The Public Administration Select Committee launched on Wednesday 14th December 2011 'The Big Society', a much anticipated report on the latest achievements of the Government's flagship policy in strengthening responsibility and empowering communities. Drawing from the stimulating debate generated by the publication, ResPublica had the unique opportunity to host a panel discussion with Bernard Jenkin MP, Chair of the Public Administration Select Committee, on the evening of Thursday 12th January 2012. The event featured a panel who collaboratively explored the next initiatives to be implemented for central government to assess and engage further with civil society and beyond.  

Speakers included:

From “Talking to doing”

One theme that was evident throughout the event was the desire for those involved with the “Big Society” to become more focused on the “doing”, and less on the “talking”. Danny Kruger, Chief Executive at Only Connect and Fellow at ResPublica, made the case that the Government needed to start focusing on the “specifics of the Big Society”, while Allison Ogden-Newton, from Social Enterprise London, pointed out that there has been a marked gap between “the rhetoric and reality”. Bernard Jenkin MP, referring to the Public Administration Select Committee’s report, published on the 14th December, pointed out that the “Big Society” projects has been, “hampered by public confusion over the agenda”. Phillip Blond, Director of ResPublica, echoed much of the sentiment expressed by the others, with regards to public perceptions regarding the “Big Society”. He argued that the inability of the Government to properly articulate the project has led to it being overly associated with Philanthropy and Volunteering, as a result, opponents have been able to score points by branding the project as representing an old fashioned Tory Party promoting “laissez-faire” capitalism.

All those on the panel supported the recommendation, within the Select Committee Report, to create a new Minster for the “Big Society”, with a cross-cutting brief, with Phillip Blond arguing that it would be vital for “personifying” the project to the public. Alison Ogden-Newton commented that part of moving from “Talking to Doing”, would be from moving from “Policy debate and creation”, to “implementation”.

“Big and Small”

Another key theme, touched upon with varying degrees of intensity by the different speakers, was the gulf that exists between big and small charities with regards to their corresponding ability to obtain Government contracts, a key component of the “Big Society”. Bernard Jenkin argued that the big “Tesco’s Charities” had thus far dominated the “Big Society” in practice, Danny Kruger added weight to this analysis by pointing out that the larger charities had hovered up virtually all of the Government contracts for service delivery that were distributed via the DWP Innovation Fund, the cornerstone of the Work Programme. Allison Ogden-Newton also contributed to this particular debate by pointing out that the Work Programme had tended to favour those bodies with reserves of over £50million. Danny Kruger, whose charity has an income of £500,000 annually, found it impossible to compete against the “Big boys”. Bernard Jenkin paid specific mention to the Charity “Emmaus”, the homelessness charity that has found it impossible to win Government contracts, despite the brilliant work it does locally, as a sad illustration of the problems inherent within the “Big Society” project.  

Salvation through, “Radical Localism”

To some extent all of the speakers argued for greater localism, and more specifically economic localism, in moving the “Big Society” forward as a project. Danny Kruger called for genuine localism, allowing smaller charities to raise money locally. He mentioned the Neighbourhood Community Budget in Fulham as a key example of how economic localism can become a reality. He argued that community budgets allow people to be treated as “whole human beings”, in a way they weren’t when finance was distributed from the centre via silos. Phillip Blond argued that although the policy architecture has been great, the necessary infrastructure at a local level has been lacking. The way we create a universal understanding of the “Big Society” should be through building on particularism, and promoting localism.

This panel discussion emerges from ResPublica’s 'Models and Partnerships for Social Prosperity' workstream, one of the three core workstreams of the ResPublica Trust. Projects in 2012 will extend the above dialogue and ongoing debates, targeting a number of different policy areas to explore what more Government can do to enable a “Big Society”, and the role that larger providers and charities can play as intermediary and supportive institutions within this process. The importance of ‘social value’, alongside the passage of Chris White MP’s Public Services (Social Value) Bill, and the nature of our public services, following the Open Public Services White Paper and wider departmental priorities, will also be central to our work. Forwarding innovative solutions, models and partnerships for a successful, diverse and ‘community-based’ Work Programme will be a particular priority from January 2012 onwards.

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