This morning I went to the Big Society Network’s Cameron Direct on the Big Society. It was a great event, well-organised, good questions (though a couple of plants…) and generally fun.
David Cameron answers questions at the Big Society Network
A few things that struck me during the event, however, which give me concerns.
The first is that it has taken the government so long to pull its finger out on this. The complaints and the attacks have been coming to a crescendo for a while, yet it’s taken until now to address them. I have no quibble with the way it was done, but it’s taken them too long to do it. As I’ve written before, it seems like something has to be in crisis before it gets addressed, which is not really sustainable in the long-term. They need to build a narrative about how this one big unifying idea ties together all the individual things that they are doing as a government.
The second is that there has been too much acceptance of the whole ‘government spending is, by definition, good’ argument. I keep hearing ministers saying, I didn’t come into politics to cut spending. That’s putting it the wrong way round, and it misses the point of the Big Society project. This was something that David Cameron has been talking about since the 2005 leadership election; it’s not just about money, it’s about the opportunity to retake control and ensure that the state serves us, not controls us.
The fact is that central government is (mostly) either giving extra support to voluntary and civic society organisations, or it’s trying to maintain spending on things that work; whether local councils understand the value of the various things they fund is – really – up to them. There is a place for the government to exhort, to encourage and to lead by example, but we elect councils for a reason and if we are serious about devolving power then they must, ultimately, answer to their residents for their actions.
Similarly, we need to understand the nature of what we’re working to achieve – it’s not just about volunteering and about donating time and money. It is, however, about being involved in decisions that affect our lives. It’s about taking control of the things that matter to us. It’s about taking responsibility for the outcomes that we want to see.
My final thought for now is that there is an enormous hunger out there for this to work. I’ve had numerous comments, direct emails and tweets over our Big Society week last week, saying that people had tried to sign up, had offered to help, had engaged with ideas but that they’d had no response. There’s a place for patience, but this government really needs the Big Society to work: people want to help them but the government has to let them.
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