“Big Society” as a campaign idea did not gain much traction during the election campaign, I think for a number of reasons. It’s a big idea, trying to solve complex problems. It is not a vacuous soundbite that politicians dressed up in the clothes of serious theory, like for example New Labour’s “Third Way” pitch in 1997. “Big Society” pools together ideas and practical experiences of social civic thinkers and doers. This made it harder to sell on the door step, or in press conferences, but on the flip side it lays solid foundations for transformative government.
Another electoral problem was that the “Big Society” concept is not yet fully formed. The problems that need addressing, such as the existence of communities of the defeated, are clear and numerous. The utopian destination of facilitating respect through giving everyone the power to have a meaningful impact on their surroundings is agreeable to all. What is still fuzzy is the journey that needs to be travelled from the current directive state to the land of an enabling government. Implementing “Big Society” involves tough choices, including embracing the risk of failure, and challenging some powerful vested interests. In many ways the concept cannot be fully formed until ideas around empowering communities are enacted because fundamentally the “Big Society” idea should be driven by the experiences of those on the ground.
Lord Wei is one of the auteurs of “Big Society” ideas. He is someone worth following as the Coalition government, and ultimately we, commence the “Big Society” journey. If you are curious about this subject I recommend you read his maiden speech to the House of Lords. I have picked out some highlights below.
“On another level, the big society describes a set of policies to give more powers to people closer to where they live, to help increase the capacity and resources of civil society to take up such powers, and to encourage a sense of collective progress and momentum since it can be hard to “bowl alone”.”
“… at the heart of this debate, in my humble opinion, is not just what civil society thinks social policy should be or even what government pronounces, but a collective and very British constitutional negotiation of a partnership for the 21st century that values and combines not just the seabed, the bedrock of our public services-to protect the vulnerable-but the coral represented by the many current and future providers of those services that add variety and innovation and humanity to their delivery. Last but not least it is the very fish that feed in these waters, the local citizen groups that can extend, vivify and shape this landscape in ambitious as well as humble ways. No single part of this ecosystem can or should dominate, but by working well together each comes to form a whole that is often more than the sum of its parts.”
“There will be challenges in realising such a partnership, as many attempts to forge it before have shown both here and abroad. I list a few of the possible risks: unclear goals leading to a dissipation of effort; a lack of even a moderate amount of resource to empower scalable citizen responses; institutional resistance to the change this approach entails; the capture of new powers by vested interests that are so off-putting to the apolitical citizen; and apathy or a lack of critical mass.”
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