Wednesday, 11 August 2010

Cuts begin to bite: Big Society nowhere to be seen

Here's how it starts.

Back in May the Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws said, according to BBC News, that

'every new spending commitment and pilot project signed off by Labour ministers since the turn of the year would be individually reviewed in a bid to find savings.'

Last week I learned of one painful casualty of this clawing back, a community development project in Watford.

Watford's Council for Voluntary Service had developed the proposal, including  for a community assembly, partly with a view to making the Local Strategic Partnership accountable and representative. The stated objective was:

'to ensure that everyone in Watford has access to a community group to represent their needs and interests, and that these groups have a way of influencing local decisions.'

An enthusiastic community development worker was in place whose role included promoting community engagement and volunteering, and supporting new community groups. Eleven weeks into building the necessary relationships, the claws reached him.

The news somewhat overshadowed a meeting of the Watford community development network yesterday. It happens that the agenda for the meeting included discussion of Big Society, a well-known government initiative promoting principles of localism and co-production, with much-publicised intentions of generating precisely the sort of effects and outcomes that the community assembly was designed and funded to bring.

Polly Toynbee pointed out last week that 'as services shrivel and die it will be easier than usual to summon up indignation.' And the authors of the Big Society idea helpfully directed our attention to Alinsky-style acitivism at the outset. I'm not so confident of any kind of uprising of protest just yet, but give it time.

11 Aug 2010 06:00:54 | Governance and participation

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Kevin Harris

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