Making sense of 'society', 'Big Society' and the state

by Simon Bottery, director of fundraising, policy, and communications

I hit a raw nerve when I asked Lord Victor Adebowale at a conference Tuesday about David Cameron's view that, 'there is such a thing as society, it's just not the same as the state'. I was expecting him to be sceptical about aspects of the Big Society. I was vainly (both senses of the word) hoping that he might like my joke that, 'there is such a thing as society, it's just not the same as Guardian Society.' So I was surprised that he refused to find any truth whatsoever in Cameron's statement. I may have misunderstood, but he seemed to be saying that in reality there was no point in discussing one without the other.

Can this really be true? If I offer to help my neighbour clear her snow away from her front door, surely that is a good reflection of society. But has it anything to do with the state? Surely not. I may want and expect my local authority to clear snow from the roads and pavements, but am I really expecting thestate to have a role all the way up to my neighbour's front door and ven inside it?

My neighbour regularly collects parcels for me that are delivered when I am out. My family regularly feeds her cat while she is away. There are thousands of acts like this every day, carried out by individuals across the UK, who never expect to be supported by the state, paid or 'capacity built'.

Of course, there are also thousands of voluntary organisations who need support, development and funding. Formal volunteering roles are not free and anyone who thinks they are will be horribly confused if funding and support are withdrawn. But we shouldn't confuse or conflate one with the other.

Big Society: what does it all add up to?

By Simon Bottery, Director of Fundraising, Policy and Communications

I only narrowly passed my Maths GCSE but for some reason I think the Cameron concept of 'Big Society' is best framed as an equation:

Volunteers +Carers x (Third Sector + state - (inefficiency+bureaucracy)) = Big Society.

For the non-mathematicians (including me) this translates as:

Big Society is the combined activities of unpaid volunteers and carers, multiplied by the actions of government and the third sector, minus their inefficiencies and bureaucracy.

I think Cameron would definitely have the equation this way around, with the actions of volunteers and carers coming first and the role of the state and the formal third sector coming second. And I think he would see the main role of the formal third sector (the bit that gets paid to be here) as a multiplier (perhaps magnifier or even facilitator would be a better word) of volunteer and carer activities, rather than as a provider of fully paid-for, contracted services like the corporate sector.

I think he shares the view of much of middle England that there is a lot of inefficiency and bureaucracy in the state sector (and perhaps in the charity sector too. We wouldn’t seriously argue with this, would we? Would we?).

A critical issue might be whether he sees the government 'x' as a big multiplier or a small one. How much positive effect does government really have on the activities of volunteers and carers? Doubling their output? Trebling it? Increasing it by only a small percentage? Is it in fact more of a brake than a boost, detracting from their effort (volunteers + carers x third sector - state = big society).

We hope to do some work on what the Big Society might mean for older people in particular in the coming months and are looking for partners. If you’re interested, let me know.