this way; if the Big Society boozer is crap, no-one's going to drink in it are they? Likewise, the idea, even in the current financial mess we're in, that the state will withdraw public services en masse and leave vast deserts of need is fatuous. Even people who traditionally vote Tory rely on such services to the extent that they'll feel the bite and shout about it. Cameron wants a second term without the Lib Dems, he can't afford to drop votes anywhere.

I think the Big Society will work. I've worked in the third sector for 15 years, several of which I spent as a community development worker with small local groups. I think people are marvellous and will always surprise you. In fact, if I have a criticism of the initiative it's really only that the way it's been presented means you'd be forgiven for thinking we haven't got an extensive, vibrant third sector across England already, because we have, as NCVO will tell you. The Big Society initiative may help that sector make an even greater contribution to England but just as it's not going to replace the public sector, it's not going to replace the third sector, it's just going to give it a hand.

As for the National Citizen's Service, you'll have to give me time to digest the proposal. Remember, I'm up in Edinburgh, reading tonnes of stuff about what the Scottish Parliament is up to so forgive me if I can't chew over the English stuff as fast as you'd like!

One last thing... I'd love to know that 'you' exists, which blogger wouldn't? So if 'you' are really out there why not post a comment? Disagree with me, call me a closet Tory, an idiot, a numbskull or tell me my analysis is spot on and I write prose that Dickens would envy but, either way, send something! After all, in the words of The Feeling, "I love it when you call but you never call at all!"