Waiting for the Spending Review

Crazy times for the sector - the rhetoric is cranked up really loud re 'giving power' to local people. And yet the localism bill shows every sign of mimicing the usual bodged local government acts of yesteryear - legislation by formula. Ditto the refreshed compact

No civil servant can say anything before 20th October (annoucement of spending review) about anything - the waiting has a soporific and dangerous feel. Daily announcements of support for the big society ring out from the upper echelons of the sector with a reminder to please to talk to us (about a small matter of delivery and how to be contractor) , and yet most of the wider sector according to recent polls believes big society is a smokescreen for cuts, bs in shorthand.

There is a lot of capturing and reflecting back of ideas going on. Govt presents big society as being about:

social action (individual)
community empowerment (together)
public service reform (state)

and about decentralisation, transparency and sorting out funding for the VCS

(As a semi competent policy person myself I took note earlier this week - my thnaks to DCLG...)

But note the semi mystical caveat as Francis Maude recently said, there isn't actually a plan

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/1033203/Minister-admits-big-society-will-chaotic/2368133AE5887580BFA110ACC20A8A81/

Something is very odd about all of this. Unlike many in the sector my analysis of the previous rounds of state led community empowerment and third sector modernisation is very critical - I believe it divided the sector between winners (sub contractors) and losers (community associations) so for me a big society that talks about an independent civil realm made up of little batallions of commmunity groups has something going for it, that can and should be explored. Note that for New Labour community empowerment = local government (end of story) see Sir Simon Milton's comment in DCLG's 2007 Action Plan for Community Empowerment

But all of this does need some connection with reality, some urgent action otherwise it won't happen. I'm not seeing or feeling the big society move onto practical engagement with grassroots people - the cancelation of the town hall tours is a bad sign, we need raw open encounters, if people are angry that is better than being passive or cynical. How could they not be angry under the circumestances and how could anyone think that would not happen

I get the feeling that big society must be about deflecting the public gaze from cuts, because that is what any politican would do under the circumstances and a whole lot of others in our sector too

That is an issue that needs some truth telling, but we will judge people on what they do not what they say.

Are they going to actually listen to community groups, share their pain, take the time to attend their events, work with their agenda rather than impose the virtues of self help?

Will they retreat into disembodied (clever) media stunts, philanthropy with strings attached, and guilt tripping people into volunteering as part time organisers struggle to make quotas for signing up x number of new recruits?

And if all this means is that everything is on hold until the spending review that isn't good enough