This is probably not going to be the most coherent post I have ever written, because I’m not trying to make any particular point. It’s just that the Big Society comes up a lot in many different kinds of conversation and I have a lot of very jumbled and scattered thoughts and I’d really like to try and get them down in one place.
First, a disclaimer. I do not know a great deal about the political scene, or about general principles of how politics should work. I have never studied politics. I do not in general read newspapers and although I read some political commentary, it is carefully selected and I don’t believe for a second that it tells me enough to understand how the system works. Not that there is such a thing as ‘how the system works’, because it will be different in different places and from different angles, but there will be some general principles and patterns and I’m not sufficiently familiar with them to write anything really useful. I can do it with relationships and organisations, but not political systems. That said, I still have thoughts.
I think I’ve said before that I like the idea of the Big Society, and I continue to like it, although I also have problems with both the principle and the current implementation. I like the idea because I like anything that encourages anyone to do service for other people. By encouraging people to become involved in their community, the Big Society is offering them the opportunity to improve their own well-being.
It seems to me (although, again, I cannot justify this statistically) that there are a lot of people out there who are spending a lot of time paying attention to themselves and what they want, without thinking very much about others except as obstacles or objects of their own desire. I think this is a problem for society, but it’s also a problem for the people involved, who are chasing a chimaera. My experience (and initial results of my research, actually) tend to suggest that the pursuit of happiness doesn’t lead to well-being. Rather, well-being is a side-effect of the pursuit of some other goal.
My problem with the idea of the Big Society has always been the risk that it will create a two-class society – the helpers and the helped. It is hard to feel on equal terms with someone who is giving their energy and time to support you. It is hard to feel on equal terms with someone if you are giving your energy and time to support them. This is not necessarily a deal-breaking idea, and there may be ways to set it up so that it doesn’t have to be the case (although I don’t know any). But it is a problem, because I don’t think we do well when we approach the idea that people are not equal to each other. It’s a very small step from there to wider policy-making that doesn’t respect people’s humanity.
I suspect that the best solution to that is in something else which I like about the Big Society, which is the devolution. I think it’s easier to build equality and a sense of team spirit if people are all pitching in together to create something, and they’ll also do a far better job of it. In the right container, there are huge opportunities for people who play very different roles in a community to create valuable and inspiring change together, with everyone learning from one another how to be more imaginative about the differences in our lives. I realise that there is a world of difficulty in the four words ‘in the right container’ and I don’t believe it can necessarily be done everywhere, but I’ve seen it done in a number of surprising places and I think it’s probably more doable than we often think. But I do think that enormous thought and care has to go into the set-up, and that’s hard, and mostly we get it wrong.
Working in large organisations for over fifteen years, I’ve consistently observed that local change initiatives at the coal face work far better than those pushed out from the head office. We do well when we organise ourselves. We do badly when people tell us what to do, because we don’t like it and also they tend to get it wrong. And we do worst when we are telling people what to do, because we convince ourselves that we know better than they do (we don’t) and that they’re all the same as each other (they’re not). One of the things I really rate about this government is its determination to devolve more power. (I can’t quite work out why they aren’t doing a better job of it, but that’s a different question.)
I guess the other concept problem I have is that the Big Society can’t stand alone. I think – although this may not be fair; as I said, I am ignorant – that in the minds of the current government, the Big Society is there to replace the role of the state in supporting those who most need help, at least to some degree. I think that’s simplistic. I think the roles of the community and the state differ, but both exist and they complement each other and they complement each other in different ways in different contexts. Instead of setting them up in opposition to each other, we need to be thinking about ways in which existing political structures, both local and central, can work in new ways with their communities. (See also this post, which showed up in my tweetstream in a timely manner half an hour ago.)
My implementation problems with the Big Society are more troubling, I think. And there are more of them. This list is not in any particular order.
Firstly, I do wonder if the Government conception of the Big Society harks back to an earlier age in a way that makes modern implementation very difficult. It’s been pointed out to me that in the past, the people who had the time and permission to give of themselves to their community were the women who did not work. This may have afforded valuable glue to the community, but it perpetuated inequality and injustice. And we live in a different world now, where women want to work and need to work and are independent economic entities. So is the idea of the Big Society built on something that does not exist? And is it building on old prejudice to add to the weight of pressure on women?
Secondly, it seems self-evident that it’s very hard to get people to give more when they feel like stuff is being taken away from them. Most people’s response to the cuts is to retrench, to wonder how they will be able to cover their existing commitments and lifestyle with less, rather than thinking ‘how can we give more?. People feel worse off. They circle the wagons. Even if in fact more involvement in our communities would be psychologically good for us – perhaps most of all if we feel we are losing what we’ve relied upon for a while – it’s going to be a long way from people’s natural response. When we feel resources are scarce, our impulse is to hoard and compete, not to share.
Thirdly, it seems that the government has done a remarkably bad job of communicating about the Big Society. It’s a running joke that every time I ask someone what it means to them, I get a different definition. My rather crude starting point is that if you want a large-scale central initiative to work, you focus on two things. One is building ownership of the underlying principles and values, and the other is the enabling processes. Then you let people get on with it. I’m not really seeing either of these two things happening. The discourse about the principles and values is woolly and the enabling processes seem to be being left up to the people who (a) don’t have the resources and (b) don’t believe in the principles and values.
I’m sure there’s more, but this post is already long. I am still rooting for the Big Society. Well, no, I’m rooting for a Big Society, because I think we all need it. I hope I’m wrong about all my concerns. But I don’t think we’re there yet.
April 23, 2011 at 9:24 am |
I think you make some really good points here, particularly about equality between the helpers and the helped, and about the Big Society being expected to take the place of social provision.
My parents recently went to a meeting about the closure of my brother Gavin’s day unit which was held between two and four in the afternoon in a town several miles from the unit itself – not only inconvenient for most people in paid work, but inconvenient for people who use the unit (and are therefore the people most affected by the change) and their carers and assistants, since the unit closes at three and most of the people who use it do not have their own transport. It’s a small thing, but it’s symptomatic of the lack of respect and understanding which I think people are associating with the Big Society idea, whether justifiably or not.
April 24, 2011 at 10:22 am |
My issue is that if people wanted to get involved in their local community right now then there’s nothing the government is doing to stop them. So the government basically declaring that we _should_ be involved doesn’t really do anything.
If we want people to be involved locally then we have to give them an incentive to do so. For instance, by giving them more power to get things done. But the government doesn’t seem to be terribly interested in releasing real power to the periphery.
Also, I have to have the spare time to spend on being engaged. And largely, I don’t. Most people I know would rather spend any free time they do have on hobbies, because those provide instant positive feedback, than involved in battling bureaucracy to improve things that they feel are intractable.
April 28, 2011 at 6:00 pm |
Yes. So there’s some stuff about infrastructure-level interventions to make it easier and clearer for people to get involved, and there’s some stuff about cultural interventions to make it rewarding for people to get involved.
April 26, 2011 at 11:10 am |
I have a problem with The Big Society (TM) on a number of levels. Which might be seen as strange, since I have a huge respect for people who have done work voluntarily in the community for decades. For society, in other words.
I suppose that my fundamental problem is that the government (who are a long way away from me, in a lot of senses) seem to be trying to turn a positive human impulse, to care for other people who need help, into a commodity, or a brand. David Cameron wants the idea of people helping each other to be HIS Big Idea, and not something which comes from inside us.
The political gain to be had is obvious; Cameron, and by extension the Tories, become identified with caring. To be fair, this is a tough sell – I’m as likely to identify the Mafia with community uplift, as I am a Tory with compassion. Or a Lib Dem with anything. (“What do Lib Dem politicians stand for? David Cameron entering the room.”)
I also have a crude economic argument for why the Big Society is so useful to a government committed to cutting State provision of care. The need for that care won’t disappear with that provision – either it gets picked up elsewhere, or people will die, or go hungry, or become more ill. A Tory government is ideologically inclined to have that need met from the private sector. To this way of thinking, that distributes wealth to wealth creators. Another way of thinking is that it allows private individuals to cream off profits (see the provision of nursing homes for the elderly, and the proposed GP Commissioning bodies, which will be largely run by external consultants).
Allowing local voluntary bodies, or other organisations, to apply to supply services currently operated by the state lets those entrepreneurs/profiteers get into the market. As I say, rather crude, but certainly one reason to be wary of The Big Society (TM).
I’d argue with you on one point, that when resources are scarce our impulse is to hoard. That hasn’t been my experience, at least not in communities where there is a strong common bond (society writ small?). During the miners strike there were a lot of local initiatives to raise money, food and clothing for strikers. When asylum seekers were put into one of the poorest parts of Glasgow, support groups sprung up like mushrooms, and the last recession led to more soup kitchens and food runs than I can remember since. It’s more my experience that affluence leads to selfishness, and that it’s generally those that have who are least likely to want to share (which is not to make a virtue of poverty – you’re as likely to be an embittered have-not as a selfish have).
April 28, 2011 at 3:38 pm |
Don’t necessarily disagree with any of this (although I’m less cynical about motives as you know), but I don’t think it contradicts anything I’ve written either.
I think a lot of what’s going on with the government is stupidity and not reflecting on how systems work. They aren’t asking the question ‘how do we support those aspects of society that we want to encourage?’ They’re trying to pull strings from the centre again and IT NEVER WORKS.
I agree with your point about resource sharing where community exists, but I suspect that it doesn’t exist in far more places than it does. Hope I’m wrong though.
May 1, 2011 at 7:05 pm |
There’s a nice quote in the book I’ve just finished reading – “The poor can’t afford cynicism. We just need to be cautious.”
Yes – much of what I believe on this runs close to what you say here. If I was being cynical instead of cautious, though, I’d wonder if the government actually wants the big society to work. Is it enough just to provide a smokescreen for privatisation?
May 1, 2011 at 7:23 pm |
If you were being cynical, that line of reasoning would make sense.
I’m not cynical. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m right, just that I’m not cynical.
(I’ve worked with too many different people to be cynical, and been wrong about their motives every time. Just writing a post about that now.)
May 1, 2011 at 7:48 pm |
I used to be a cynic. But I’ve seen through that now.