The Big Society: Power to the People?

Abstract

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, recently set out his vision of a ‘big society’. Its core themes are empowering communities, redistributing power from the state to citizens and promoting a culture of volunteering. The idea is badly flawed. It overlooks the crucial role that needs to be played by the state in promoting social justice, which is vital to the development of active citizenship and vibrant communities. Moreover, Cameron views the active citizen as simply a philanthropist and volunteer rather than as a politically literate individual, knowledgeable about the major political issues of the day and actively involved in debates about how public or private services ought to be run. The initiative is particularly perverse in the context of the credit crunch, a vitally important cause of which was precisely not the development of an over‐mighty state but rather the inadequate state regulation of free market trading activities by banks.

The potential of community entrepreneurship for neighbourhood revitalization in the United Kingdom and the United States

“…In the UK, the national government now implicitly targets high capacity communities through the power devolution and do-it-yourself discourse regarding community self-help and asset transfers through a Community Right to Buy. Many UK academics object to this form of targeting (Kisby, 2010;Lawless, 2011;Bailey, 2012). In contrast, many American practitioners and scholars advocate "strategic geographic targeting": focusing on highcapacity lower-income communities (within a population of lower income communities eligible for help) and by concentrating projects at block and neighbourhood subarea levels.…”

“…Similar criticism can be heard in the UK, where some see localism as nothing more than funding cuts in disguise, hitting those in deprived neighbourhoods hardest (see e.g. Kisby, 2010).…”

“…A key aim of the 2011 Localism Act is to pave the way for a wide transfer of powers to communities, neighbourhoods and individuals, for example by a 'Community Right to Buy' (CLG, 2011) that should facilitate the transfer of important private or public assets with a 'community value' to community groups. Citing Kisby (2010) and Lawless (2011), Bailey (2012 identifies several problems of this power-devolving strategy, which are important for the issue of targeting: "… Second, there is no apparent targeting of the most deprived neighbourhoods which require most assistance in addressing issues of asset transfer. Third, it clearly favours the better organised and generally more affluent areas which already have the skills, knowledge and resources to run community enterprises which can exploit opportunities.…”

The contribution of community enterprise to British urban regeneration in a period of state retrenchment

“…The commitment to target resources towards areas of greatest deprivation was largely replaced by the 'Big Society' where all citizens were expected to contribute towards the common good (Cameron 2010). The Big Society was heavily criticised for providing no additional resources, had no clear objectives or strategy (Kisby 2010;Lawless 2011;Bailey and Pill 2011) and was soon reinvented as 'localism' (Clarke and Cochrane 2013). Moreover, state funding which had gone to third sector organisations was also cut, thus making it more difficult to respond to new initiatives, and reinforcing the trend towards neoliberalism.…”

Putting Life in Years (PLINY): a randomised controlled trial and mixed-methods process evaluation of a telephone friendship intervention to improve mental well-being in independently living older people

“…By the time the PLINY intervention was being delivered it had become difficult to talk about voluntary work in the UK without reference to the 2010 government's Big Society policy, a stated objective of which is 'a society where people come together to solve problems and improve life for themselves and their communities'. 88 This policy has had its detractors in the academic literature with some seeing it as ineffective [89][90][91][92][93][94] and others going further, accusing it of providing rhetorical cover for an agenda of spending cuts, privatisation and regressive taxation that will increase inequality, [95][96][97][98] DISCUSSION NIHR Journals Library www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk not least because small-scale voluntary sector organisations are thought to have been most seriously compromised by the deficit reduction programme. 99 Our study provides limited evidence that some individuals who might previously have volunteered are deterred by an association with a political agenda that they eschew, which adds to an ongoing debate about whether such policies are eroding confidence in the third sector.…”