Those who know me know that I remain committed to the vision and principles that underpin the Big Society. The news stories circulating at the moment are instructive for several reasons and give an opportunity to clarify several myths that have been circulating about Big Society as well as my involvement in it to date.
First, there is a myth that Big Society is all about volunteering and taking on more than you can bear or have time for relative to family and work commitments to help serve society. In reality, it is more about having the tools, information, and opportunities in place (partly as a result of government and other reforms) to play your part, with however much or little time you have – but where collectively these actions by citizens add up to represent something ‘big’. At different times in life one will have more or less time. At the moment, alongside my work in the Lords, serving the Chinese, faith, and other communities as a peer, my family, and earning a living, I have slightly less time than I did last year. Thankfully the structures in government are now in place to harness my time better so I do not have to put in the long hours over and above the two days a week I agreed with the government in June 2010. I put in extra time when I first started, which impacted on family life and finances. My duty must be to my family first, then the communities of which I am a part, as well as to the country.
Second, there is a myth that somehow Big Society will happen overnight and be really easy to conjure up. David Cameron said in his Hugo Young lecture at the end of 2009 that it would take one or two Parliaments, if not a generation, to effect the culture change that we have embarked upon. I echoed this in my Maiden Speech in the Lords last year when I said that this would be a long journey and involve many setbacks. In truth, we have only just begun, first by changing government so that it can be more of an enabler of Big Society rather than an inhibitor of it. The next phase is to work with civil society to create and strengthen intermediaries, tools, platforms that can transform the raw power and information and opportunities that have been transferred from the state, and make them accessible to time and finance constrained citizens. For example in being able to access a toolkit, social finance, and the right support to create a chain of citizen-led libraries. The last stage is to see the innovation unleashed that citizens will bring as they combine and use these different tools and platforms and apply them to their lives, communities, and services.
Third, there is a myth about my role. Some may consider it to be flattering to be nicknamed a ‘Tzar’ and ‘Mr ‘Big’, but those who know me know that I prefer to remain quite understated in my approach, and am not superhuman – I am only a humble Advisor. I even said in my Maiden Speech I would have much to learn – about politics, about the country, and about the media. There is something quite un-Big Society in thinking one person alone at the centre of government can magic it into being. I have learnt that I am a small cog in a big machine. Indeed government can only itself do so much. As I have said before, it will take all of us over time contributing in whatever way we can to make this a reality. So alongside spending most of my time last year in government seeking to reorientate parts of the machine to better enable Big Society, I have also recently been working on online and other tools to help establish a community of activists who can champion and help create Big Society where they live. More on this will follow in the coming months. But as I have said before, this year is the one in which citizens and social entrepreneurs and even the media will have the chance to take the helm and support the creation of the Big Society, and I am looking forward to helping play my part where I can in my own small way.
Thanks for this. For what its worth, I don’t think any of us ever thought the ideas expressed under the Big Society agenda would happen over night. Indeed, some of them feel like generation change. Which is fine.
But the myth that needs busting is that in a matter of months we can substitute the financial capital now being withdrawn from communities, whether with other sources of money or other types of support. Probably a point you are sick of people saying, but one that is nevertheless the reality many are facing.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Simon HB, mel starrs, Michael Savage, i-volunteer.org.uk, graham hitchen and others. graham hitchen said: Important to develop this narrative RT @NatWei: New post: dispelling a few Big Society myths http://bit.ly/e2nrlT #bigsociety [...]
The phrase ‘banged to rights’ seems to drift into my head at this point…
The points from Wei seems open ended and will be appreciated if not agreed by many.
There is a conversation to be had about which public sector service activities are for volunteering and which for DIY in any society … it will not do to willy nilly make public sector activities into community sector activities without detailed clarification on permanent human resourse and financing models.
And on voluntary work (not volunteering) and community sector services, see …
http://www.peer-review-social-inclusion.eu/network-of-independent-experts/reports/2009-first-semester/netherlands-1-2009-en
I suggest opening up Friends of Big Society, see who joins, encourage discussion and dissent, online and off. There is currently no-where to meet openly, and without that there can be no new relationships, no trust, no progress. And maybe change the label so we can focus on what’s in the tin.
Many thanks Nat for placing your valuable leadership around the Big Society in the context of your family and local community life. We all have these ‘circles of commitment’ and they are very relevant to the extent to which we can be oriented to contribute beyind those who need us most.
Three specific thoughts from me:-
1. Crowd Acellerated Innovation – the Chris Anderson video on TED…we know that there are many in the crowd who are already embodying the values and way of life of Big Society. Can we throw light and energy on the innovators using web video and on and off line connectivity to accelerate the change? I am creating platforms for Thinking Differently with inspiring ‘real world’ speakers on the subject of Dementia (much of my work is aorund those who are most at risk of being marginalised and excluded). The narrative about dementia is that of a catastrophic schema. The innovation is around living well with dementia and creating ‘habitats for happiness’ when people need care. Filmed talks and blogs will be part of the change.
2. Before Christmas my good friend and inspiring community building ally, Martin Simon from Timebanks asked me to contribute to the Big Society Wiki. I thought long and hard about what was there. I realised I could not contribute because of the perspective that says ‘building the big society will take ‘a generation’ (or words to that affect). I dont think it can be built, but rather ‘allowed’ by creating the conditions for increasing co-operation, collaboration and community. It is counter intuitive as it is about the forces of power being shifted and that requires a mindful letting go…..(some of the decisons re cuts are feeling mindless in this context) with deep thought about resourcing the change and not pulling the funds from those who have been big society leaders for years.
3. in my expeirnece some of the most powerful deep local change comes about when people who have previously lived at the margins take up community leadership roles (for example people with disabilities, health conditions, ex offenders….) There is a deep commitment and a subtle kind of community generosity that takes place (Railway Land Trust in Lewes and Parents for Inclusion and many of the Timebanks are three examples i have seen up close).
I wish you well – we are so much better off when connected and intentional about our community life – as Martin Seligman says we can move beyiond the good life to a life of meaning.
Andy Bradley
Frameworks 4 Change
Knowing You Matter
Interesting post and useful to set the current coverage in context.
I echo Karl’s point that it would appear incongruous to be operating two timescales – one of swift withdrawl of funding and another of Big Society development in terms of parliaments or generations. Surely the reduction of funding should run commensurate to increasingly engaged communities? Otherwise we create a deficit…
Even more challenging is the speed of change required in government departments and NDPB’s to embrace the Big Society. Evident in many of the externalisations / transfers of NDPB’s is a pace of change that is excluding the possibility of true community engagement. While this government should be commended for their aspiration to effect change it should heed the warnings of failure through its commitment to rush them through.
Government is pulling back before Big Society is ready. Perhaps analogous to Nat having to pull back before the Lords and OCS has really understood Big Society?
Anyone who supports the Big Society is just part of the Big Elite or the delusional middle-class. It is a con – wake-up!
Part 2 from the USA on Big Society …
http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9296:an-uncomfortable-but-necessary-conversation-part-ii&catid=153:features&Itemid=336
‘For example, being able to access a toolkit, social finance, and the right support to create a chain of citizen-led libraries’
toolkit = ‘university degree programme in how to be a librarian’
social finance = ‘tax’
chain of citizen-led libraries = ‘libraries’
‘it is more about having the tools, information, and opportunities in place (party as a result of government and other reforms) to play your part’ – how does this differ from the existing concept ‘society’? In what way does this definition not include all of government, private and third sector activity? If it does include all this, how is the BS not so vague a concept as to be utterly trivial?
I’m all for communities taking responsibility for themselves but surely the wealth created by their activities (a significant amount of which is tax) should be one of their key resources. Communities and government are intimately linked. If government wants communities to have responsiibiity, why is it keeping all their money and making all the decisions on how it should be spent? (Do we want to give it to banks?)
Sorry Nat, I did read all thjis very carefully, and the words of advice which come to mind are, ‘When in a hole…’
I expect you did start off full of good intent, but so do many others in many situations.
My take is this: Forget ‘Big Society’; it’s really ‘Binning Services’ as Tories slash and burn: http://t.co/hWWqJ0n
Thanks anyway
Can’t help thinking that the so-called myths surrounding the Big Society have arisen because it was oversold as the Big Idea. In reality it’s still an embryonic one, which sometimes seems little more than a Stone Soup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_soup
As such, it’s not altogether surprising that Nat’s resignation and his reasons for doing so are seen by many as something you couldn’t make up. They have a point given his desk in Cabinet Office, seat in Lords and all the access that entails.
Nat shouldn’t be too surprised either given I don’t think it’s any great secret that that there’s an admission within the Big Society inner circle(s) that the ‘story’ hadn’t been successfully communicated/sold.
Don’t think his resignation is going to help either, which is a shame as there does seem to be some consensus across the political spectrum about devolving power to citizens.
What doesn’t seem very well thought out though is the delivery of the Big Society, in terms of how a big idea that’s been developed from the top down is going to be activated/delivered from the bottom-up.
The important bit which seems missing is any clarity about who is going to do what for what and why, with a huge question mark about funding particularly if there’s more to the Big Society than just volunteering as Nat argues above.
Perhaps the Big Society story would have been or could be better sold/told with something more tangible; like a comparison between what’s already happening in what some call ‘Our Society’ and what this might look like in terms of similarities and differences within the envisaged Big Society.
Dear Nat
I do appreciate the sincerity in your blog post. I like to think part of our national character is lending a hand and – in times of crisis – pulling together. Generosity goes hand in hand with tolerance and good humour – something I see in small ways everyday in my working class neighbourhood. So really the Big Society idea is just a catchy brand for something that, I believe, is already part of the British character.
This is one reason that I and others find it hard to take Cameron’s Big Society idea seriously.
Another is that the Big Society seems completely dissonant with everything else that’s going on. Banker’s bonuses and the claim by Government that their hands are tied by the deal done when RBS and others were substantially nationalised (so, you’re the government and the major shareholder – change the law). The emerging level of large scale tax avoidance by the rich and corporations. More generally the evidence that the well off are more or less completely unaffected by recession and public spending cuts, and the widening gap between rich and poor.
If this government were to be seen to be serious about addressing inequality then I think many, myself included, would be less cynical about the Big Society.
Best wishes.
This is government Big Society …
EXTRACT (pg 67) from No Health without Mental Health re A cross-government mental health outcomes strategy for people of all ages … publication date February 2, 2011
Broadening the approach taken to tackle the wider social determinants and consequences of mental health problems 7.15 One example of this approach is providing face-to-face debt advice. Evidence suggests that this can be cost-beneficial within five years. The upfront cost of debt advice is more than offset by savings to the NHS, savings in legal aid, and gains in terms of employment productivity, even before taking into account savings for creditors.
Yet the local deliverer of face-to-face debt advice, the community based Citizens Advice Bureaus service, is about to be decimated by withdrawal of grant funding at local and national level. So is the Big Society government a silo government of powerful barons with a king/queen in name only?
Nat
Nice of you to dispel the myths about Big Society being hot air with more of the same.
No one is saying you shouldn’t have a life, but you must appreciate the delicious irony of all of this.
I think the story coming out of Liverpool this afternoon underlines what the big issue is here – funding.
No amount of good intention and rhetoric will replace that.
Hello
Please do a blog on Assett Mapping and Co Production and perhaps referencing some of the the ideas and approaches raised in a publication produced last year by the I&Dea, Glass Half Full http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/aio/18410498?
It seems to lay out a logical way forward that works with all things Big Society and all things public spending and it would be very informative to hear your take on it.
Hugh
It’s words of one syllable, Lord Wei.
if you remove capacity in the form of financial support, you make it more difficult to maintain the current level of human support ie volunteering, let alone increase the level.
Furthermore, if you pursue economic policies which increase unemployment, you make it more, not less, difficult for people to volunteer. People without jobs do not make good sources of volunteers.
Now, I know you might say “Labour left us with an unsustainable deficit” – but that is a contested matter, and your party is in power right now, so your party and the Liberals have to be responsible and accountable for its actions especially when you put a title like ‘Big Society’ on it. I think you’d have got a better hearing if you’d just admitted times would be tough and made some modest attempts to help. It’s the idea that this is a ‘big smokescreen’ that makes people angry.
Do you ever stop to think why ‘Big Society’ arouses such anger? It’s not all class hatred, or envy, or sour grapes. Do you get that?
Can you please respond to this directly? Objectively, you must see that the signs are at the very least unpropitious, and as others have said, exhortation cannot replace money.
[...] In his blog he wrote: “At different times in life one will have more or less time. At the moment, alongside my work in the Lords, serving the Chinese, faith, and other communities as a peer, my family, and earning a living, I have slightly less time than I did last year. [...]
I posted earlier a little cryptically, and too late at night: “I suggest opening up Friends of Big Society, see who joins, encourage discussion and dissent, online and off. There is currently no-where to meet openly, and without that there can be no new relationships, no trust, no progress. And maybe change the label so we can focus on what’s in the tin”.
Expanding a bit in the light of other comments and what has now been said publicly elsewhere:
In my opinion Nat has done great work in convening a group of friends – and critical friends – of Big Society, loosely defined, and developed a wiki (so far private) to act as a guide to the ideas originally in Big Society proposals, and those since generated by the enormous debate around these ideas. But this isn’t yet getting much traction and when launched may well be subsumed by general anti-BS noise.
Within the Friends, the wiki, the wider debate, there is I believe some consensus around citizen-led local action, mutual support and much more.
You can say that there has been too little recognition of 30 years of activity in this field; the cuts are destroying support infrastructures; there is too little recognition of the role of local government and the partnerships needed … and so on.
However, we haven’t seen in living memory so much attention given to what’s needed to build and sustain our communities.
Can we pull something useful out of the confusion?
Oursociety.org.uk is one attempt to do that … but others can convene in their spaces, among their networks, using whatever terms they choose.
Big Society is too big, because it has come to encompass so many conflicting agendas.
Could we make more progress if we looked beyond the label?
Big Society Network is promising to Convene, Cutate, Narrate
http://thebigsociety.co.uk/the-big-society-in-action/bsn-a-convenor-a-curator-and-a-narrator/
and that may be a way forward … but only, in my view, if there is more distance from the political brand, and far more connection between London-based activity and the realities on the ground.
My question: is there goodwill to move forward?
Society has been progressively smothered by big government in a process that started at least a hundred years ago with the Lloyd George government.
It will take several generations for citizens to emerge from their present infantilised condition to be able to run their own lives, bring up their families and self manage their communities.
Government cannot create a ‘Big Society’, it can only start getting out of the way so that society is given the space to grow.
At the moment our economy is prevented from emerging from worldwide recession by the enormous debt created by the disgraceful spending spree in which the Labour Government tried to buy an election victory.
Job creation is also strangled by the the thousands of laws and regulations that began with the deluge of equality and health and safety laws in 1974 and reached epidemic proportions with the last government. I know that many people like to blame the EU for this. They play their part, but the truth is that our own government gold plates EU directives all the time and our bureaucrats are at least as bad as the Brussels ones.
Never mind the political slogan of Big Society. Let us have the freedom to build our societies. Essential steps are to cut state spending and cut taxes. Abolish laws and regulations that are making it difficult to employ people and unattractive for enterprises to want to operate in Britain.
Reduce the number of MPs, abolish all Quangos and scrap unaccountable bodies like the House of Lords. Devolution of some power to Scotland, Wales & NI was a good thing, but nothing like enough. Power must be devolved from Westminster to villages, towns and communities. Society can only function on a human scale. Things affecting our everyday lives should be the responsibility of ourselves and people who are so close to us that we know them and can call them to account.
National and international bodies are necessary for the law of the sea, defence of the nation and the small number of things which cannot be done locally.
Power corrupts. We have too many corrupt politicians because they have been allowed to take on too much control of our lives. Laws are necessary, but they need to be small in number, easily understood and rigorously enforced. We should never have got into a situation where some of our law makers are law breakers. The answer is to bring politics home, or at least to our neighbourhoods.
Unseemly wriggling. Good points well made in comments re speed of cuts vs time for – Big Society to grow. However that’s only if u buy the Big Society BS. Ideological attack in full swing, rhetoric running thin…
I am very happy to be a Liverpudlian right now. Conservatives talk about being realistic, and today’s news is a good dose of realism for them. Big Society/volunteerism/social enterprise – it all needs money. Your conservative economic gurus will tell you, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Every human activity takes resources.
To promote the “big Society’ in such a (thnakfully) heterogenous society as UK’s is impossible without either huge resources invested into existing volunteering, a huge advertising/marketuing campaign, OR Maoist style coercion, precisely because there is no centrally coherent, unifying commitment towards UK/England at any level of analysis, be it age, gender, culture or class. THere’s not even a commitment at our ‘community’ level, because what you dont realise is that communities have changed – they are dispersed, distributed. Very few people live next door to their mum anymore.
Its true we have some strong communitiies and bonds, but its obvious that what you dont understand is the futility of trying to hypothesis an ideologically inspired cohesive position form these communities. Our diversity IS our strength. And as such, I dont see why I should get involved in a community that has nothing to do with me. THese days that might be my next door neighbour’s community.
[...] have seen the pretence of the Tories’ Big Society finally shattered. The Big Society guru Nat Wei protests that the concept remains central to Conservative thinking, but many doubt it, as Wei [...]
Big Society is about Big Money (and with Money, Time) and how to spend it in ways that advantage your own family. It brings culture itself under the jackboot of Big Government.
[...] In his blog he wrote: “At different times in life one will have more or less time. At the moment, alongside my work in the Lords, serving the Chinese, faith, and other communities as a peer, my family, and earning a living, I have slightly less time than I did last year. [...]
[...] Nat Wei has blogged “to clarify several myths” about the big society and his role in it. My colleagues who write the Pass notes column in G2 have this take on the affair and Sir Robin Bogg [...]
“At the moment, alongside my work in the Lords, serving the Chinese, faith, and other communities as a peer, my family, and earning a living, I have slightly less time than I did last year.”
There is another option of course – you could always resign your seat from the House of Lords instead. That would free up a bit of your time.
I guess it all comes down to priorities…..
[...] to finish with a quote from Nat Wei’s blog. He [...]
It is a great idea in principle but nevertheless a pipe dream for the government who don’t want to spend our taxes on the things that really matter to us; only on the things that matter to them, such as their own expenses……
On reflection, were there ever any myths about Big Society ?.
May be it’s time to acknowledge, in words as well as in action, that there is something called PPF- Production Possibility Frontier.
You are lucky that you have private companies consultancies to fall back on. Others who are fired, and have their work supplied by volunteers, aren’t quite so lucky.
[...] as predictably, Mr Wei has responded with a blog post in which he reveals that the mirth we have felt is in fact the result of a misunderstanding on our [...]
Lord Wei
Thanks for explaining your position. May I explain mine.
The Big Society is NOT a new idea. For eons folk in their communities have been volunteering, caring and fundraising for good causes. What they find however that their are relatively few of them doing so. It takes energy, enthusiasm and dedication to the cause.
I applaud David Cameron for trying to encourage more people to join in. I appreciate that there will be some who, for political reasons, will attempt to cynically derail
Dear Lord Wei
Thank you for explaining your position on The Big Society. I’d like to explain mine.
The idea of The Big S is not new. For eons people have been volunteering, fundraising and caring in their local communities. It takes drive, enthusiasm and dedication to the cause. There a relatively few inspirational individuals out there who make things happen for purely altruistic reasons. Great things are achieved on shoestring budgets.
So, I applaud David Cameron for encouraging others to join in. I appreciate that for political reasons there will be some who actively attempt to deride and derail the concept.
But when a councillor from his own party – indeed in his own constituency – makes a unilateral decision to withdraw the discretionary rate relief of every charity with reserves of more than £1,500 (“…they can afford it”) one gasps at the duality of the rhetoric.
For that is what Councillor Simon Hoare has done in West Oxfordshire. For charities already struggling to fundraise in the grips of a recession he has effectively landed them with a huge bill. Not support, not encouragement but a body-blow. He has told trustees of The Lido @ Chipping Norton (whose patron is David Cameron) that The Big Society cannot work whilst Central Government does not support the concept.
So, having worked hard for six years to manage our facility better, fundraising to replace plant that reduces our costs and ensuring we have sufficient reserves to trade solvently our bank balance is being plundered by our District Council. So much for support, encouragement and the ideology of The Big Society.
Some of us are asking “…is it worth it?” and thinking of throwing in the towel. I for one would like to spend a but more time with my family!
You can see my video rant at http://ow.ly/3QX00
Thanks for your post.
[...] these messages, which explains (as Nat Wei, the Government’s ‘Big Society Czar’ says on his blog) that the Big Society won’t be built overnight. This will help rebut claims that the project [...]
Very interesting work regarding the Big Society. In my own work (for which I will receive the MBE tomorrow), we run as a business yet with social entrepreneurial principles – you may know it as we are also based in Shoreditch – The Laden Showroom, in Brick Lane. If you feel we could meet loally to talk through some ideas please do not hesitate to contact me.
Barry Laden MBE (barry@laden.co.uk)
[...] Wei, advisor to the Conservatives and member of the House of Lords, says of Big Society: “In reality, it is more about having the tools, information and opportunities in place [...]
[...] Wei, a recently appointed politician, seems more relaxed than most. His comment, “there is a myth that Big Society is all about volunteering” sought to downplay the significance of a key Big Society advisor within government cutting [...]
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