Oscar Wilde said “that the trouble with socialism is that it takes too many evenings.” He might quip that “Big Society is an unexpected outbreak of thought in modern Conservatism.” But is it an intangible fantasy, a slight of hand by the austerity magician, or a genuine opportunity for reform, empowered localism, innovation and accountability?
The Policy Chameleon
Recently I’ve been pondering the degree of natural antithesis between Big Government and Big Society? Are they really polar opposites? Where is the evidence that people want to be active and engaged within local communities? Community politics and the voluntary sector in Britain appears buoyant, but to a cynic Big Society could be a sophisticated smoke screen to divert attention from the impact of spending cuts and austerity measures. This gives rise to two key sales challenges for Big Society – a) its nebulous and often tenuous definition and b) in the vacuum of meaning, the ‘interpretation of convenience’ is a vehicle for pet projects, the quintessential badge of opportunism for bandwagon jumping. The ‘delivery problem’ for Big Society also comes in two distinct chunks, the first requiring ‘right size’ centralisation to ensure appropriate governance of service provision and second, the engagement problem – i.e. expansion of the ‘as is’ to the truly scalable model of ‘national’ participation. This requires sustained (and sustainable) citizen engagement harnessed in a framework of professional delivery – fear descending into an incoherent anarchy of cottage industries piloted by popinjays, apparatchiks and weirdoes (an uneasy lampoon of the ‘parish council’).
If we accept Big Society’s dry classification as an “outbreak of thought” some might still argue it a Blairite Blondite Cameronite light-weight, semi-intangible and malleable policy (to the point of meaning everything to everyone across the political spectrum). In darker moments, I sidle up to a stone’s throw of this interpretation but as a devotee of pro-social engagement and social enterprise (back to right of centre philanthrocapitalism) I plough a more sympathetic furrow. Credibility must of course rely on quantification, and whilst enthusiastic for Big Society thinking I believe that the overly organic semantics would benefit from less ‘chameleon-like’ characteristics. Applaud the erudite Jesse Norman’s recent attempt at definition.
Building Blocks of Big Society
Membership Organisations
Inter faith supremo and fellow member of the Rotary Club of London, Sir Sigmund Sternberg highlighted a similar need for tangibility in his call for Cameron to engage with the Rotarian movement (letter to the Times earlier in 2010). I applaud the sentiment (and as a Rotarian am in natural agreement). We must however go further. In Big Society, intermediate organisations are critical enablers, diffusing the seeming impedance mismatch between centralisation of service commission and front-line provision (localisation and personalisation). In my view the building blocks of successful implementation are therefore the established membership and intermediate institutions (secular and religious), as they provide the mechanisms for citizen engagement, mobilisation and orchestration. There are too many to mention in detail, but one such notable is the National Trust with a whopping 3.8 million members. Disparaging commentators sometimes refer to ‘knife and fork’ or ‘direct debit’ members, but this is dismissive. How we seek to engage the membership from simple ‘transactional involvement’ is a challenge, getting this right really unlocks the potential of the membership base. As an exemplar refer to the Fellowship at the Royal Society of Arts.
Membership organisations can help deliver engagement and scalability at the front-line of Big Society. To maximise success the following needs to be on offer:
- Real opportunity to engage and make a measurable difference. Outcome focused projects should be the ‘order of the day’
- Enjoyment – one man’s altruism may be another man’s (metaphorical) poison. Engagement should be fulfilling, social and fun. In a time constrained world, sustainability requires palatability
- Opportunity for self-development – seasoning the feast of altruism with the spice of ‘what’s in it for me?’ may on the surface appear crass, but this is a natural underlying psychological state which should not be ignored
Challenges to Political Ethos
Exiting the 13 year tenure of Peter Mandelson New Labour, Tony’s Targets, and the expansion of state, we are left with a quizzical position under the uncertainty of (at times) a fractious coalition. To the right, understanding where ‘this is going’ theoretically and politically is not simple.
“Government must know its own limits and become more strategic. It must step up its efforts to cut unnecessary targets, strip out waste and devolve responsibility to communities and local service providers…
And above all, government must embrace a new culture that celebrates local innovation and ends once and for all the view that the man or woman in Whitehall always knows best.” [Gordon Brown speaking in 2008]
Blair’s establishment of the “Office of the Third Sector” in Cabinet Office under red Ed Miliband, Brown’s musings above, the academy programmes and many other examples point to the fact that New Labour made some progress on similar concepts. Conservatism has stripped away some of the bureaucratic machinery of target chasing, farewell to Public Service Agreement, Comprehensive Area Assessments, the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit and the Audit Commission. Radical devolution and decentralisation is in my view welcome, but I remain sceptical about two key issues:
- Local accountability
- Service quality and (where appropriate) harmonisation and base-level standardisation
I am sceptical on point one as this requires a sea change in citizen engagement in local politics. Complaints and concerns are today all too quickly raised to MPs, not through the appropriate town/district or county council. The public perception of ‘who is accountable’ therefore needs to be the subject of significant re-education. State expansion under New Labour (although arguably unrelenting over the last half century) shares some blame. Government is ‘something that is done to us’ seems engrained in the consciousness of modern society.
On point two, governance is my primary concern, save radical devolution become the manifesto for chaos. Light touch legislative frameworks and best practices would help mitigate this risk, but government also needs to incentivise collaboration across competing service providers. I would argue strongly for mechanisms that reward continuous process improvement across competing providers. Radical de-monopolisation of public service provision may be the zenith, but innovation and quality delivery across silos will require clever policy formation and implementation.
Segueing gracefully to Jack Kennedy’s inauguration speech…
“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” [JFK, 1961]
In the latter half of the New Labour experiment, Phil Ochs’ “I regret that I have but one country to give for my life” had more personal resonation. The upstream battle to sell Big Society is against a swollen current of cynicism and dashed optimism (to refrains of 1997’s “Things Can Only Get Better”).
In Closing
For people to believe in and get behind the Big Society concept it requires speedy clarification and quantifiable outcome focused results. Membership organisations are the bases on which scalability and national engagement can be constructed. A programme of reform may be needed within such organisations and stakeholders and trustees should review whether existing processes and structures are ‘fit for purpose’. Government should seek to incentivise innovation within membership organisations, and in my view introduce (something along the lines of) Presidential Service Awards, utilising the membership organisations as certifying bodies (this system exists in the US).
Are you a believer in Cameron’s vision of Big Society? Do you participate in voluntary work or work within your local community? How will you build altruism and pro-social activity into your resolutions for 2011? I would be very interested in your views on the opportunities and key challenges to successful implementation of public service reform and mutualisation.
ps. I’m watching with interest the development of Social Impact Bonds / Social Investment Bonds. If you want to ‘dip a toe’ in that topic, have a read through the material on Peterborough Prison on the Ministry of Justice website.
pps. There are also some book and video recommendations below should you wish to dig even deeper.
Related Books
Related Links
Big Society | Cabinet Office
Jesse Norman
Greg Clark MP (Minister of State at the Department of Communities and Local Government)
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