User:Publicpolicy CPD

Big Society in Australia

While not publicly stated as a political ideology or direct policy agenda from either side of Australian politics, ‘Big Society’ in Australia is increasingly having an impact within policy creation at both the federal and state level and from within both the Australian Public Service (APS) and from individual members of Parliament.

Discussion

There is an increasing tendency within Australia to discuss Big Society in terms of inconnectivity. Australia's Government 2.0 Future (AG2F), for instance, describes big society as both positive and unavoidable as the Australian government will find it harder to 'ignore the changes in society, in economic and information flows and in citizen engagement.' The authors of AG2F go on to define big Society as the process of 'empowering citizens, businesses and councils to work together to co-create and operate more effective public services.'

The NSW Government is engaging in similar discussions around "putting citizens first". Chris Eccles' speech to the ANZSOG Conference in July 2011 discusses these themes. He promotes a vision of a 'network of trust' where citizens are able to trust public institutions to defend their interests. He also promotes the co-production of public services. This is the idea that a citizen-centric approach to policy development and delivery enables the realisation of shared outcomes and improves the quality of public services.

Architect of 'Big Society' and founder-director of conservative think tank ResPublica, Phillip Blond, visited Australia in June 2011. During his visit, Blond briefed Tony Abbott and senior Liberal parliamentarians at the Menzies Research Centre. enter enter

Disputed benefits

Charities in the UK are cutting staff wages:

"The concept of charities playing a key role in the reshaping of public services is valid. But not if they are forced into demoralising disputes with staff and a cost driven race to the bottom in terms of quality."

Media

Although 'Big Society' receives much less attention in the mainstream media in Australia than in the United Kingdom, it is becoming a more frequent topic of discussion. In April 2011, ABC's Religion and Ethics program included an extended essay by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams who argues that Big Society is an 'extraordinary opportunity' that has suffered from a 'lack of definition.' Williams argued that 'Big Society rhetoric is all too readily heard by many as aspirational waffle designed to conceal a deeply damaging withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities to the most vulnerable.' He argues that, instead, it should be seen as an attempt to 'empower communities by endowing them with assets and the opportunity to recreate social and financial capital.'

Political Comment in Australia or Abroad

For

Statement which has been linked to big society in the APS: "We need to harness the community sector strengths – flexibility, innovation and connectedness – and deploy them within an appropriately rigorous accountability and performance management framework, all in the service of our citizens" (T. Moran)

Against

"We believe the intention of all these policies is to shrink the welfare state and remove it as much as they can because it’s not something they believe in," she said. According to McGill, the private sector would benefit most from the opening up of the state because the voluntary sector would not be able to compete. "It is a pity that those who know the world of voluntary and community action are not putting up more resistance," it says. "If anyone should be highlighting the ideologically noxious thinking behind the ‘big society’, it is the sector which could be at the centre of such a plan but which the government is in fact in the process of dismantling."

“... there is no point in placing extensive demands on the delivery Departments of Whitehall, asking them to reconcile the 'Big Society' agenda with extensive cost reduction requirements, without then being able to provide reasonable oversight, namely, governance” - Professor Kakabadse, following his analysis of departmental change programmes.

"The question should not simply be 'has the department delivered what it was supposed to' but also 'was it ever reasonable to expect the department to deliver what was asked of it'." - Matthew Taylor, former adviser to the then Prime Minister Tony Blair

Criticisms arising from the UK

Concerns from within the UK Academic concerns about big society can be classed within five categories: vague concept; hidden agenda of funding cuts; the creation of a power imbalance between individuals and communities; the community sector’s inability and unwillingness to handle large public administrative roles and its lack of originality within British politics.

Funding cuts

There has been a level of concern, particularly from, progressive academics and union activists that the Big Society agenda is an excuse for either radical cuts, or funding cuts that which would undermine what the principals of the Big Society plan is trying to achieve. Churcher and Williams (2010) named this problem the ‘elephant in the room’, for the development of big society.

Dave Prentis, the general secretary of the union Unison, believes that big society is a new development in the reduction of the public sector:

Cameron’s Big Society should be renamed the big cop-out. The Government is simply washing its hands of providing decent public services and using volunteers as a cut-price alternative. (Churcher and Williams, 2010).

On the other hand, UK Charity Commission believes that the changes to the community sector due to big society transformation will undermine the bottom line of many charities. They stated in a public statement that Cameron is ‘pulling the rug out from under’ his own Big Society agenda with the savage cuts away from the community sector. Independent estimates by Boxell (2010) have revealed that British charities in the next few years under current big society policy frame work estimate losses of between £3 to £5 billion, fundamentally increasing the risk of many going out of business.

Likewise, the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Sir Stuart Etherington (quoted in Boxell 2010), expressed his own concern ‘about the tidal wave of cuts about to hit the sector’ which he argues will ‘have a detrimental effect on the services received by some of the most vulnerable people in our society’.

Power imbalance

Many academics are concerned with the power imbalances the big society ideology and future policies will have on British society, between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. Anna Coote (2010) of the New Economics Foundation, on this point, has argued that big society will more than likely leave the poor and powerless behind:

Individuals who are already marginalised by poverty and powerlessness will be left behind by the Big Society, where everything hangs on how much power is assumed by which groups and businesses, to do what, for whom and how.

The Institute of Fiscal studies (Elliot and Wintour, 2010) , also studying this impact, have reiterated Coote’s findings, stating that the financially less well off will face the hardest hit by the sustained funding cuts being implemented by the government, as part of ‘rolling back’ the British state.

Vagueness of the concept:

Comparable to many other over arching theoretical concepts, there have been a host of criticisms, stemming from the fact that ‘big society’ as an ideology which is too intangible and vague and therefore encompasses far too much, thus rendering the term to holding a lack of meaning. Evidence of this can be found in statements by groups such as The Young Foundation (2010) who have stated that big society will become ‘little more than a label for a smattering of useful volunteering initiatives that probably would have happened anyway’ (p. 28). Likewise Barratt (2010) has written that the policy is enviably going to fail without some level of formal framework of community and business support and development. Freedland (2010) has also noted that many conservatives Tories, similarly, do not understand the ideology or its implementation plan, noting that often it is a idea which in many cases ‘refuses to take flight.’

Concern over volunteerism and the community’s ability to handle large administrative roles

One of the greatest attacks of the proposed changes is in the ability and willingness of the community and community sector to take on the role of many public agencies. The success of big society is reliant on on the volunteering and participatory capacity of nations citizenry. While although several commentators believe such capacity is in abundance, other studies have come out suggest otherwise.

Even looking at the Ipsos-Mori RSA survey commissioned by Lord Wei to support his contention that the nation is waiting for a participatory opportunity, flaws in the big society argument can be found (IPPR and PwC, 2010). While some of the figures within this survey are clearly promising for the big society, there are some questions of detail which are clear under analysis. For instance, the survey states that “42% of people would attend a regular meeting with their neighbourhood police team”, however attention should be drawn to the wording, no definition of regular is provide.

Also interesting to note were the numbers looking at “those willing to participate in a neighbourhood watch scheme” which came to of 44%. However, interpretation of the word participate was not defined.

A further point, likewise highlighted by Stott (2010) , is in what Lord Wei failed to mention. A critical point is that across all areas covered within the survey (public safety, education and social care. Three critical areas to the operation of the big society) survey respondents stated they were not willing to do any of the options offered to ‘participate’. For instance, in the question, which looked at participants, willingness to set up and operate a new school only 2% displayed any interest (IPPR and PwC, 2010:10-18).

Another issue raised within research, if the issue of time allocation ability of the community sector. Many reports are consistent finding the biggest barrier to participating is lack of time. Such statements stand in opposition to Lord Wei’s assertion that we can ‘create’ more time (Low et al, 2007) .

Research by Ipsos-Mori (2009) found that only 1 in 20 of the public wanted any involvement in providing services. It also found 1 in 4 merely wanted more of a say. Significantly, the report found the majority public simply just wanted increased access to information, by the public sector.

Further more, given the sociological research which finds the majority of those who currently participate and volunteer at a local level in the community: white, older, well educated, rich, middle-class males; or women, of higher social grades, in managerial positions, degree educated, and middle aged. Would tend, within the big society movement, to dominant decision making, thus creating higher levels of minority power imbalance within British society (Brodie et al, 2009).

Not a new policy.

Further criticism of the Big Society agenda comes from those asserting that there is nothing new in this programme and it has already failed in this regard. Tessa Jowell (quoted in McSmith 2010) has dismissed the ‘Big Society’ as:

simply a brass-necked rebranding of programmes already put in place by a Labour government …Funding for a social investment bank and for community pubs was put in place in March (2009), and residents have been involved in setting council budgets for a number of years.’ (McSmith, 2010).

Hazel Blears (2010) reiterates Jowell and has argued that many of the ideas comprising the Big Society agenda have been ‘appropriated’ from her own 2008 Empowerment White Paper (Blears, 2010).