Edmund Coleridge

7th Apr 2011

Rhetoric is important. David Cameron, Steve Hilton and the movers behind the Big Society project must be given full credit for championing what is an extremely difficult concept to sell – particularly during a time when we are facing austerity.

However, while the rhetoric has been strong, the sector is becoming less and less supportive of the Government as its words often fail to translate into the final proposals.

Another blow to the Coalition’s reputation in the voluntary sector has been delivered through the Work Programme, the Government’s major set piece employment scheme.

The Employment Minister, Chris Grayling, had said that he wanted prime providers to seek to have at least 30% of their supply chain made up of voluntary organisation and social enterprises. However out of 37 supply chains only 10 met the target of 30% – 27 did not. Click here for full breakdown.

Of course, we should welcome the fact that in some such as Maximus Employment UK Ltd in West London have created supply chains which see over 50% from the voluntary sector. It is also great to see nearly 300 voluntary sector organisations involved in the delivery of the Work Programme and there are 2 prime contracts.

But sadly, especially in the prime providers, the same old faces are appearing. G4S, Serco, A4E – companies which have a record of working with the voluntary and social enterprise sector, yes – are dominating the market. For many in the sector is becoming a familiar story.

Commissioners and procurers are still too cautious, still not willing to recognise the contribution that the social enterprise and voluntary sectors can make and the Government not willing to be bold in giving them more responsibility.

This is a problem because the Big Society needs these sectors if it is going to translate into reality.

Already the Big Society Bank is starting to become a letdown, with far less funding than many in the sector were led to believe that it would have. Local authority cuts are demoralising many organisations and turning once cheerleaders of the Big Society (such as ACEVO and NCVO) into rather critical friends, as in-house providers are favoured over more effective VCSEs.

No one believed that this agenda would be easy – but there needs to be far better co-ordination and implementation. Time is of particular importance because if disillusionment takes hold it will be incredibly difficult to get these organisations on board for the rest of the programme.

There are still opportunities to win back the support of the sector such as the Open Public Services White Paper, Lord Hodgson’s Big Society Redtape Task Force and Chris White MP’s Private Member’s Bill. But they had better get some wins soon – otherwise they may end up with great plans but no one on the ground willing or able to carry them out.