Tag: big society

Big Society – what next?

The news that Liverpool is pulling out of a Big Society pilot project, blaming cuts and central government inaction, was met with a certain amount of grim satisfaction yesterday.  It seemed like vindication for those who’ve been arguing that the Big Soc is incompatible with the cuts affecting the voluntary sector.    The announcement that Big Society head honcho, Nat Wei is cutting down on his voluntary hours because he needs time to earn a living got a similar response.  People are lining up to say “I told you so” about the  failure of the Big Society (look, I can do it too) without being able to offer an alternative vision of how to provide public services  at a time of swingeing cuts (no, I haven’t got one either).

The Big Soc has always been hampered by its supporters’ inability to explain how it would actually work.  The best summary I’ve heard of the problems with the BS was provided by Anna Coote from NEF at an RSA event at which the audience lined up to condemn the flakiness of the idea – and, if memory serves, the BS defender talked about the importance of people talking to each other on buses.  In the absence of a convincing narrative about how the Big Soc would work in real communities with serious problems, it’s been too easy for its opponents to paint it as a fig leaf for cuts.  (As one respondent to a  Third Sector/LGC survey of attitudes to the BS said “It might work in Ambridge, but not in the real world”)

So, we’re all agreed.  It was a difficult idea raising lots of practical problems, and it’s not going down well.  Rather than carping, though,  I’m intrigued by what happens next.  Given that the Tories aren’t going to change their minds and release more funds to support services, how are they to be delivered in future?  There’s obviously a role for public, private and third sectors to work together – how is that to be done?  Does it matter if it’s done differently in different locations (the chaos that Nicholas Boles said he would welcome in place of central planning)? Can a practical structure now be hung onto the smaller government/bigger communities/locally driven  idea, which many people find appealing when it’s explained properly.  What’s the transition plan?  If the objective is to get from central planning/central funding to locally provided, tailored services,  how do we get from A to B without decimating services en route?  Is the government completely the wrong institution to be driving this at all (a point made in CIPRtv’s examination of communications issues around the Big Society)?  And (another opportunity for me to say I told you so), how come the comms around this central plank of government policy has been handled so very badly that almost no-one seems to understand what the Big Society is all about?

Communication isn’t the same as spin

Pop quiz: what do these   stories have in common?

The answer is, of course, they are united by rushed policy-making, an airy attitude to making announcements without expecting to be questioned about the details, and  spectacularly bad communications.

Ironically,the thing I like about this government  ( the only one) is its sense of urgency and its refusal to accept that there are any sacred cows that can’t be slaughtered.  I wish the last lot had been so bold.  But change on this scale needs to be based on sound evidence and detailed policy work, else it has a tendency to blow up in your face; and if you can’t explain what you’re trying to do, you can’t build the support you need to get it done.

The comms thing really pains me: poor briefing, confused messages, over-promising what cannot be delivered, insensitivity to the needs of important stakeholders,  confusion about key areas of policy.  They  need  good communications support and the need will get more acute as policy starts to be implemented.  Some optimists think that they are going to start realising this quite soon.  Regular readers will know, however,  that I am not  by nature a glass half full kind of a girl.  Government communication is firmly linked to spin and smears (Cameron said it again in his  leader’s speech yesterday).  The notions of PR, lobbying and campaigning are such an anathema to Ministers that they are effectively forbidding people to do it (even though an estimated 15% of new Tory MPs have a background in lobbying).  CIPR are trying to raise the issue of the value of public sector comms, but I doubt that will be enough.  They need comms help – how do we convince them?

Update:  I’ve just re-read this.  It worries me that it looks as though I think comms can or should be used as a cover for bad policy. It can’t and shouldn’t. My point is that if the government has a coherent strategy  that is driving what’s being done,  they have no chance of letting us know what it might be without a marked improvement in their comms.  The fact that it looks increasingly  as though no such coherence exists is worrying on many levels…

Delivering the Big Society on a wing and a prayer

 When it was  elected the government pledged to: “support the creation and expansion of mutuals, cooperatives, charities and social enterprises, and support these groups to have much greater involvement in the running of public services”  (Cabinet Office, Building the Big Society, May 2010)

But

  • Capacitybuilders, the government agency responsible for supporting the third sector has just lost £1.3m of its budget
  • NCVO has revealed the results of  crowd-sourcing the reality of government cuts to the  sector – 700 responses to date, showing cuts of up to 90%  to some programmes of work
  • Charities warn that cuts threaten the Big Society idea:  What the government says it wants to achieve with the big society and how it is behaving are two different things. All this has created a lack of trust. Within weeks of this government starting out it has destroyed its relationship with the sector through its dishonesty.

“So is the big society a romantic Tory aspiration or cynical political sophistry? Follow the money and the story unfolds. Far from finding themselves cherished, charities are taking a hard hit from the first round of cuts”. (Polly Toynbee, The Big Society is a Big, Fat Lie )

I’ve been planning a post about the role of the sector  in a mixed economy of local service providers,  and the need for it to be properly funded,  for ages  but couldn’t get the right words into the right order.  Then I found this, so, with thanks to Progress, here’s the thing:   ” If local groups are to deliver more in the way of services, they need to coordinate their work with others in the same boat and work in consortia; to share good and best practice both in commissioning and delivery; and have access to capacity-building processes and skill development. They need to be genuine partners to local authorities to work on common programmes.  All these are under threat from a cuts agenda which regards back office functions as less important and therefore more readily discardable. “

The big society – a work in progress

Overheard while queueing to get into the Lido at London Fields on the hottest day of the year.  Young Man (mid-20s?), young boy in tow, on mobile phone:

YM:  No, I forgot the sun-cream  He’ll be all right.  He’ll just have to keep his t-shirt on in the pool… (pause)… I am NOT going to ask a complete stranger for sun-cream… (pause)… I’m NOT GOING TO ASK… (pause)… Because all they’ll do is tell me to go and get my own fucking sun-cream… (pause)… Because that’s what I’d say if a complete stranger asked me.