There are no easy answers to difficult choices on Big Society

THIS week I was at the annual conference of the Social Policy Association in the University of Lincoln.

Over 100 academics from all over the world, with a small handful of Irish, each presented their research on different aspects of social policy. This is one of the nice parts of my job. One the one hand, there’s the work associated with doing the research, writing the paper; and then there’s the ritual of presenting work to a bunch of unknown colleagues who will ask questions about why it was done this way and not that, and whether or not the claims made for it really hold up. But on the other hand there’s a wonderful chance to sample everybody else’s research, to get a flavour of the ideas and arguments that everyone else is interested in and to see your own ideas and research in a much broader and more diverse context.

The title of the conference was Bigger societies, Smaller governments, and from this alone you can get a sense of the key themes running through a lot of the work. Overall, much of the conference activity was directed towards an interrogation of what the Big Society idea, currently being promoted by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in the UK, actually means. This is an idea that we in Ireland should also be familiar with: first, because many of the issues it raises are pertinent to our own organisation of government and society; and second, because it’s usually the case that at some point or another ‘big ideas from Over’ wash up on our shores in one form or another, only to be recycled by our own politicians and media in reference to Irish problems and policies.

So what is the Big Society idea? Like all big ideas — democracy, freedom, fairness — when you try and nail down exactly what it is, the details get a bit fuzzy. Essentially, it was an idea made prevalent by David Cameron, leader of the British Conservative party, in the UK elections last year. In Britain, when compared to the Conservative party, the Labour party is associated with more government spending and more support for government services — the so-called Big State. In coming up with the Big Society idea, Cameron was finding an alternative way to express traditional conservative values. Instead of talking only about proposed cuts to government spending (which though Margaret Thatcher made a virtue of it, is not generally seen as an election winner), David Cameron spoke of the increased emphasis on ‘Society’. Since Conservative values are typically regarded as more individualistic and less concerned with solidarity, the added bonus to this idea was that it pitched a soft notion of conservatism that acknowledged the importance of communities.

According to the Conservative MP, Jesse Norman, by emphasising the importance of societal relations within the state, in a myriad of non-state institutions and associations, the Big Society idea is both a rebuttal to the traditional right and the traditional left. For the right, the Big Society challenges their notion of citizens as largely individual, independent, economic actors, by suggesting the significance of community. For the left, it challenges their traditional tendency towards governmental control, by pointing to the authority and would-be autonomy of citizens empowered to make their own choices about the services they want. Not surprisingly, you might see why a debate about Big State versus Big Society’ is worth paying attention to in Ireland. With the current and continuing cuts in public expenditure, it looks like we’re all going to get a smaller state — whether or not we thought it was a good idea politically. So it’s worth looking at some of the issues that are thrown up by the British debate to see how they might play out here and what we can learn from them.

The first thing worth noting is that there seem to be two implicit assumptions in the Big Society — or the BS(?) — debate that they’re having over the water. The first is that government and society are natural opposites; the second is that government is universally assumed to be a bad thing. Taking the first idea, that if you have more society, you somehow need less government…Assuming that all society is good and that’s a bit of a sweeping idea (after all, there’s a big difference between setting up a neighbourhood watch scheme and starting a local vigilante group), why does there need to be less government for civil society to flourish? If we have a notion of civil society as that part of our lives that is not attached in any way to government and the state, then its health and welfare should be relatively independent of the government.

In the Irish case, however, for the last number of years, civil society has not been separate from the Irish state. Quite the opposite, it’s been comprehensively sponsored, funded and in some cases even had its representatives chosen for it, by government. It’s likely that this loss of independence was unintentional. The government, recognising the importance of community groups and associations, for their expertise, for their ability to target local services to local needs, and as legitimate advocates for special interests, sought to incorporate them into systems of national and local governance — most conspicuously in the appointment of a ‘Community and Voluntary pillar’ in national Social Partnership, as well as a variety of local level partnership schemes and initiatives. Still, the fact remains that one consequence of the celtic tiger boom for civil society organisations, was an increasing over-reliance on government and the loss of a strong, independent voice outside government.

Taking the second idea, that too much government is bad for you. How many people now think that the banks needed a bit more governmental control? Though it’s true that many people are disappointed in politicians and cynical about government, still most people still want more government services. Most people would like to see more gardaí tackling crime, more nurses in hospitals, more teachers in schools, better road and rail services, and some even their own local airport! For a few years in the boom, governments acted as though they could do everything that we wanted them to do. But we now know, as indeed we should always have known, that this really is not possible and that governments must make choices about the services they provide.

What we therefore need to do is decide what we do want, what values we hold dear, which services must be maintained above all others. We must think about which people, or what institutions are the most appropriate to organise and deliver the services that we cannot do without. And only then, when we’ve thought hard about the answers to these questions, will we know how much government we need and what it is reasonable to expect from society. We’re all going to have to make tough choices and we’re going to have to pay (one way or another) for the choices we make. The one thing we can certainly learn from the Big Society debate in the UK is that there is no quick and easy answer to the difficult choices that we face. Cutting first and asking these questions later is no way to plan our future.