'Big Society' - Third Sector Research Centre policy review
A concise and readable review of the origins and development of the ‘Big Society’ policy idea has been published by the Community Sector Coalition.
In his paper, Building the Big Society: a new policy environment for the third sector in England, Pete Alcock of Birmingham University’s Third Sector Research Centre describes how the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition inherited “a new spirit of [third sector] partnership with government” from their New Labour predecessors.
Development of the ‘Big Society’ idea
Prof. Alcock traces the coalition parties’ thinking about the sector from the Conservatives’ 2008 green paper, A Stronger Society - Voluntary Action in the 21st Century, through the formation of their general election campaign policies.
He outlines the launch of the ‘Big Society’ on 18 May 2010 and draws out important points from subsequent speeches and statements by ministers including Francis Maude and Baroness Warsi, and other significant figures such as Lord Wei.
Within this considerable collection of relevant material, he identifies specific undertakings, arguing that third sector policy is unquestionably a priority for the current government, which has been incorporated into Cabinet Office planning and influenced other departments’ thinking.
‘Third sector’, ‘civil society’ or what?
Prof. Alcock analyses the government’s rejection of the controversial but paradoxically unifying term ‘third sector’ in favour of “a list-based approach” such as “‘charities, social enterprises and voluntary organisations’” in which “there is always someone missed off the list - where are the mutuals or community groups?”
He warns that adopting the designation ‘civil society’ risks a confusion of ‘social action’ with ‘social relations’.
“Division within the sector,” he says, “remains an underlying tension within third sector politics - it is still referred to by some as Kendall and Kemp’s (1996) ‘loose and baggy monster’”!
Prof. Alcock’s paper provides a lot of food for thought throughout.
20 December 2010
