In the preceding months and weeks, many discussions about the Big Society have been taking place at OPM. In our last post on the Big Society, we argued that early indications from central government - particularly the promise of a general power of competence for local authorities - pointed to a need for local councils to artciulate their role in developing the Big Society. In the spirit of delivering on earlier promises, in our last post we committed to offering a series of initial thoughts on how councils might begin carving out a role in building the Big Society. In the immediate, it seems likely that councils will need to start by mapping local voluntary sector capacity and interest in relation to different areas of service provision.
From what little the government has revealed about the Big Society, it is clear that local government will need a developed understanding of local community organisations and their capacity to deliver particular services or share decision-making powers (or some combination of the two). Altering delivery models for ‘hard edged’ services like childrens’ and adult social care will likely be seen as most risky, whilst it is easier to envisage how local parks, leisure facilities, museums and libraries could potentially see greater involvement from volunteers, perhaps from existing ‘friends of’-type groups. When mapping local voluntary sector capacity and interest in building the Big Society, councils will need to begin by asking the following:
- What services would local people be willing to see delivered differently? Which would they be uneasy about seeing delivered through other channels?
- What groups and individuals are willing and able to play a more substantial role in services? What would be the potential costs and benefits of increasing their involvement in service provision, and what could that involvement look like?
- Will governance and management essentially remain the same but with an increased delivery role for volunteers? Or, will entire elements of services be removed to arms-length organisations – community groups, charities, social enterprises, employee-owned cooperatives (amongst others)?
Keep checking the OPM Public Interest Network blog for further posts on this topic.
