We warmly welcome the publication of the PASC report. Its single most
important recommendation is perhaps its biggest: that there should be a single
Big Society Minister with a cross-cutting brief to drive through the agenda.
The failure to give the Big Society an across the board brief with ministerial
backing will mean that it will succeed in some places and fail in others. The
step change needed requires a leading figure to personify and drive through the
necessary reforms.
The second most important recognition of the report is the need to open up
public services to alternative providers. We are delighted that the Committee
recognises that the contracting out model has tended to favour the larger, more
commercial models. The Big Society cannot prosper without the ‘little society’
– a diversity of groups need to be engaged, and not just, in the words of the
Committee, “the ‘Tesco’ charities that are skilled at tendering.” Real,
‘bottom-up’ enterprise
should be encouraged and stimulated, not state-driven initiatives that utilises
the same, ‘safe’ providers.
There are a number of other important recommendations set out by the report,
including the need to further encourage mutualisation in public services. But
central to all of the above, as the report quite rightly highlights, is to have
a vision of what the success of the Big Society project will actually look like
– if it succeeds what will change and how.
The Committee recognises the dangers in simply commissioning the cheapest
provider, and the dilemma that faces many commissioners as to whether to take
on the additional costs of a small local charity or voluntary service. We think
that many of the concerns raised by the PASC report can begin to be met by
Chris White’s Public Services (Social Value) Bill, currently in the Lords which
legislates that public bodies have to consider ‘social when commissioning
public services.
There is also a further opportunity for groups can ‘capture’ the state. The
civil service has the opportunity to become a ‘civic service’ – a localised
body of individuals who can enable the Big Society to happen by allowing
themselves like local budgets in the localism bill to be taken over by citizens
groups. Rather than simply encouraging civil servants to volunteer as a
subsidiary to their role, as suggested by last year’s Giving White Paper,
engagement with local civic solutions should become part of the very essence of
their role – creating civil servants who are truly ‘civil’.
Linking the Big Society up with small businesses and the wider population will
also be key to driving an overarching and engaging agenda. The agenda still
largely relies on a failed volunteer narrative, so will struggle to go to
scale. Big society is developing the policy architecture but not the popular content
for its successful realisation – there is still much work to do.
ResPublica is hosting a public panel discussion in response to the PASC report
on the Big Society, The Big Society: From policy to practice, which will take
place this coming Thursday 12th from 6pm until 7:30pm. Please check www.respublica.org.uk/events/upcoming
for further details and tickets.
Speakers include Bernard Jenkin MP, Chair of the Public Administration Select
Committee; Danny Kruger, Chief Executive, Only Connect; Allison Ogden-Newton,
Chief Executive, Social Enterprise London; and Phillip Blond, Director of ResPublica.