Street spirit: a community veteran's guide to the Big Society

Sarah Townsend reviews a book that aims to set out the secrets of successful community regeneration

David Robinson is chief executive of east London charity Community Links, which works to support social regeneration initiatives in the deprived London boroughs of Newham and Tower Hamlets.

He recently published a short book, Out of the ordinary: learning from the Community Links’ approach to social regeneration, which claims to uncover the secrets of social regeneration and what makes a great community worker. Having co-founded Community Links 33 years ago and headed up the charity ever since, Robinson is probably more in-the-know than many.

'A fence at the top of a cliff is always better than an ambulance at the bottom' David Robinson

In the book he claims that a successful Big Society organisation does not arrive by accident, or good luck, but is carefully created and can be replicated.

He draws on lessons learned from the experience of Rokeby Hub in Stratford, one of the 21 east London-based neighbourhood centres that Community Links manages, and suggests reasons for its success. The centre, which attracts around 200 people each week, offers a range of community activities, from mother and toddler groups to pensioners’ bingo sessions, youth clubs and after-school children’s projects.

The book claims that, since opening in 2009, there has been a 49 per cent drop in reported incidents of antisocial behaviour on the local housing estate and a 56 per cent drop in reported crime – attributed both to the police and the work of the hub, Robinson says.

It suggests that "housing a range of disparate and unconnected activities under one roof is not in itself a sufficiently helpful service for anyone – particularly for [disadvantaged] people whose lives are often complicated, troubled and chaotic". Instead, the programme of activities, the services provided, the staff – both paid and voluntary – and the links between them are crucial, so that service users feel connected with other people and activities in the local area, the book says.

It includes a list of 15 attributes of a successful community worker, among them: always seeing the person, not the problem; being able to exert influence, not control, and being an active and passionate collaborator.

The book also stresses the importance of early intervention, or "early action", as Robinson describes it, in disadvantaged communities. At one point he writes: “A fence at the top of a cliff is always better than an ambulance at the bottom.”

This is something Robinson reiterates in an interview with Society Guardian published yesterday, where he says: "We need to become an 'early action' economy," – for example focussing available resources on youth clubs and community groups that can work with people at a very local level and prevent problems spiralling out of control at a later date.

Out of the ordinary: learning from the Community Links' approach to social regeneration has been self-published by Community Links and is being sold without a cover price. The charity asks that readers donate what they think it is worth having read it, which we reckon makes Robinson the Thom Yorke of the community sector - in 2007, Yorke’s band Radiohead asked their fans to donate to the band whatever they thought their In Rainbows album was worth.

It worked for Radiohead. Let’s hope it works for Community Links. Email Richard McKeever at the address here to request a copy.

Blears: Big Society is nothing new

Hazel Blears: I haven't seen any new ideas from..., posted with vodpod

The former communities secretary and Salford's MP since 1997 talks to Richard Garlick on the sidelines of the recent Northern Regeneration Summit to discuss the public sector's role in creating the BBC's new Northern base, Media City; how it takes generations to empower communities; and why she thinks there is nothing new in David Cameron's vision of a Big Society.

Tory conference in quotes

Here is my pick of the top ten quotes from this year's Conservative Party conference, held at the ICC in Birmingham.

1) "Five of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) bids [that the department received] were absolute stonkers." Eric Pickles, secretary of state for communities and local government:

2) "The current economic situation is not an environment in which I would have chosen to work as housing minister." Housing minister Grant Shapps

3) "This is clearly what I'm going to have to deal with as I get more famous - everybody will hear everything about me." Phillip Blond, director of think-tank ResPublica, on discovering that a vast number of conference delegates had found out that he was refused entry to the Hyatt Regency's private bar because it was too full.

4) "The idea of the Big Society is a bit like the idea of the Holy Trinity: even when it's explained to you, you still don't really get it." Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the National Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo) and chair of the Social Investment Business:

5) "And now I'm going to explain to you why Total Place is total b*&@$cks." Professor John Seddon, chief executive of Vanguard Consulting, speaking on the panel at a fringe event organised by think-tank Localis:

6) "Eric [Pickles, communities secretary] has come in to Government and hit the ground sprinting - and let me tell you, this is a pretty remarkable sight." Prime Minister David Cameron, in his speech to conference.

7) "Wow, even the drinks here are Tory!" Guests at a cocktail reception organised by the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), on being offered startling-blue coloured beverages.

8) "The thing that bothers me about the Big Society is the idea of all these do-gooders running around. There'll be a sort of sanitised social action that'll drown out any fun, informal, spontaneous community activity." Claire Fox, director of think-tank the Institute of Ideas.

9) "I fear the Government is making the mistake of viewing the Big Society as a mechanism by which people can thrive without requiring investment." David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation.

10) "I have no idea where my appendix is." Lord Wei, the Government's adviser on the Big Society, on health services reform and the general idea that people should take more responsibility for local public services.

More from the Conservative Party conference

Clap your hands if you like the Big Society

David Cameron's first-ever conference speech as prime minister in Birmingham yesterday was notable for the lack of applause he received whenever he mentioned three words: the Big Society.

Compared to some of the policy areas Cameron touched on - in particular crime, Afghanistan, financial regulation, tackling the deficit and, of course, sorting out what he called "the mess that Labour has left the country in", which all received standing ovations from the party faithful, the natural pauses that followed statements on the Big Society were met with a resounding silence.

For example, the Prime Minister spoke at length about citizen responsibility and the Big Society, saying: "The state of our nation isn't just determined by the Government and those that run it ... citizenship isn't a transaction - in which you put your taxes in and get your services out. It's a relationship - you're part of something bigger than you, and it matters what you think and feel and do. So to get out of this mess we're in, changing the Government is not enough. We need to change the way we think about ... our role in society."

If the party faithful aren't excited about it, how can they be counted on to turn Cameron's vision into reality?

This part of the speech culminated in Lord Kitchener's rallying call: "Your country needs you." Cameron then went on to talk about the "Big Society spirit", finishing with the rather school-masterly lines: "[We need] a country defined not by what we consume but by what we contribute - a country, a society, where we say: I am not alone. I will play my part. I will work with others to give Britain a brand new start."

It received absolutely no applause whatsoever.

Similarly, the part of Cameron's speech that focused on the coalition's localism agenda ("We're putting [the running of] public services in your hands ... saying to businesses, faith groups, charities, social enterprises - come in and provide a great service. That is the power shift this country needs today") failed to elicit even a half-hearted response from delegates who, presumably, don't feel quite as happy about taking on more responsibility for public service delivery as the Government does about giving it up.

So I can't help thinking that the bottom line is this: If the party faithful aren't even excited about the Big Society, can they really be counted on to get together and start helping out their communities to turn it into a reality?

At a conference fringe event on how the Big Society might work in deprived communities, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: "The idea of the Big Society has real traction now. This was never illustrated better than a recent Newsnight series that attempted to show up the Big Society as an empty, vacuous policy by questioning members of the public about what they thought. But in fact it failed, because when it was explained to people, they actually thought that it was rather a good idea."

At this point Maude probably wasn't aware of the new Ipsos Mori/Social Investment Business poll that found that 54 per cent of survey respondents said they thought that, while the Big Society was a good idea in principle, it would not work in practice. In any case, he then went on to admit that the Big Society would be "chaotic and disorderly", as the coalition Government has not worked up a formal strategy for delivering the agenda and does not plan to either.

He told delegates: "There’s a paradox here. If the Government is to roll back the state to allow civil society to flourish, it can’t then work up a formal programme for how this will occur. No one ordains what happens in a capitalist economy. The same should happen in the Big Society."

This, too, does not fill me with massive confidence in the Big Society. I recognise that the civil society by its very nature organic and gradual. But if the coalition Government is going to talk about how it wants to nurture this development, shouldn't it have a few more clear-cut policy ideas than it has announced so far?

What's more, at a separate fringe event organised by think-tank Policy Exchange and the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo) titled The Big Society: What does it really mean?, the Government's Big Society adviser Lord Wei failed to sum up the concept convincingly, saying only that it "appeals to people's passions" and involves Whitehall "releasing lots of power". We hope Lord Wei will embellish on his answer next week when he addresses our own Northern Regeneration Summit in Manchester.

Finally, the one Big Society policy announcement that the PM made in his speech was a new government programme that will allow disadvantaged 18-22-year-olds to take part in volunteering projects overseas. This so-called International Citizen Service - an expansion of the coalition's National Citizen Service for 16-19-year-olds to get involved in social projects in their local communities - is going to cost the Government £10 million.

It is the only strand of the Big Society agenda for which the Government has confirmed any funding. We know that a proposed fund called Communities First will help fund the training of the 5,000 community organisers, but have not been told how big this fund will be; we don't know how much will be available through the Big Society Bank and, so far, the Government has failed to commit any funding to existing community organisations that are already delivering most of the Big Society objectives.

My guess is that the announcement of this £10 million for projects that aren't even taking place in the UK is going to ruffle more than a few feathers in the voluntary and community sector.

More from the Conservative Party conference

What Ed's 'new generation' means for renewal

Labour's new leader is seeking to join the dots between service delivery, localism and people's expectations, reports deputy editor Jamie Carpenter from Manchester

"The new generation of Labour is different," new Labour leader Ed Miliband told the Labour Party conference in Manchester yesterday. "Different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics." His speech - the first made by a Labour leader in opposition for 14 years - was intended to kickstart the regeneration of the party. But what does the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader signal for the party's approach to regeneration?

His first speech as leader offers some clues, suggesting that Miliband at least plans to match the coalition's rhetoric on localism and intends to seize the initiative on the Big Society agenda. "We need more decisions to be made locally, with local democracy free of the constraints we have placed on it in the past and free on an attitude that has looked down its nose on local government," Miliband said.

Miliband drafted the 2010 election manifesto, which identified regeneration spending as a 'lower priority' area

"He is indicating a real respect and enthusiasm for local government," says shadow regeneration and local government minister Gordon Marsden, who I caught up with earlier today at the conference in Manchester. "He's begun to make a very interesting connection between service delivery, people's expectations and localism. That doesn't surprise me at all, because his two previous portfolios in government [as third sector minister and climate change secretary] were both ones that supported a much more radical, bottom-up view of regeneration and local activity."

Marsden says that Miliband's "interesting devolving philosophical approach" will prove to be a "substantial challenge" to Prime Minister David Cameron's Big Society agenda. Shadow financial secretary to the Treasury Stephen Timms, meanwhile, suggested at a New Statesman fringe meeting earlier this week that a plan outlined during Miliband's campaign to offer tax cuts to companies prepared to pay their workers a "living wage" of at least £7.60 an hour, could be used in other instances to encourage firms to assist in the regeneration of their areas.

But the new Labour leader made it clear in his speech that he will not oppose every cut proposed by the coalition Government. "There will be some things that the coalition does that we won't like as a party, but we will have to support," he said. Regeneration professionals hoping that Miliband will fight the sector's corner when the coalition unveils its Comprehensive Spending Review next month could face disappointment.

Miliband drafted the Labour Party's 2010 general election manifesto, which identified regeneration spending as a "lower priority" area that would have faced cuts should the party have kept the keys to Downing Street. He told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 in April: "I think regeneration spending is very very important ... but as we look forward it isn't the biggest priority we face when we face some other competing priorities."

The Labour Party's record on regeneration has been discussed in some detail in fringe meetings over the last few days. The view from panelists and delegates has been the party helped bring about city centre regeneration in cities such as Manchester, but also that a new model is now needed. "If you compare our major cities in 1997 with as they are now ... there has been a transformation," says Marsden. "The big challenge still ... is how we maintain improvements in our second level towns and cities. We need to have a regeneration that reaches out from the core cities and benefits those areas as well."

Stoke-on-Trent Central MP Tristram Hunt, meanwhile, told a fringe meeting last night organised by think-tank the Centre for Cities that the Labour government had got "bogged down" in the governance arrangments of city-regions at the expense of focusing on economic growth. He also had the following choice words: "Regeneration, as we've conceived of it, has ground to a halt in the eyes of civil servants in Whitehall. They have come to the conclusion it doesn't work."

- More news from the Labour Party conference

Big Society faces Northern Ireland test

It is in Northern Ireland that David Cameron’s vision for a "Big Society" will be most sternly tested, reports Ben Cook

The country was torn apart by decades of violence in the latter part of the 20th century, and while community relations have improved significantly since the particularly dark days of the 1970s and 1980s, there are fears that the seeds of more conflict are being sown - only last week it was reported that dissident republicans had been blamed for a gun attack on a house in the Bogside area of Derry.

So, what are the prospects for the Conservative Party leader’s Big Society in Northern Ireland? Not good, as I discovered on a recent visit to Belfast. This is largely because the coalition Government – and, in turn, the Northern Ireland Executive – is withdrawing funding from the organisations that seek to bring rival nationalist/republican/catholic and loyalist/unionist/protestant communities together in order to build the “Big Society” Cameron eulogises.

Earlier this year, Groundwork Northern Ireland, the charity whose staff work tirelessly to ease tensions between communities – particularly in Belfast – had its funding cut by £200,000 by the Department for Social Development.

'A Big Society without resources is nonsense.'
Ashton Community Trust member

A member of staff at the Ashton Community Trust, an organisation focussing on social and economic regeneration in Belfast, told me that "the idea of the Big Society – without material resources – is nonsense".

"I see the Big Society as getting things on the cheap", he added.

The easing of community tensions since the end of the troubles has, it is argued, actually led to an increase in criminal activity in Belfast.

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The Ashton Community Trust representative said that paramilitary groups – on both sides of the political divide – had in the past "offered protection against drug dealers and thugs", but despite the end of political violence in the province, social conditions have not improved, and the void left by the decline of paramilitary organisations has been "filled by criminal elements".

If the coalition government wants to ensure the Big Society takes root in Northern Ireland, it is vital that organisations responsible for community-building – such as Groundwork NI and the Ashton Community Trust – are adequately supported and, more importantly, funded.

POSTED BY BEN COOK

The Big Society 'ecosystem' - Nat Wei's maiden Lords speech

Nat Wei, the newly appointed peer and government adviser on the Big Society agenda, yesterday gave his maiden speech to the House of Lords.

In it, he attempted to explain exactly what is meant by the phrase 'big society' - which was reported to have confused even senior Tory officials tasked with selling the idea to voters. Wei, a former McKinsey consultant who co-founded Teach First, an education charity that places top graduates on two-year teaching stints in deprived, inner-city schools, said of the Conservatives' flagship idea for social reform: "The Big Society describes a set of policies to give more powers to people closer to where they live, help increase the capacity and resources of civil society to take up such powers and encourage a sense of collective progress and momentum, since it can be hard to 'bowl alone'."

He added that the Big Society reflected the fact that "civil society is now, more than ever, being asked about what role it wants to play in shaping our collective social future, in driving long-term [social] change and solving entrenched problems. ... It is a widespread topic of debate for the first time in generations."

Wei then went on to compare Big Society to a coral reef - I'm not sure whether this makes the concept easier to understand, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that.

"The Big Society policies are about nurturing an ecosystem. I describe this [ecosystem] as the Big Society coral reef ... it combines the seabed, which is the bedrock of our public services - to protect the vulnerable - and then the coral, which is represented by the many current and future providers of those services. Last but not least is the fish that feed in these waters, the local citizen groups that can extend, vivify and shape this landscape in ambitious, as well as humble, ways. No single part of this landscape can or should dominate, but by working together it comes to form a whole that is more than the sum of its parts."

All clear then?

The problem is that one of the main criticisms of the Big Society agenda is that it is too "woolly" and lacking in substantial, realistic policies. Does Wei, in using the coral reef image - however 'nice' it is - risk sowing further confusion?

The 'Big Society' backlash: Was it regeneration wot lost it?

Over the weekend there were a number of interesting stories relating to the fallout from last week's general election. According to the reports, the knives are already out for Tory leader David Cameron following his failure to achieve an outright majority. And interestingly, one reason cited again and again as being one of the factors behind the Conservative Party's failure to win a majority, was Cameron's flagship Big Society policy - one of the few regeneration-related big ideas to emerge from the three main parties' manifestos.

According to a report in the Observer, many MPs and candidates are "furious" that they had to sell the Big Society, in which citizens volunteer their free time for community action, on the doorstep. "The message was completely woolly. We had nothing to say," one senior MP told the newspaper. "Instead of this complete crap about Big Society we should have had a series of simple messages."

Meanwhile, a piece in the Times says that the Tory manifesto's theme of the Big Society was intended to project a sense of optimism and bold thinking, which Tory candidates and activists struggled to convey to voters. "It was too opaque a concept to sell on the doorsteps," a figure close to the campaign told the newspaper. "What was worse was that it had not even been tested in focus groups before the manifesto launch."

According to an article in the Sunday Telegraph, as activists complained that the idea was difficult to sell to voters, Bill Knapp, the US political consultant hired to help Cameron, asked Tory head of strategy Steve Hilton what research had been done into what voters thought of the Big Society. "The answer was none," the newspaper reported. "After a hurriedly convened focus group detailed a negative reaction, Mr Hilton stormed out."

So should the backlash against the Big Society be of concern to regeneration professionals should the Tories succeed in forming the next government? The idea has received a mixed response from the regeneration sector - some practitioners, no doubt, would not lose any sleep should the Tories choose to quietly drop the plan. But given the lack of emphasis given to regeneration during the election campaign, it would be a shame if the only main party to set out some sort of regeneration vision in its manifesto was to drop the centrepiece of that plan.