Prime minister promises handover of powers to communities in Big Society plan
Local communities will have new powers to take over the running of parks, libraries and post offices as well as to plan “the look, size, shape and feel” of housing developments, the Prime Minister said today as he provided more detail on the government’s Big Society initiative.
Speaking in Liverpool, David Cameron announced that four “vanguard” Big Society projects would take place in Eden Valley in Cumbria, Windsor and Maidenhead, Sutton and Liverpool.
Their ideas include “devolving budgets to street-level, to developing local transport services, taking over local assets such as a pub, piloting open-source planning, delivering broadband to local communities, [and] generating their own energy”.
These projects will be given support from officials at the Department for Communities and Local Government. “If there’s a problem or obstacle or bureaucratic log-jam, they will be there, on hand, to help break them down and get things moving,” the Prime Minister said.
The government will also “work with communities to help identify and fund a community organiser for each area”, who would be trained individuals with knowledge of how to stimulate local support for community action.
Cameron admitted there would be problems – “financial problems, legal problems, bureaucratic problems” – as the plans are moved forward, and that there would objections, whether locally or from vested interests.
But he added: “We’re happy about that. This process is all about learning. It’s about pushing down power and seeing what happens. It’s about unearthing the problems as they come up on the ground and seeing how we can get round them. It’s about holding our hands up and saying we haven’t got all the answers – let’s work them out, together.”
The Prime Minister said that three key strands to the Big Society initiative were social action, public service reform and community empowerment. To galvanise these strands, he suggested, would take decentralisation, transparency and the provision of finance.
The government, Cameron said, would launch a Big Society bank to help finance social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups “through intermediaries”.
The bank will be established by using the money in dormant bank and building society accounts in England. Leveraged with private sector investment, this would release hundreds of millions of pounds, he claimed.
However, critics have warned that charities and voluntary groups are already facing severe cutbacks in the funding they receive from local authorities and other public sector bodies.
