The good ship big society was relaunched last month by the prime minister. Watching from the icy shores of the public spending cuts, it looked a bit like the relaunch of the Titanic after a patch-up job.
Despite all the bluster, there is still an appalling lack of clarity about what the big society actually is. If it means more of us should make an active contribution to society, then it’s hard to be opposed to it. But if it’s an excuse for cuts and dismantling the welfare state, that’s an altogether different matter.
David Cameron said the big society would allow communities to run services that the government can’t afford, but that it’s not a cover for cuts. A contradiction if ever there was one.
Also last month, Liverpool City Council withdrew from the pilot scheme and Phil Redmond, chairman of National Museums Liverpool, said the scheme had been undermined by the cuts.
It has been estimated that the voluntary sector faces £5bn in cuts, including the end of grants and contracts from local authorities. These cuts will mean the death of precisely the kind of grassroots, volunteer-run projects that the big society is meant to promote.
Take the example of Barnet Museum in London. The volunteer-run museum gets a small annual grant from its local council, plus the use of its premises, which the council owns. At a meeting last month, the council said it will withdraw all funding for the museum and that it must pay a commercial rent – or leave the building it has occupied for the past 80 years.
The volunteers have put forward an alternative operating model, which they say will save the council cash, but it has been rejected. Barnet, for the record, is a Conservative-run council.
If a well-established and popular, volunteer-based community organisation such as Barnet Museum cannot succeed, then the prime minister’s vision for the big society is dead in the water. A basic fact remains: nobody can volunteer in a museum that is shut (see link to Vox pop below).
Sharon Heal, editor, Museums Journal
sharon@museumsassociation.org
www.twitter.com/sharonheal
MA Conference and Exhibition 2011
Vox pop, p22
Despite all the bluster, there is still an appalling lack of clarity about what the big society actually is. If it means more of us should make an active contribution to society, then it’s hard to be opposed to it. But if it’s an excuse for cuts and dismantling the welfare state, that’s an altogether different matter.
David Cameron said the big society would allow communities to run services that the government can’t afford, but that it’s not a cover for cuts. A contradiction if ever there was one.
Also last month, Liverpool City Council withdrew from the pilot scheme and Phil Redmond, chairman of National Museums Liverpool, said the scheme had been undermined by the cuts.
It has been estimated that the voluntary sector faces £5bn in cuts, including the end of grants and contracts from local authorities. These cuts will mean the death of precisely the kind of grassroots, volunteer-run projects that the big society is meant to promote.
Take the example of Barnet Museum in London. The volunteer-run museum gets a small annual grant from its local council, plus the use of its premises, which the council owns. At a meeting last month, the council said it will withdraw all funding for the museum and that it must pay a commercial rent – or leave the building it has occupied for the past 80 years.
The volunteers have put forward an alternative operating model, which they say will save the council cash, but it has been rejected. Barnet, for the record, is a Conservative-run council.
If a well-established and popular, volunteer-based community organisation such as Barnet Museum cannot succeed, then the prime minister’s vision for the big society is dead in the water. A basic fact remains: nobody can volunteer in a museum that is shut (see link to Vox pop below).
Sharon Heal, editor, Museums Journal
sharon@museumsassociation.org
www.twitter.com/sharonheal
MA Conference and Exhibition 2011
Vox pop, p22