New questions over big society as tsar leaves post after a year

Following the Guardian's coverage of the latest relaunch of the Prime Minister's "Big Society" at the start of this week (see blog post Monday 23 May), it carries this news today.

New questions over big society as tsar leaves post after a year

Cabinet office insists departure does not mark scaling back of project, but Labour say flagship policy is descending into farce

By Polly Curtis, Whitehall correspondent

Lord Wei, the man parachuted into the House of Lords to lead the government's "big society" project, is to leave his post after less than a year.

Wei, dubbed the big society tsar, is leaving to work for a charity. The Cabinet Office has scrapped his role and the Downing Street policy unit will now take responsibility for the programme.

A Cabinet Office spokesman insisted that it did not mark a scaling back of the prime minister's ambitions for the big society, saying that Wei had completed the work of developing the policy so there is no need to replace him.

The news came just a day after David Cameron gave a major speech on the subject in what was widely interpreted as his fourth relaunch of the project, which has struggled to register with the public and faced cynicism from Tory backbenchers.

Cameron thanked the peer for his "hard work" while Wei said he was glad to have played a "modest" role in the project.

Labour said the flagship policy was descending into a "farce" with no one in government now responsible for it.

Wei said in February that he was scaling back his hours to spend more time with his family and earn more money. His statement caused widespread comment about the practicality of a policy that relied, in part, on the development of a volunteering culture that could clash with the realities of people's everyday working lives.

It also emerged that when Wei was asked to do the job, only at the last minute did he find out the post was unpaid.

He also had to drop his work with other charities to avoid a conflict of interest. It is understood that the government was unable to offer him a paid adviser post as it was attempting to reduce the number of such appointments.

He was given a Tory peerage – making him Lord Wei of Shoreditch – and a desk in the Cabinet Office as the "big society tsar".

Nat Wei, 34, is a former management consultant who has no private income to fall back on. He worked for Ark, one of the biggest sponsors of academies, before setting up the Shaftesbury Partnership, a social entrepreneurial company.

He will now go to work Community Foundation Network, charity that promotes "community philanthropy".

Cameron said in a statement: "Nat has worked incredibly hard over two years to help develop policies that support the big society.

"He has played an important role in delivering key initiatives like community organisers, national citizen service and the big society bank. I wish him every success in his new role with the Community Foundation Network."

Wei said: "I will always be proud to have played a modest role in helping lay the foundations here on which the big society will be built in years to come.

"I want to thank everyone, but particularly the prime minister, for giving me this opportunity and for pursuing this vision with courage and determination.

"I look forward to helping in my own small way outside government – because it is out there, in local communities, that the heavy lifting must now be done."

Tessa Jowell, shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, said: "No doubt everyone will wish Nat Wei well, but yet again the big society is descending into farce.

"Only a day after Cameron told us all to take more responsibility, it appears that there will now be nobody in his government responsible for bringing the big society into reality."

Cameron defends the "big society"

This is from The Guardian's Professional Local Government Network online service.

Cameron defends the "big society"

By Kate Hodge, Guardian Professional

David Cameron has defended his idea of the "big society" amid continued criticism. Speaking as the government published its Giving White Paper, Cameron claimed that big society was not just a money saving exercise, but a strong commitment to empowering communities. He also unveiled plans to give £40m to the third sector, including £30 million to help volunteer organisations and a £10m social action fund. Many welcomed plans to introduce tax incentives to promote charitable donation. Others, however, claimed the schemes were a desperate attempt by the government to help charities struggling to cope with the effects of strict economic austerity. Rachael Maskell, Unite's national officer, said, "Unless the White Paper addresses the funding crisis in a more strategic way and also the massive job losses already affecting charities, the White Paper will be no more than a white elephant."

Stand by for Big Society 4.0

Here's Michael White, writing in today's Guardian about the latest relaunch of David Cameron's "Big Society".

Stand by for Big Society 4.0

David Cameron's 'big society' strategy: if it it ain't working – relaunch it

By Michael White

The cerebral French have a saying about public policy. "It will work in practice, but will it work in theory?" David Cameron has the more familiar problem with his "big society" concept. Will it work in practice at a time when economic hardship is already putting pressure on voters' spare time and charitable impulses?

But he's also got the French problem. Even as a campaign slogan in 2010 it felt more like a fluffy add-on devised by his biking strategy guru, Steve Hilton, than something that would make people go, "Gosh, y'know, he's right", and sign on to help the Samaritans on a Saturday night.

Hence yesterday's relaunch, the fourth on most reckonings. As part of the Tory detox, Dave launched Big Society 1.0 well before polling day. Tory MPs were sniffy, but he persevered to show who was boss. Besides, his Witney constituency is so affluent it could almost work there. Liverpool, where he relaunched Big Society 2.0 with writer Phil Redmond, a year later, is a tougher call.

But Dave's a fast learner, and in February he had another try at grandiose Somerset House on the Thames. Inappropriate or what? It looks like a palace but is actually the first purpose-built civil-service building in England – the embodiment of the Georgian Big State and stuffed with quill-pen pushers.

Although he wheeled on a billionaire to write a charity cheque, the Daily Mirror dubbed Big Society 3.0 a "big con" in which hardly any Tory MPs were doing voluntary work. Undeterred, he rolled out Big Society 4.0, complete with its own white paper and the idea of using cash machines to solicit donations. But it's not all about money. Got that?

Read this article, along with reader comments (and the opportunity to make your own) on the Guardian website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/23/stand-by-big-society?INTCMP=SRCH

Big Society in The New York Times

In her Guardian article (Saturday 21 May), reproduced in this blog earlier today, Polly Toynbee refers to a piece by David Brooks, author of The Social animal, about David Cameron's "Big Society" published in The New York Times. Here is that article (from the edition of Thursday 19 May).

It's intersting to consider how people from outside the UK see what's happening here, isn't it? There's considerable cross-fertilisation between the kinds of social, political and economic reform we're seeing in the UK and in the US. Normally it's seen that we're seen as the one lagging behind; is that what this article says?

The Big Society

By David Brooks

Fifty years ago, Jane Jacobs published a book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The book was not only an indictment of contemporary urban development; it offered a vision for a healthy community. Jacobs described a streetscape as an organic ballet, as the comings and goings of shop owners, office workers, cops and parents. She described the complex interplay of many different types of people on one city block.

Here in Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government is trying to foster that sort of society. Until Cameron, Britain — like the U.S. — had one party that spoke on behalf of the market (the Conservatives) and one party that spoke on behalf of the state (Labour). But Cameron is initiating a series of policies, under the rubric “Big Society,” that seek to nurture community bonds, civic activism and social capital.

The Big Society started in part as a political gadget, as a way to distinguish the current Conservatives from the more individualistic ethos of the Thatcher years. It has turned out to be something of a damp squib politically. Most voters have no idea what the phrase “Big Society” means. But, substantively, the legislative package has been a success. The British government is undergoing a fundamental transformation.

Cameron inherited one of the largest governments in the affluent world (under Gordon Brown, the public spending reached 51 percent of G.D.P.). It was also one of the most centralized. The national government accounts for 70 percent of total government spending in Britain, compared with 55 percent in the U.S., 35 percent in Japan and 20 percent in Germany.

Cameron has unveiled a series of measures to decentralize power to local governments, to increase government transparency and to disburse welfare provisions to a variety of delivery mechanisms.

His government has boosted the number of charter schools. There’s been a welfare reform bill to encourage work and to get rid of the perverse incentives that induced people to remain on the dole. The police forces are going to have to start answering to the public. Twelve more big cities will have now elected mayors. Local communities have more control of federal money and run things themselves. There’s been a raft of provisions trying to use the insights from behavioral economics.

Cameron’s trying to get the British people to change their social norms. Many British governments have effectively said: If you pay your taxes you can sit back and we experts will take care of your problems. The Thatcher government said: Get off your couch and start a business. Cameron says: Get off the couch and take responsibility for your community. Cameron is trying to spark active citizenship.

The measures are not without critics. From the left, Polly Toynbee, a columnist for The Guardian, argues that the current centralized system ensures uniformity and fairness. But with localism and decentralization, she continues, the richer areas will outperform the poorer areas. Inequality and corruption will replace fairness and uniformity.

Others see the Big Society as the gentle mask to cover savage spending cuts. Still others see it as upper-middle-class noblesse oblige. Working-class families who have two jobs and who come home exhausted at 10 in the evening don’t need to be lectured by the government on why they should volunteer at the blood bank.

There’s some truth to those critiques. But the Big Society programs still have the potential to produce enormous benefits for Britain.

The people who thrive in a globalized information economy have the ability to process complex waves of information. They have the ability to navigate incredibly diverse social environments.

Where do people learn these skills? They learn them when they grow up in and are nurtured by rich social networks. They learn them when they live within vibrant institutions that pass down practices and habits. They learn them when they live in areas of high social trust, where people are able to reach out and work together.

By decentralizing power, and inciting local energies, Cameron’s reforms are fostering the sorts of environments where human capital grows.

Cameron still has to fight for these programs, especially against the bureaucracy’s bias for uniformity and control. And the big shortcoming is that the Big Society skirts commercial life. If centralized government weakens community networks, then concentrated corporate power weakens the networks of entrepreneurs and tradesmen.

As the scholars at the think tank ResPublica have pointed out, big corporations use the complex tax code, dense regulations and state contracting rules to stifle small-business competition. Jane Jacob’s vibrant sidewalks didn’t only benefit from flourishing community groups, they benefitted from skilled workers linking together to share capital and work. The Big Society needs to connect with economic aspirations and broadly shared prosperity.

But, even so, Cameron is doing something interesting. No other government is trying so hard to tie public policy to the latest research into how we learn and grow.

Read this article on the website of The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/opinion/20brooks.html?_r=1&ref=columnists

Big society isn't new, but the Tories are purging the past

From today's Guardian:

Big society isn't new, but the Tories are purging the past

David Cameron thinks he has nothing to learn from Labour. The hard-won experience of creating community is being lost

by Polly Toynbee

On Monday, David Cameron will again try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on his "big society". It took another near-death blow from this week's report by the Commission on Big Society, which found 78% of voters say they have no idea what it means. What began as a clever replacement of Margaret Thatcher's notorious "no such thing as society" has eluded both popular imagination and real-life substance. Lord Wei, its standard bearer, has retreated somewhat. His inability to define it flummoxed officials, as he issued nothing but stirring anecdotes of good citizens – of whom, thankfully, there have always been many. The Third Sector Research Centre says a steady 25% of people volunteer at least once a month, with twice as many in prosperous areas.

But 5 May 2010 was Year Zero to Cameron's government. Nothing good ever happened before, with nothing to learn from the last decade. Soviet-style, the past is eradicated. The very names of policies that worked well have been airbrushed from the record. For there is nothing new about the big society. Labour embraced communitarian ideas, influenced by Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone call for social capital in an atomised society, and with Richard Sennett's call for mutual respect in poor communities. Neighbourhood renewal schemes were a hallmark of Labour policy, but you would think Labour's "V" initiative for young volunteering or Volunteering England never existed.

Instead, here come the National Citizens Service and a new bank holiday for volunteering – though the commission's report found 80% unlikely to use their day for community activity. Around 2,500 community organisers are to be trained – but the contract was carefully not given to Citizens UK because it is too good at this, and in danger of organising against the cuts. Meanwhile, Timebank, mobiliser of 300,000 volunteers, has been axed by civil society minister Nick Hurd – a great surprise. I chaired its 10th anniversary debate where Hurd praised it to the skies and tweeted a congratulation for "countering the cynicism of the big society". But even it fell in the purge.

Next week I'm summoned to give evidence to the public administration select committee's hearings on the big society. Of course, I'll start by saying it's A Good Thing: whose heart isn't warmed by volunteers improving their own and others' lives? But Cameron's big society words are hollow when he strips the voluntary sector bare. Peter Kyle, acting head of Acevo, the charity CEOs association, says £1.4bn government funding has been cut from charities this year, rising to £3.1bn by 2013 – replaced with a paltry £100m "transition fund". Thousands of applications rushed in and each charity had to prove it had suffered at least a 30% government cut.

In search of big society ideas, I will urge the committee to look at the New Deal for Communities, the boldest initiative ever tried. This week I visited Aston Pride, the NDC that topped the 39 schemes Labour created in the nation's worst areas. Each was given about £50m to spend as local people chose over 10 years. That committed funding drew together communities weary of half-hearted previous attempts, always abandoned when money ran out. The 17,000 inhabitants of this multi-ethnic, high-unemployment patch of Birmingham had 17 often fractious mosques and six diverse churches, but slowly and with difficulty they came together and transformed the place.

A shabby, underused park was renewed, now with beautiful sports grounds; a local museum refreshed; a new health centre reaching people the NHS had neglected; schools springing to life through bringing headteachers together, funding equipment and giving a hot breakfast to every child. The main emphasis was on training and job-finding, with money skilfully levering in funds from other partners. The results were spectacular, with lower crime than the city average, school results and youth employment that rose faster, while antisocial behaviour fell. Small businesses were supported and hundreds of volunteers took qualifications.

Perfect? No. But the change is remarkable. When Aston Pride ended this March, local people were mortified at receiving no recognition, not even a junior official from Eric Pickles's Department for Communities to visit, or a letter of praise for being the top NDC after all those years of giving so much and overcoming such obstacles. Simon Topman, a local manufacturer who took over the chair of Aston Pride after it ran into early trouble, expresses his disappointment, afraid that with all support gone, the area may start to slide back again.

But above all, he is indignant that the government does not want to learn how it was done. This really is the big society, creating new local champions, bringing people together in the hardest places, levering in outside help. Cameron would not like to know the truth: it only happened with money so local people could employ their own chosen professional support – and those things are not free. In Witney, people have time and money – but in places like Aston, with no resources, nothing happens. This is not a little light volunteering in the library – this is heavy-duty hard grind, often quarrelsome, and the people who made it work really are local heroes, whose own lives were changed. But that's all erased from the record. All that hard-won experience in creating community is lost.

However, the big society can still sound great. David Brooks, the currently fashionable US guru, author of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement returned from a London visit to eulogise the big society in the New York Times on Friday. Though a journalist by trade, he seemed to have swallowed Cameron's press handout whole, without inquiring into the truth of any of it. Just about every word of this short article is misleading (including views he attributes to me). He says: "The [big society] legislative package has been a success." There is no such thing as yet. He praises Cameron for decentralising, for giving local communities money to "run things themselves" (what money?) and says "Cameron's reforms are fostering the sorts of environments where human capital grows". Where has he been to see that? He concludes, "No other government is trying so hard to tie public policy to the latest research into how we learn and grow." Or, sadly, how we deliberately forget and shrink. Let's hope New York Times readers are not so easily deceived by travellers' fairytales – so far British public cynicism is rather better grounded.

Read this article (along with reader comments - and the opporotunity to make your own) on the Guardian website:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/21/big-society-tories-david-cameron?INTCMP=SRCH

Birmingham council's plan to cut care for disabled ruled unlawful

From today's Guardian:

Birmingham council's plan to cut care for disabled ruled unlawful

High court judge describes move as potentially devastating and says cuts failed to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act

By Helen Carter

Birmingham city council, the UK's biggest council, acted unlawfully over a decision to cut its provision of care for disabled people, the high court has ruled.

The judgment, involving four severely disabled people who brought a test case against the council, has widespread implications for local authorities.

Mr Justice Walker said councils had to take account of people's disabilities, even where that involved treating disabled persons more favourably than others.

The Tory-Liberal Democrat authority in Birmingham had proposed the cuts as part of a plan to save £212m by limiting council-funded social care only to those assessed as being in "critical" need.

But the judge described this move as potentially devastating and found that the cuts failed to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act. All public bodies had a duty to follow the disability discrimination law, while acknowledging that that placed "significant and onerous" obligations on local authorities, the ruling said.

The council said it would rerun the consultation and make fresh decisions on adult social care in accordance with the ruling.

Disability campaigners welcomed the ruling, though some feared the government could try to create a law allowing councils to make such cuts.

Karen Ashton, who represented three of the four families in the case, said the ruling gave disabled people a voice in law; the proposed policy would have had devastating results. "In cash-strapped times such as these, the public sector must do more to avoid the consequences of cuts falling on those who are least able to bear them. What this case demonstrates is that this may be not only a moral obligation but also a legal one. Local councils, and all other public authorities, must learn this lesson and learn it fast – otherwise there will be many more of these cases coming before the courts."

Walker said there had been a failure to take proper account of the duty to promote equality under laws on disability and discrimination. He found that, when setting its budget and altering its eligibility policy, Birmingham had not given proper consideration to the impact on disabled people and had failed to adequately consult on its proposals.

The issue the council needed to address was "whether the impact on the disabled of the move to critical only was so serious that an alternative which was not so draconian should be identified and funded to the extent necessary by savings elsewhere".

Birmingham council had failed to ask the right questions and councillors were not given the right information to answer those questions. Essential information on the plans was either unclear or only provided at a very late stage.

The judge said the consultation "had not involved any attempt to look at the practical detail of what the move to critical only would entail".

Unison said: "The council should rightly be condemned for defending the indefensible. Thousands of vulnerable people would have been put at risk if it were not for the intervention of the courts."

Kari Gerstheimer, head of legal services at Sense, the deafblind charity, who prepared an expert witness statement, said: "We think it is a really big win for disabled people and we are absolutely delighted by the judge's decision. The judgment said the council failed to consider the impact on disabled people and it sends out an important message even in the time of cuts."We hope this makes councils really think about the choices they make in a civilised society and they should not be cutting services for disabled people with the greatest need. Disabled people are the hardest hit by the cuts and its really unfair that to get out of financial difficulty we are placing the burden on disabled people."

Peter Hay, strategic director for adults and communities at Birmingham council, said: "We welcome the judgment, which has given us greater clarity with regard to the Disability Discrimination Act, and we will now need to rerun the consultation and make decisions about adult social care consistent with the need to analyse the potential impact on disabled people and our compliance with the equality principles set out in law.

"In the meantime, people will continue to receive services to meet needs that have been assessed as substantial and critical. The original dilemma between reducing services in different areas remains. There is no new money as a result of the judgment, and hard choices about meeting growing needs with fewer resources will have to be made by local authorities."

Meeting re Localism Bill

Following our Core Partners meeting this morning, we expand our number after lunch and are joined by members of REDP's Working Group for a special meeting on the Localism Bill.

This is the chance to educate ourselves about the purpose of the Bill, familiarise ourselves with its content and see how far it has progressed.

We're particularly interested, of course, in how it might impact on the Protected Characteristics as defined in the Equality Act 2010. We are also interested in the kind of responses made by other agencies, groups and organisations working in fields related to ours.

Following on from our discussion this morning about organising a regional conference on the Specific Duties flowing from the Equality Act, we decide (tentatively) to organise an event on the Localism Bill too, nearer the end of this year.


You can follow the progress of the Localism Bill, read contributions to consultation and discussion (and make some of your own) at http://www.consultation-online.co.uk/localism-blog/

Core Partners meeting

This morning, we have the monthly meeting of the Core Partners of the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership. This is usually held on the first Tuesday of the month, but our work schedule (along with most the rest of the country, it would appear) has been messed around by additional bank holidays, half term childcare, local elections - you name it!

Three out of the four Core Partners are represented here today: Leicester Council of Faiths, The Race Equality Centre (TREC) and Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL) - where the meeting is being held today, as normal. Laura Horton, REDP Project Manager, is in the meeting too of course.

High on our agenda this morning is planning an event on the Specific Duties attendant on the Equality Act 2010. This will be held in Nottingham at the end of June. It's purpose will be to inform Voluntary and Community Sector groups and organisations about these duties, which should be performed by authorities and service providers.

We're in the process of finalising the programme, scheduling workshops, confirming speakers and facilitators. There's a lot of creative energy whizzing around - all we can say right now is, "Watch this space!"