BIG society - BIG responsibility

In implementing his "big society" ideas, David Cameron faces choices says Andy Rickell and it's to our advantage that he chooses well

I believe the origin of David Cameron’s “big society” is the “Sermon on the Mound” – the speech made by Margaret Thatcher in May 1988 to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland when she said “There is no such thing as society”.

So clearly wrong is that statement in fact, and so clearly is that statement indicative of an extreme conservatism, that Cameron needed to rehabilitate the Tory party as an active supporter of collective human social action beyond the state – hence “big society”.

For the “big society” to be a really good thing, Cameron has two choices to make and he must choose both correctly, otherwise disabled people and their organisations will suffer.

The first choice is between the two models of collective voluntary activity – the charity and the community organisation. The charity is the model developed in the Victorian era – group A works together to improve the lot of group B. The traditional large disability charities are examples of this – disabled people are their beneficiaries but it is non-disabled people who primarily lead and staff them.

The community organisation is a model often described as self-help but it is where members of a community democratically work together to benefit members of the same community.

Disabled people’s organisations are examples of this – disabled people are not only the beneficiaries but also the leaders and often the providers too. “Big society” needs to champion the self-help model and challenge the charity model. A charity model is less formally accountable than the state to its beneficiaries.

The second choice is between a laissez-faire approach to the development of “big society” activity, or a pro-active support approach for “communities” with less capacity.

If a laissez-faire approach is adopted, it will be unfair and not address disadvantage. Local leadership opportunities will be grabbed by individuals in communities of place or interest who already have the resources to do so – the wealthy, the well-connected, the articulate, those already able to get powerful positions – sometimes summed up as “the sharp-elbowed middle classes”. As we disabled people are amongst the poorest, with poor social networks, already struggling to get the support or the positions that enable our voices to be heard, we will fall further behind.

The pro-active support approach would focus on those who want to take control collectively over aspects of their lives, but who need support to build their capacity to do so. This approach would truly empower those currently most disempowered, and that would definitely include disabled people and our collective activity. The state would need to fund such capacity building initiatives, but it would pay back multi-fold, and would have major knock-on benefits in terms of building individuals’ personal capacity and self-actualisation – what we call true “independent living”. But it needs Cameron to recognise that some state intervention is needed.

And it needs his recognition that existing disabled people’s organisations already embody the model of the “big society” that we want to replicate, so existing DPOs should also get such support, rather than be trampled on in the rush to do something new which has happened till now.