We frequently hear of the Government’s ‘Big Society’ concept coming under attack. A recent lead article in the Church Times warns that churches and char¬ities in particular are warning that spending cuts will harm the voluntary sector. The retiring executive director of Community Service Volunteers (CSV), Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, has said that cuts risked ‘destroying the volunteer army’. The chief executive of Daylight Christian Prison Trust, John Scott, said that the Big Society needed ‘to be backed by funding to help charities make the most of their volunteers’.
These are sensible words of caution issued by people heavily involved with voluntary agencies and they act as a check and balance to the machinations of the state. However, I am hugely excited by the concept of a ‘Big Society' – am I alone in this? I find it exciting not because it is a new concept but it is new in the sense a Government is articulating it. Too often we hear words of opposition to it which are quite simply politically motivated and we hear repeatedly ‘What does it mean?’ often said in that pseudo-intellectual sneering way that belies the very fact that this concept - whilst it should not be immune to intellectual rigour - is what it says, an idea and one that looks to re-shift the focus from the state supporting the people to the people stating what it is they want from Government and what they can give to the country; an idea not a white paper. We have become so used to Government ‘propping-up’ every aspect of our lives that the prospect of doing something different has some politicians, community leaders and indeed Church leaders decrying this initiative, at best as a political slogan and at worst denigrating all those who promote or support it as idiots or naïve romanticists.
The Church should question it but embrace it wholeheartedly as an endorsement of our Christian beliefs and practices. Julian Glover in a Guardian article in November 2010 wrote; ‘A society reliant on statistical calculation can never be optimistic, as all we can ever see are the limits and the futures’. Anything that challenges the legacy of the last few decades that emphasises Government measuring and targeting everything deserves a chance. The Church should challenge where necessary but stop the petty rhetoric and wholeheartedly, ungrudgingly and non-politically support this concept – after all we started it!
