Putting people first is the mantra of public services policy. But how can providers involve communities in delivering services that meet their needs when public funding is tight? Jessica Sellick investigates.
The Coalition’s ‘Programme for Government’ aims to shift power from Westminster to give new powers to local councils, communities, neighbourhoods and individuals. The proposals include: granting greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups; providing new powers to help communities save local facilities and services threatened with closure; supporting the creation and expansion of mutual’s, co-operatives, charities and social enterprises; and the greater roll out of personal budgets to give more people and their carers more control. The platform on which the proposals sit, ‘Building the Big Society’, aspires to deliver this reform by putting more power and opportunity into people’s hands. With blueprints covering the future of health care, schools and higher education starting to emerge, and far reaching cuts in public expenditure anticipated, what opportunities and challenges do some of these proposals present for rural communities? I would like to offer four points.
Firstly, in terms of policy, the Coalition Government wants to move away from ‘big government’ to the ‘big society’, inspiring more people to work together to run their affairs locally to mend ‘broken society’ and address the public deficit. On 13 July the Prime Minister launched The Big Society Network, a government organisation to act as a tool-box of advice and case histories, with links to people and resources, using the power of the Internet, Mobiles and face-to-face action. From November 2010 this will be accompanied by ‘your square mile’, a new website providing a guide for people wanting to get more involved in their local community (e.g. organising traditional street parties, the ability of residents to call upon a pool of volunteers in their neighbourhood to help with anything from a life to the shops to babysitting). The website will cover all 94,000 square miles in the UK and be operated as a mutual society.
Alongside this, ‘‘The Spending Challenge’, a Treasury led website, is already live and asking the public ‘how can we re-think government to deliver more for less?’; and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has promised an end to “ludicrous” local authority (non-jobs) and will soon require councils to publish details of all expenditure above £500 (from January 2011). While the idea of the big society is still to be grasped and debates around if and how the idea will improve things is emerging – is it a reinvention of the community development wheel? Is it about developing creative community led solutions to local problems? Is it a mask for public sector funding cuts? – it is worth noting that some of the Coalition Government’s aspirations are not new and indeed build upon the previous (Labour) administration. Take health care for example, the Labour administration’s White Paper ‘our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services’ and subsequent reports (e.g. ‘High Quality Care For All: NHS Next Stage Review’; ‘Primary and Community Care Strategy’) set out plans for more personalised care delivery tailored to the needs of the individual and more integrated services, provided by a range of different organisations, including social enterprises. Interestingly, in July 2010, the Coalition government set out their plans in the White Paper ‘equity and excellence: liberating the NHS’ which also aims to use resources more effectively by empowering staff (particularly GPs), patients and users, and encouraging employee led social enterprises to deliver care.
Secondly, in practice, it is important to acknowledge that many rural residents already have the confidence, value and take pride in doing things for themselves and others that relates to both their involvement in public and community activities and to the development of social enterprises. From the growing of food for personal and local consumption (e.g. community supported agriculture schemes) to online collaborations to find out about and/or campaign for better public services (e.g. community websites) – these ‘local options’ open up access to services in ways that are locally relevant. The Plunkett Foundation is currently undertaking a review of the economic, social and environmental impacts of rural social enterprises in England on behalf of Defra and the Office for Civil Society within the Cabinet Office. It is also important to acknowledge how a little bit of public money goes a long way in rural places and how many rural local authorities are already pioneering new ways of local service delivery (e.g. by entering into shared services arrangements with neighbouring authorities).
Thirdly, it is worth thinking through how the Big Society could present new opportunities for rural communities – shifting them from campaigning for better services to actually running them, working with and on behalf of local authorities and other agencies. A range of models and best practice guidance already exists that could be drawn upon. Gloucestershire Rural Services Support Unit, for example, has produced a toolkit to help rural communities retain and improve their local services (e.g. transport, health, schools and housing); Action with Communities in Cumbria has published guidance on setting up an ‘Exchange’, a local meeting place and venue for selling goods and services in your community in the face of the loss of rural services; and Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) and Action for Market Towns (AMT) have launched of a new project that will examine how local authorities can make the most of Community Led Planning (CLP) and to promote the Big Society.
While these documents and consultations are concerned with the retention and improvement of local services, the next step is for rural communities to take on the tenure for running services. Action in Rural Sussex produces guidance to communities on setting up and sustaining social enterprises through its Social Enterprise Support Programme. The Village Companies Project (VCP) launched by Leicester Housing Association in 1999, works with volunteer directors in communities in the former coalfields of Nottinghamshire to springboard the development of new social enterprises, providing practical assistance on starting up and sustaining businesses. VCP led schemes have included the provision of affordable home maintenance and DIY services and delivering community facilities (e.g. coffee shop, training facilities, advice centre). Can these different community driven models be adapted and scaled up to give rural residents control over local services?
Fourthly, for rural communities considering taking on the delivery of public services a support package of high quality, affordable and appropriate business support and advice will be required. At the outset this requires feasibility and planning support. For example, what does the community want to do? Which community members would like to get involved? What community model is most appropriate (e.g. forming a village company) and can it create local employment, support people in isolated communities, reduce carbon footprints etc? Will it be sustainable in the long term? These questions also require communities, local authorities and other agencies to think carefully about the potential market for services in rural settlements (e.g. different types of settlements may require different services and rural communities will have different templates for the services that they would like to deliver).
If a community group wanted to proceed and form a ‘village company’ the feasibility package would need to be followed up with a range of technical support covering legal issues (i.e., selecting the most appropriate constitution for an organisation, drawing up contracts with the public sector, employing staff and managing volunteers), financial (e.g. generating sufficient income to ensure sustainability), regulatory frameworks (e.g. Health and Safety legislation) and a programme of ongoing support. While getting people at local level to take an interest in and more responsibility to do more to help their neighbours and communities can be viewed as an alternative to action taken by state institutions and public services, for some commentators the idea of the big society remains a lot of hot air – crucially, what economic resources, especially in an evolving landscape of public sector funding cuts, will be deployed by central government to assist with this process?
And how will rural communities, neighbourhoods, individuals and local authorities be supported?
Jessica is a rural practitioner at Rose Regeneration. She can be contacted by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone on 01522 521211.