Like many in the sector I was busy last Friday bashing out a response to the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) inquiry into the Government’s proposals for the “Big Society”
Below is a summary of some of the ideas I was trying to get across in order of the questions asked (the questions weren't very promising but that never stopped anyone giving an opinion) :)
Lame question #1: A definition of what the ‘Big Society’ is or should be
The definition of Big Society should be contested at defined at the local level by local people. Inevitably governments of all descriptions will seek to provide an overall framework hence the ‘Big Society’ as it currently features and is debated. In community development parlance Big Society is hegemonic, i.e. it is a political and ideological construct whereby power elites seek to shape the way the rest of us live. However this government descriptor merely shows the way, rather than ‘being’ the way. This is something government is alive to and appears to fully appreciate that local action is what matters hence there should be no final, once and for all definition but rather a purposive inquiry based on activity and learning. The collective action of community groups will be the true test and the most fitting definition. End of.
Lame question #2: The impact and consequences of reductions in public expenditure
They will be disastrous. It is hard to emphasis just how unfair it is that the profligacy of irresponsible banking practice coupled to bailout by taxpayers, followed by swinging public sector cuts passed on to the voluntary and community sector (VCS) as even more disproportionately high cuts: unfair but also actively harmful of the Big Society. Our part of the VCS, which is mainly smaller community groups, did not benefit as much as should have happened from the previous government’s increase in support and spending. In fact there is evidence via the Office of the Third Sector Third Sector Review 2007, that amidst overall growth, smaller groups got smaller and poorer. The vested interest of larger VCS bodies is something that this government has rightly been critical of, and by extension the failure of public sector spending to get results on the ground. However, flawed as public sector expenditure may have been, it was better than the little or nothing that is now defining our national life. The bulk of Big Society groups will be small community groups, who usually run on very little money BUT require support from both the funded VCS and local statutory agencies. At the present time, due to cuts, the support community groups need, the nurturing and encouragement provided by specialist community workers and agencies, is disappearing, and with it, the hope of realistically being able to build a big society.
Lame question #3: Delivering local public services: volunteering
The VCS has always delivered public services, picked up unmet need and innovated. However volunteering is not a substitute for public services and not everything is a market.
Crucially, for volunteers to take up service opportunities they would need significant levels of support and investment which at a time of massive cuts is simply not happening. Hence the probability that the numbers of people volunteering will decline, as usually happens at time of austerity. The more probable result is that private sector firms like SERCO and CAPITA, who’s CEOs earn far more than CEOs of local councils, will benefit from the desire to transfer services away from the state. This may lead to a smaller State but it won’t of itself build the Big Society, which can only grow from the bottom up, by the collective action of community groups, not large corporate brands.
The conflation of volunteering with services is misleading: volunteering arises for many reason, but rarely from a desire to play businessman or bureaucrat. It may be attractive precisely for its informality and lack of contractual ties. Volunteers choose to volunteer and were volunteering to become compulsory and tied to an all but state sanctioned means of service delivery the probability is that people will choose ‘not’ to volunteer because the ethos of volunteering will have been lost.
Lame question #4: Delivering local public services: commissioning
Commissioning has been a boon for a minority of groups in the VCS and often divisive elsewhere. It has led to a greater incidence of structural inequality between large and small groups, whereby ‘winner takes all’ leaving the most local groups without resource. On recent occasions the coalition government has this kind of vested interest but has yet to articulate how rolling out increasing rounds of commissioning can address what it has termed ‘differential capacity’ i.e. the fact that the majority of VCS groups will never get near a commissioning process because larger bodies will in effect exclude them and deploy inappropriate and unwieldy processes.
Stipulations that encourage and enforce greater accountability of ‘contract ready’ VCS bodies might address some of the problems, whereby priority is given to commissioned groups who can prove they are passing down actual resource to smaller groups, rather than building their own capacity. Likewise investment in local coalition and consortium building, whereby scores of local groups can come together as one entity in order to bid, may be a solution but requires community development and related work t o support it. For example, we know of numerous isolated and individual tenant and resident groups, run by local people and in contact with thousands more residents. Were they to combine in order to take on a housing commissioned piece of work, in one stroke, the big society comes closer to realization, whereas a bid from a large unknown corporate brand drives it further out of the hands of local people.
One of the difficulties with the big society approach is that it seems oblivious of the enormous differences between national charities, community and neighbourhood organisations, and informal groups, lumping them all together as one ‘sector’. The experience of voluntary organisations over recent years is that only a few large ones are in a position to handle contracts of any scale.
Lame question #5: Public service mutuals
There is merit in this idea but it in no way ameliorates the scale of the public sector cuts and requires a great deal of attention in how employees could manage a difficult process of change. There are examples of large former council run mutuals that are not especially empowering to their staff or well thought of by the public and whilst it would be unfair to name them, there is nothing inherent in the model that would ensure an improved service, despite some of the claims made by Res Publica. If staff is forced to take up opportunities or face unemployment this kind of Hobson’s choice will not be the foundation for a happier more motivated workforce, so the detail and circumstances around each PSA are key.
Lame question #6: Governance and accountability
With regard to governance and accountability of social enterprises and co-operatives, the jury is still out. Co-operatives have a long history of radical and progressive achievements but vary greatly in their governance from being deeply democratic to mere shells of business expedience. The more recent conflation of social enterprise has no one formula though the insistence of some on promoting business values over and above social objectives is a cause for concern since they then become ideological vehicles that promote the mistaken belief that individuals are feckless and lazy because they are not sufficiently entrepreneurial.
There is a wider issue about the governance and accountability relating to the Entire big society project as picked up by ‘our society’ in their response to you, which we hope you will address positively.
Lame question #7: Enabling or managing?
The semantics of this distinction may be lost on many people but it is clearly a case of both / and. Ideally a stronger civil society, led by the collective action of small community groups, who are 80% of all civil society anyway (!) would see leadership transfer from public bodies to local people. However for a stronger civil society to emerge the transition will not occur magically but must be prepared for by ensuring local public bodies are able to oversee increasing transfers of power and resource over a long time period. This is because most community groups are not in a position to replace the local State or even ideologically predisposed to do so, being under the impression that their taxes cover certain matters. Were community groups, as the leading civil society hence big society constituency, able to take on greater roles, they would need support typically from local bodies. Thus the answer to the question is public bodies need to both enable CSOs (civil society organizations) but also that this support needs a greater degree of management than is currently envisaged. It will not be possible for Councils, Primary Care Trusts, Housing Associations, Job Centre Plus or local Police bodies to ‘enable’ the big society if they do not have any resource left to do so.
Lame question #8: The role of local authorities
Under the current unwritten constitutional arrangements local government has ‘no right to exist’ as articulated by the Widdicombe Commission. This is because Parliament is sovereign. Until we have a serious debate about the constitution and governance of this country any debate on the superficial role of councils risks being undermined by this overwhelming political reality – namely that councils are a creature of central government not matter how many localism bills tweak the edges of this understanding. It might therefore be helpful to look at how local councils could become stronger relative to central government because it is unlikely that weak councils will feel empowered and enabled to pass power down to local people, if their own experience is based on a position of weakness and compliance, of having to look upwards to central control from Whitehall and Westminster rather than downwards to local people.
Stronger councils need a real power of general competence, not the play on words in the current localism bill. They need to raise a higher per cent age of their income from local taxation; at present around 75% of their funds come from the centre with often less than 25% raised locally, for this later figure to match European levels it would need to rise from 25 to 50%.
The mandate from local elections should have greater currency to offset the local democratic deficit whereby voter turnout is chronically low. For local elections to appear worth voting for, local people would need to be convinced their vote would go to someone with real as opposed to imagined power. The role of local authorities therefore needs to be grounded more in principles of democracy and an autonomous role distinct from the centre rather than the usual framing of delivery of local services, which becomes a code for a subordinate and disempowered role.
Lame question #9: Potential conflicts and postcode lotteries
Big Society appears to welcome conflict to some degree via its endorsement of Alinsky but it would be advised to look beyond the highly partial contract model of 5,000 part time organizers to the actually existing wealth of experience of 20,000 community development workers and similar numbers of youth workers active in the VCS but equally often in councils, housing associations and health bodies. Unfortunately the Office for Civil Society (Neil Smith) recently said that it was ‘not prepared to have the debate’ in regard to the links to be made between community workers and future community organizers. This highly prejudicial attitude is self defeating and has to be reversed. OCS’ willful and active disregard for community development is indicative of a narrow vision unable to unleash all the talents. In the past CD has proved adept at creative approaches to conflict through its own radical and transformative models – it has been prepared to be political unlike many of the wider VCS palliatives, so an appreciation of this tradition would be timely.
With regard to postcode lotteries this can be offset by careful and considered planning but remains a considerable concern to be addressed to ensure the principle of fairness is transmitted to all.
Conclusion
The concern must be that in a climate of cuts big society lacks credibility because it is seen as having an ulterior motive – rather than all being in it together, the rules are applied differently across the sectors. Bankers get bonuses, the Public Sector gets cut and the VCS, a net loss of funding and is likewise diminished. In this way local people get less and less support, leading to a smaller, impoverished and diminished society.
If the vision is for local people to build the big society this has to start with investment in small community groups using the skills and resource of community organizations including councils.
The argument is as follows:
1. Big Society = stronger civil society (but not necessarily a much smaller state)
2. Civil society = small community groups (at least 600,000 of the 900,000 CSOs in the NCVO Almanac come under this category along with a majority of charities receiving under £10,000 a year)
3. Small community groups need investment and appropriate support – the current cuts mean less support hence less community action
4. The bias towards social enterprise and a view of the sector as a market, hence the community rights, will bias the new resources ending up in the hands of larger corporate bodies and further weaken smaller CSOs who, without support and investment, will lose out on ‘opportunities’ that arise
5. If government wants to pass power away from Whitehall and Westminster, local government needs far greater powers and the ablility to raise a higher proportion of its own local income, as a prerequisite to stronger civil society, hence big society = smaller central state but stronger local state
Showing posts with label community groups. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community groups. Show all posts
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Big Society, the RSA, and those pesky dysfunctional small community groups who just won't work together
At a recent Green Alliance event on the Big Society at which both minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, and RSA CEO Matthew Taylor spoke at, we had a rare moment of candour, albeit a deeply disturbing and partial tone was struck, as reported here
There are at least two immediate concerns, that make the work of those who want to see the community sector thrive, just that bit harder
Firstly - what exactly gives Matthew Taylor the right to lable small groups 'dysfunctional'? And what are the implications of shooting from the hip in this way
Secondly - whilst Nick Hurd is right that there are 'hundreds and thosands of civil society organisations that don't rely on statutory income at all'. It does not follow that they do not need funding or the support that funding gives - quite the reverse
This was in fact a central point of CSC's 'Unleashing the Potential' call to arms before the general election, which we put to Nick Hurd, the Big Society Network and many others, in order to underline the added value and the need to support that part of the sector - hence our 5 asks.
http://www.communitysectorcoalition.org.uk/policy
Taken together it is an impressive double whammy - on the one hand groups are run by tyrants who fall out with each other (people in glass houses etc) and on the other hand, a lot of these small groups do it for nothing, so bring on the cuts, they won't notice...
Where to begin with such destructive and willful misunderstandings of our sector?
On the first salvo, aimed at casting the sector in the role of hopeless self saboteurs, of course dyfunctionality does break out. The crooked timber of humanity never ran smooth. But hardly more so than the dynamics elsewhere in society; indeed I would argue much less. The egalitarian and non hierarchical principles of real community work and grassroots endeavour, where people don't hide behind status and are not allowed to give themselves airs and graces, is a welcome relief from some of the public and private sector cultures.
In passing, we might want to note what comes to mind when thinking about dysfunctional behaviours - might it extend to irresponsible banking practice, MPs expenses, tax avoidance on a massive scale and how this might offset a significant part of the public sector cuts as per recent Newsnight reports (I won't do the link because Paxman turned the air blue, what is it with the BBC these days...)
The issue of dynfunctionality must be seen in a 360 degree way. In particular the work of Erving Goffman is highly pertinent:
Erv puts his finger on an inconvenient truth - large organsations have a strong tendency to adopt overtly oppressive operational behaviours that damage people. Note this is large organisations, and not small community groups.
There is a vested interest in a large organisation bemoaning the shortcomings and unfortunate psyche of the great unwashed. The trouble is, if we start using cod psychology terms like 'dysfunctionality' we end up arriving at terms like 'displacement' or 'projection', and the whole thing gets a bit silly. We should not be making moral and or ill informed psychological judgements in the first place.
If it becomes necessary to challenge oppressive behaviour within communities, and this is something community and youth workers have long experience doing, disparaging homilies tends not to cut it. You'd have to demonstrate real commitment to listening and working the problem through
Finally, it is so easy to knock the more informal parts of the sector and many people have made a good living out of doing so. Those pesky small groups, they are not skilled, they need their capacity built (for a fee), their governance, polices and procedures are inadequate etc etc. Ignoring the fact that small groups work best when fleet of foot and rightly choose not to mimic the bureaucratic behaviours of larger VCS and other bodies (something Nick Hurd identifies but then does not go on to develop re the need for some kind of support and investment).
Segway to Nick Hurd, who does a good line in playing off competing wings of the sector, not without some validity, but with a not-so-hidden agenda of amelorirating the brutalism of cuts
The problem with Nick's comment at Green Alliance is that it seems to suggest that just because these smaller community groups are unfunded, they wil be unaffected by what is going on, notably by the slash and burn of existing VCS infrastructure. In fact the plight of these small unfunded groups will now be harder, because, whilst it might be true that sometimes funded VCS groups didn't reach into the community, it is also true that there are many examples of strong support that now won't be there, hence unfunded civil society action, as supported by funded VCS groups just got that bit harder, at a time when Big Society was hoping to see more people volunteering
If we look at what is actually likely to happen: there may well be less people volunteering and less small groups or civil society organisations. This is because the sector is an ecosystem (aka Nat Wei) which is on the receiving end of some pretty toxic treatment - note the council cuts to the VCS, all too often wildly disproportionate and short term. If these small batallions of community groups can't take advantage of the 'new markets' government is keen to open up - assets, libraries, personalisation of services etc - well people like SERCO and lean mean highly 'functional' brands in the charity world will make an intervention.
At the same time something called civil society will get smaller and poorer as a result. This doesn't have to happen but it is increasingly likely - not least when small groups are pathologised or seemingly not prioritised any level of funding support (to repeat for the benefit of those with selective politically nuanced hearing): the fact that many groups don't rely on statutory income does not mean they would not benefit from it
Rather than blame small community groups, and sharpen the next round of excuses for why the policy didn't work this time, for the good of all in society, we should put aside the mentality that says it didn't work because 'they' were 'dyfunctional' and instead accentuate the positives of what small groups do, get behind it, support it and resource it. What part of 'we're all in it together' and localism / decentralisation are we not yet grasping?
There are at least two immediate concerns, that make the work of those who want to see the community sector thrive, just that bit harder
Firstly - what exactly gives Matthew Taylor the right to lable small groups 'dysfunctional'? And what are the implications of shooting from the hip in this way
Secondly - whilst Nick Hurd is right that there are 'hundreds and thosands of civil society organisations that don't rely on statutory income at all'. It does not follow that they do not need funding or the support that funding gives - quite the reverse
This was in fact a central point of CSC's 'Unleashing the Potential' call to arms before the general election, which we put to Nick Hurd, the Big Society Network and many others, in order to underline the added value and the need to support that part of the sector - hence our 5 asks.
http://www.communitysectorcoalition.org.uk/policy
Taken together it is an impressive double whammy - on the one hand groups are run by tyrants who fall out with each other (people in glass houses etc) and on the other hand, a lot of these small groups do it for nothing, so bring on the cuts, they won't notice...
Where to begin with such destructive and willful misunderstandings of our sector?
On the first salvo, aimed at casting the sector in the role of hopeless self saboteurs, of course dyfunctionality does break out. The crooked timber of humanity never ran smooth. But hardly more so than the dynamics elsewhere in society; indeed I would argue much less. The egalitarian and non hierarchical principles of real community work and grassroots endeavour, where people don't hide behind status and are not allowed to give themselves airs and graces, is a welcome relief from some of the public and private sector cultures.
In passing, we might want to note what comes to mind when thinking about dysfunctional behaviours - might it extend to irresponsible banking practice, MPs expenses, tax avoidance on a massive scale and how this might offset a significant part of the public sector cuts as per recent Newsnight reports (I won't do the link because Paxman turned the air blue, what is it with the BBC these days...)
The issue of dynfunctionality must be seen in a 360 degree way. In particular the work of Erving Goffman is highly pertinent:
Erv puts his finger on an inconvenient truth - large organsations have a strong tendency to adopt overtly oppressive operational behaviours that damage people. Note this is large organisations, and not small community groups.
There is a vested interest in a large organisation bemoaning the shortcomings and unfortunate psyche of the great unwashed. The trouble is, if we start using cod psychology terms like 'dysfunctionality' we end up arriving at terms like 'displacement' or 'projection', and the whole thing gets a bit silly. We should not be making moral and or ill informed psychological judgements in the first place.
If it becomes necessary to challenge oppressive behaviour within communities, and this is something community and youth workers have long experience doing, disparaging homilies tends not to cut it. You'd have to demonstrate real commitment to listening and working the problem through
Finally, it is so easy to knock the more informal parts of the sector and many people have made a good living out of doing so. Those pesky small groups, they are not skilled, they need their capacity built (for a fee), their governance, polices and procedures are inadequate etc etc. Ignoring the fact that small groups work best when fleet of foot and rightly choose not to mimic the bureaucratic behaviours of larger VCS and other bodies (something Nick Hurd identifies but then does not go on to develop re the need for some kind of support and investment).
Segway to Nick Hurd, who does a good line in playing off competing wings of the sector, not without some validity, but with a not-so-hidden agenda of amelorirating the brutalism of cuts
The problem with Nick's comment at Green Alliance is that it seems to suggest that just because these smaller community groups are unfunded, they wil be unaffected by what is going on, notably by the slash and burn of existing VCS infrastructure. In fact the plight of these small unfunded groups will now be harder, because, whilst it might be true that sometimes funded VCS groups didn't reach into the community, it is also true that there are many examples of strong support that now won't be there, hence unfunded civil society action, as supported by funded VCS groups just got that bit harder, at a time when Big Society was hoping to see more people volunteering
If we look at what is actually likely to happen: there may well be less people volunteering and less small groups or civil society organisations. This is because the sector is an ecosystem (aka Nat Wei) which is on the receiving end of some pretty toxic treatment - note the council cuts to the VCS, all too often wildly disproportionate and short term. If these small batallions of community groups can't take advantage of the 'new markets' government is keen to open up - assets, libraries, personalisation of services etc - well people like SERCO and lean mean highly 'functional' brands in the charity world will make an intervention.
At the same time something called civil society will get smaller and poorer as a result. This doesn't have to happen but it is increasingly likely - not least when small groups are pathologised or seemingly not prioritised any level of funding support (to repeat for the benefit of those with selective politically nuanced hearing): the fact that many groups don't rely on statutory income does not mean they would not benefit from it
Rather than blame small community groups, and sharpen the next round of excuses for why the policy didn't work this time, for the good of all in society, we should put aside the mentality that says it didn't work because 'they' were 'dyfunctional' and instead accentuate the positives of what small groups do, get behind it, support it and resource it. What part of 'we're all in it together' and localism / decentralisation are we not yet grasping?
Friday, 19 November 2010
We don't like community groups much do we!
We don't like community groups much do we?
How else was it possible for the then third sector to grow 200% in 10 years under New Labour and yet small and medium sized charities ended up getting smaller at the same time?
This has to be a central concern for the Comunity Sector Coalition and all of its members - the continual failure to pass reources, voice and power down within the wider sector, let alone in society.
If the Voluntary & Community Sector (VCS) can't even set a good example why should government or anyone else take it remotely seriously
We also don't like community groups much because in the upper echelons of the VCS the great and the good keep trying to talk down to groups, suggesting interventions that are inappropriate and technocratic
Spot a community group, one that hasn't run away, and then lecture them about how poor their governance is, where's the business proposition, on and on with the sustained and continuous attack based on an assumption of superiority and then...
follow up by the inevitable sales pitch: why don't they pay money to go on a capacity building course to build up skills and confidence
Community groups are constantly faced by the assumption from above that they are are somehow not doing it properly and urgently need to have their skills boosted - where do you go with that?
The result would seem to be that they absent themselves from both government and those parts of the voluntary sector that seek to sweep into communities, grab contracts, do minimal consultation and exit
We'll see more of this predatory behaviour, if big society continues to lose its way because the only way larger nationals can now surive is to try to pick up work locally, which means a head on conflict of interest with indigenous groups
Community groups faced with a compact document that isn't about them, shun it.
Community groups faced with an LSP that meets privately in a hiden corner of the town hall ignore it.
Community groups basically are far too busy to be bothered with anything that is not immediately relevent
And what is it with this enterprise model all the time? Not every one is a failure if they haven't swallowed an MBA for breakfast
Instead of exhorting community groups to become Alan Sugar Apprentice clones (there is a very good reason why increasingly less people say they trust the voluntary sector after all) the winner takes all culture that dominated the ChangeUp capacitybuilders era needs to be seen for what it is - meaningless for most of the sector most of the time
Still we have the assumption of enterprise good; community sector bad - when surely it was a naive belief in enterprise that brough our banks to their knees and hence the enusing mess in the first place - why would we want to revisit that way of operating on our community groups? Perhaps they don't want to do a pyramid selling version of community assets thank you very much
Big Society and its ideologues understood the failure and venality of recent years which is why it is able to frame cuts in the following way - see page 7 below
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/426258/support-stronger-civil-society.pdf
But it is not entirely clear whether the new coalition has more regard for community groups than the previous lot.
Logically the focus on civil society organisations is all but identical. But the nascent localism bill fails to locate the sector last time I noticed and given that we've all been here before and seen big rhetoric fail to fire, the alarm bells are ringing rather loudly about the lack of substance behind how Big Society actually works, i.e. maybe it doesn't.
Big Society seems to have inherited New Labour's magical thinking about social enterprise, not noticing that social entreprenurs are every bit as grant dependent as their voluntary sector competitors (note that comunity groups never had much money anyway)
http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=MqmKeY9Ciss%3d&tabid=749
If you don't like community groups then the first thing you might want to do is change them into something you do like that reflects your ideological prejudices but by doing so mutual failure is guranteed.
For that reason CSC's call for a new settlement that puts the sector at the centre of the VCS via our unleashing the potential doc also on the website,
http://www.communitysectorcoalition.org.uk/policy/our-policy-position
is the way we think we need to go
Community groups first not last!
And strictly on their own terms otherwise why would they bother to show up at all?
How else was it possible for the then third sector to grow 200% in 10 years under New Labour and yet small and medium sized charities ended up getting smaller at the same time?
This has to be a central concern for the Comunity Sector Coalition and all of its members - the continual failure to pass reources, voice and power down within the wider sector, let alone in society.
If the Voluntary & Community Sector (VCS) can't even set a good example why should government or anyone else take it remotely seriously
We also don't like community groups much because in the upper echelons of the VCS the great and the good keep trying to talk down to groups, suggesting interventions that are inappropriate and technocratic
Spot a community group, one that hasn't run away, and then lecture them about how poor their governance is, where's the business proposition, on and on with the sustained and continuous attack based on an assumption of superiority and then...
follow up by the inevitable sales pitch: why don't they pay money to go on a capacity building course to build up skills and confidence
Community groups are constantly faced by the assumption from above that they are are somehow not doing it properly and urgently need to have their skills boosted - where do you go with that?
The result would seem to be that they absent themselves from both government and those parts of the voluntary sector that seek to sweep into communities, grab contracts, do minimal consultation and exit
We'll see more of this predatory behaviour, if big society continues to lose its way because the only way larger nationals can now surive is to try to pick up work locally, which means a head on conflict of interest with indigenous groups
Community groups faced with a compact document that isn't about them, shun it.
Community groups faced with an LSP that meets privately in a hiden corner of the town hall ignore it.
Community groups basically are far too busy to be bothered with anything that is not immediately relevent
And what is it with this enterprise model all the time? Not every one is a failure if they haven't swallowed an MBA for breakfast
Instead of exhorting community groups to become Alan Sugar Apprentice clones (there is a very good reason why increasingly less people say they trust the voluntary sector after all) the winner takes all culture that dominated the ChangeUp capacitybuilders era needs to be seen for what it is - meaningless for most of the sector most of the time
Still we have the assumption of enterprise good; community sector bad - when surely it was a naive belief in enterprise that brough our banks to their knees and hence the enusing mess in the first place - why would we want to revisit that way of operating on our community groups? Perhaps they don't want to do a pyramid selling version of community assets thank you very much
Big Society and its ideologues understood the failure and venality of recent years which is why it is able to frame cuts in the following way - see page 7 below
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/426258/support-stronger-civil-society.pdf
But it is not entirely clear whether the new coalition has more regard for community groups than the previous lot.
Logically the focus on civil society organisations is all but identical. But the nascent localism bill fails to locate the sector last time I noticed and given that we've all been here before and seen big rhetoric fail to fire, the alarm bells are ringing rather loudly about the lack of substance behind how Big Society actually works, i.e. maybe it doesn't.
Big Society seems to have inherited New Labour's magical thinking about social enterprise, not noticing that social entreprenurs are every bit as grant dependent as their voluntary sector competitors (note that comunity groups never had much money anyway)
http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=MqmKeY9Ciss%3d&tabid=749
If you don't like community groups then the first thing you might want to do is change them into something you do like that reflects your ideological prejudices but by doing so mutual failure is guranteed.
For that reason CSC's call for a new settlement that puts the sector at the centre of the VCS via our unleashing the potential doc also on the website,
http://www.communitysectorcoalition.org.uk/policy/our-policy-position
is the way we think we need to go
Community groups first not last!
And strictly on their own terms otherwise why would they bother to show up at all?
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