Big Society six months on

The Big Society has only been around for six months and its contradictions are already starting to crawl out of the woodwork. Volunteering England, the English volunteering charity pour excellence, has announced it will be forced to halve its workforce in order to survive following massive government budget cuts.

In a sad twist of fate, Volunteering England’s announcement coincides with Oxford University’s announcement that “big society” has been nominated as the word of the year by the prestigious institution’s academics. 

“The concept of big society was a clear winner because it embraces so much of the year’s political and economic mood,” Susie Dent, of Oxford Dictionaries, said. “It has also begun to take on a life of its own, and that’s a sure sign of linguistic success.” But the Big Society’s success seems to start and end with the language.

Volunteering England receives more than half its 5.7 million pound income from government sources. The Office for Civil Society provides 1.6 million of this but has announced that it will be reducing the number of organisations it funds from 42 to 15 and that organisations can from now on only hope to receive a maximum of 500 thousand pounds each. It has not yet announced which organisations it will carry on supporting.

“We have to take these steps now to protect the future of Volunteering England against threatened cuts in funding,” said Justin Davis Smith, the charity’s Chief Exectuive, about the decision to shed 31 jobs, half Volunteering England’s workforce. The rest of Volunteering England’s funds come from the Department of Health, Capacity Builders fund (which is about to be closed) and the Department for Work and Pensions.

“It is extraordinary that we have to plan on cutting back our organisation at a time when there is more interest in volunteering than ever before. The coalition government’s Big Society is built upon volunteering, and Volunteering England has a crucial part to play in helping public and community services become more effective through involving volunteers.” He added “it is heartbreaking we are planning to make redundant so many colleagues who bring extraordinary commitment to the cause of volunteering and have so much knowledge and experience to offer the volunteering movement and our whole society”.

Ironically, English banks announced today that they will be providing the Big Society Bank, a community bank set up by Cameron to fund his Big Society programme, with 1 billion pounds. The bank, which Cameron stated in July would “generate hundreds of millions of pounds for charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups,” will not be handing out any funding until next year, so organisations like Volunteering England that are struggling now, cannot hope to benefit from the fund in the short term. And in any case it is likely that the bank will only hand out loans and not grants.

When Cameron presented his Big Society idea, no one could really pin down what he meant when he said it would cause “the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power to date”. But the third sector was moved, inspired even by his vision. And grateful that they were being noticed at last. Now, it appears the only thing being redistributed is the money.