Building the Big Society Juliet Mountford Director, Office for Civil Society September 2010

1. Building the Big SocietyJuliet MountfordDirector, Office for Civil Society September 2010 months months

2. PM: The Big Society is a huge culture change �....where people in their everyday lives, their homes their neighbourhoods, their workplace... ....don�t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face.... ...but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities.�

4. What this means in action A Centre of Community Organising and small grants to support community activity Giving neighbourhood more control of planning A National Citizens� Service �Civic Service�: Volunteering across the civil service Greater autonomy for local government Enable more co-operatives, mutuals, and charities to deliver public services A �Big Society Bank� to get finance to the sector �A right to data� to enable public to use government data

5. And a huge shift in power & responsibilities

6. PM: This requires action from everyone ...of course, there is no one lever we can pull to create the Big Society in our country... ....and we shouldn�t be naive enough to think that if the government rolls back and does less, then miraculously society will spring up and do more....� ...the truth is that we need a government that actually helps to build up the Big Society.... ....If it unleashes community engagement � we should do it. If it crushes it � we shouldn�t

7. What does this entail?

9. The No. 10 event on 16 May set out some new actions

10. July 17th Liverpool event PM announced four Vanguard areas LB Sutton, Eden Valley, RB Windsor and Maidenhead and Liverpool LB Sutton will be working with the government to show how to: Give people influence for transport decisions and allowing greater local choice in schemes that suit them Train a new generation of community organisers Give communities the power to green their neighbourhoods Give people a greater say in local health provision

13. The Challenge for the sector How do you support citizens to take their role in Big Society? Does your way of working stimulate social action and community empowerment ? Look again at how do you engage with citizens - your role in creating voice and space? Do you want to deliver public services? Getting ready for partnership consortium work . Have you got the right structure and governance? Have you got the right access to finance? What is your role in place based budgets - Locally Integrated Services: are you ready? Your role in transparency � using local data to champion causes, raise concerns. Do you hold local services to account?

14. The Challenge for local government The Big Society cuts across the whole range of activity that local government is responsible for � it doesn�t just sit in one part of the Council (similar to central govt.) How can you step up on the three central themes of Big Society? How can you stimulate more social action? How can you open up more public services to a range of providers? How can you go further on community empowerment, putting neighbourhoods in control? How can you work through the three techniques cited above? Decentralisation � how can you devolve more decisions to neighbourhood level? Transparency � what data would help hold local services to account? Access to finance � how can you support development of capacity in the local VCS/social enterprises? Where do you want to challenge central government about how it is standing in the way?

15. Building the Big SocietyThank you months months