Home » Posts tagged 'co-operatives'
Tag Archives: co-operatives
Is this where the Big Society came from?
The explanation that the Big Society was an altruistic exercise to help the disadvantaged was clearly a non-starter from the beginning.
There has historically been a lack of clear account of where the Big Society in the UK came from. Notwithstanding its precise source, it was undoubtedly a massive political mistake to attempt to launch it on numerous occasions in a background of austerity and cuts and increasing unemployment. This was bound to lead to stories in the popular press about how people had lost their job, but were being invited to apply ‘for their own job’ as an unpaid volunteer. When you consider the Coalition’s attempt to introduce workfare, you can see how the policy mix became explosive.
This Coalition doesn’t do ‘organic’. For example, in the non-top reorganisation that constitutes the NHS Act, stakeholders were not consulted leading to the majority of the Royal Colleges, including the GPs shared by Clare Gerada, to oppose this key piece of legislation. We were introduced to the notion of the NHS Commissioning Board, and asked to learn to love the idea. In the same way, the Big Society is not about community investment where the ordinary public decides what programmes to flourish.
I believe a big mistake was for Lord Wei and his colleagues to mix and match social enterprises and venture philanthropy, and to repackage seductively as ‘The Big Society’, hoping nobody would smell a rat. The fact that this Coalition doesn’t do organic is manifest openly in the fact that the Big Society Bank will decide where to invest its money (rather, in part, our money as it comes from unclaimed account in the UK). It then decides where it wants to invest the money, and decide which metrics it wants to pursue to decide what a good outcome is. The investors will want something back for their money – doh.
It is particularly not clear where the architects of the Big Society got “their big idea” from. In the US, there has been a history of philanthropy, and indeed organisations in the US are successful are providing such services. Maybe Lord Wei got their inspiration from abroad. Housing cooperatives are well-known about, and serve as a a legal mechanism for ownership of housing where residents either own shares (or share capital co-op) reflecting their equity in the cooperative’s real estate, or have membership and occupancy rights in a not-for-profit cooperative (non-share capital co-op), and they underwrite their housing through paying subscriptions or rent.
However, looking at the small print of how or why we differed from the U.S. has been difficult, as we have never been given adequate explanation of how or if recipients of awards would repay their money, over what time scale, and with what rate of interest. The New York Co-operative does provide ‘some flesh on the bones’ where we are able to make some conclusions about how a co-op award may compared to a mortgage (see for example this well known article in the New York Times), but we need some detail on the operation of the Big Bank here to ensure that vulnerable people are not subject to a problem they cannot easily get out of. It is also interesting to note that further criticisms from the housing sector have already begun to emerge here in the UK. According to the Financial Times today, “Phil Shanks, director of SAF Housing, a fund for the provision of housing for those in need of extra care, said the Big Society Capital concept is flawed because it does not overcome the main concern that many institutional backers of social enterprises have: the security of funding for public services”.
The implementation of the Big Society has been a huge mess thus far, but like all its non-organic projects, unless there is better detail and more substantial support from those who do give up a lot of their time in the third sector currently, the Coalition will find a substantial failure on its hands. Hopefully, their other non-organic project, the NHS restructuring, will go better.
(c) Legal Aware 2012
Nat Wei's 'Big Society' – badly received and ill conceived, but only so far
I really think, that with all the goodwill I can possibly muster for Lord Wei’s ‘Big Society’, politically it has been badly received. More crucially, academically, it is poorly conceived. The Big Society is the flagship policy idea of the 2010 Conservative Party general election manifesto and forms part of the legislative programme of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement. According to the Civil Society website,
“The Big Society is struggling to capture the imagination of the public as a poll shows that more than half of voters claim not to have heard of the idea. But while many have not heard of the Conservative policy to encourage personal responsibility and community spirit, a similar proportion of voters (54 per cent) believe it is a good idea once it is explained to them, according to the Ipsos Mori poll commissioned by the RSA and released today. “
An important aim is to create a climate that empowers local people and communities, building a big society that will ‘take power away from politicians and give it to people’. It was launched in the 2010 Conservative manifesto and described by The Times as “an impressive attempt to reframe the role of government and unleash entrepreneurial spirit”.
Lord Nat Wei, one of the founders of the Big Society Network, was appointed by David Cameron to advise the government on the Big Society programme.
The stated priorities are:
1. Give communities more powers
The arguments that this has been the focus of the work of charities, communities and the Labour Party have been exhaustively discussed elsewhere. A greater concern is that no government appears to value certain sectors of society, e.g. lollypop ladies, whilst the inequality gap has got substantially wider under Labour, while governments always safeguard bankers. Take, for example, the ode to wealth creators David Cameron is going to produce in his speech this afternoon.
2. Encourage people to take an active role in their communities
At the end of the day, you can’t force people to take an active role in their communities. In other words, a person is not voluntarily likely to do bus driving for free, when he or she feels that someone else is doing it, and being paid for it. Many unemployed people will be too terrified about their long-term benefits, and what may or may not threat them, whilst actively looking for salaried employment, to engage with their local community.
3. Transfer power from central to local government
Thatcher effectively tried to bribe local voters to vote for the Conservative Party by generating a lower poll tax in the 1980s. People know full well how shallow and unintelligent this was, and there has been much healthy interest in the Labour/Co-operative movement which has been a successful model in transferring power from central to local government.
4. Support co-operatives, mutuals, charities and social enterprises
From what I can understand, Lord Wei envisages the business part of the ‘Big Society’ as a social franchising model. The main problem from that, unless they are managed correctly, such business entities can suffer from lack of investment, recruitment, shared resources, and, ultimately, profitability. It is indeed an answerable case why functions of the private sector or public sector should be offloaded onto charities aka the third sector.
It’s all very well the? Big Society Network’s? chief? executive? Paul? Twivy? providing that,
“its? three? goals? are? to? encourage? people? to? take? action? in? their? local? area,? to? encourage? people? to? take? part? in? groups? and? to? help? community? groups? and? social? entrepreneurs? to? access? the? local? powers? that? the? government’s? Big ?Society ?legislative? programme ?will? create. ?”
however I would strongly argue that we have yet to have the academic business debate about it. The word ‘social entrepreneur’ undoubtedly has a ‘feel-good’ factor, but the merits of social franchising requiring some detailed security, if we are to invest millions into promoting it; into investing into it, through the Big Society Bank for example.
Don’t get me wrong – it could be a wonderful success?
5. Publish government data.
This is a useful function, provided that one essential assumption is met. That is, “The Big Society” is separate from government. Otherwise, this point has absolutely no credibility whatsoever.
Early days – it could be an incredible success or unmitigated disaster. A real marmite policy, if ever there were one.
