UK: Volunteering in the Big Society

Enthusiasm? Yes, but caution too is needed. According to Mike Locke, Director of Public Affairs for Volunteering England, David Cameron’s Big Society idea is a complex piece of social policy to develop. Volunteering, he says, comes in many forms and is done for different reasons so perhaps the British prime minister shouldn’t take for granted that volunteers would want to do things that they might see as being the government’s responsibility.

What are the voluntary sector’s first reactions to the Big Society idea?

I think people in volunteering organizations are seeing the Big Society as a good thing and a positive move by the government. What has become very clear over the past few weeks is that the government is taking the big society idea very seriously. It was proposed during the campaign to the general election but at that time no one knew whether it was just going to be part of the campaign and then slip away. Now we know that the full range of government departments and ministers are talking about the ideas and making it a procedure of policy that runs through everything they do. So we are optimistic and taking it as something that could help a charity like ourselves in our development and promotion and for the enhancement of volunteering in general.

What will the Big Society change for the average volunteer?

I think one of the issues is how we think of the wide range of ways that people act voluntarily in their community. The Big Society is particularly focused on the aspiration that every adult be involved in an active neighborhood group. This is one kind of volunteering but it’s not necessarily the same kind of volunteering as someone who helps out in a welfare service or in a sports club. Although it can still be seen as part of the same kind of human activity and you can think of volunteering as one big picture, the government needs to make sure that it carries on the mainstream, traditional volunteering activities as well. Anecdotal reports over the years say that people don’t want to volunteer in what they see as being the government’s responsibility. And sometimes people resist being drawn into things, so as well as all the enthusiasm for the Big Society it must also be said that it is a difficult piece of social policy to develop. 

So an idea that is simple on paper may be harder to put into practice…

Yes its not quite as simple as just grabbing opportunities with both hands. You do have to look at what makes people take opportunities and what are the kinds of things that draw them in and keep them involved. Sometimes the only reason people get involved at the neighborhood level is because they are really angry about something that central or local government has done, so there are two questions: first, how do you turn that anger into a constructive thing at a social policy level and second, how do you get local government to respond positively to that kind of grassroots pressure.

Cameron has said that he wants the government to stimulate a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action. How? And should this be the government’s responsibility?

The government and the state do have a role to play in setting up the conditions in society that encourage people to do things. This may be through regulations, laws or funding or through its general approach to the social conditions. There certainly are things that governments do that encourage or discourage voluntary action but there aren’t any easy answers as to what they are.

Funding is obviously a key issue that organizations are worried about. On the one hand there are the public spending cuts and on the other Cameron’s announcement that a Big Society Bank will be set up…

There are two areas of anxiety. One is that we are getting many reports from local and community organizations about the ways in which different local authorities are making severe cuts in their support of voluntary organizations and that actually risks undermining the overall strategy of the big society. Because there are organizations that may have taken generations to build up and in terms of the big strategy we should be finding ways of sustaining them . We are particularly worried about the infrastructure and support for the local volunteer centers and the councils of voluntary service. The other area of anxiety is the Big Society Bank as we don’t yet have a clear idea of how it would operate. Part of the issue of funding that we think is very important is that there needs to be regular and sustainable core funding for support services and infrastructure organizations, both at a national and local level. So we still really have to work out how the allocated funds will be turned into specific and deliverable funding regimes.

Prior to becoming Director of Public Affairs for VE, Mike Locke was Reader in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of East London, Assistant Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research, and Director of the Centre for Institutional Studies at UEL. Ten years ago, he helped create the Institute for Volunteering research (IVR) with current VE Chief Executive Justin Davis Smith, through the association of Volunteering England and the University of East London.