'From the beginning, what the government means by the Big Society and localism has, to some extent, lacked clarity. This has had consequences: people don’t understand it so they ignore it or they interpret it in a way that suits them'
Mark Lawrie, head of local and regional government at Deloitte
The government’s plans to shift public service delivery to a local level could hit a wall if communities are not given clarity and leadership, a new report warns this week.
One of the UK’s leading professional services firms, Deloitte LLP, claims in A little local difficulty that the government’s flagship policy of devolving power, central to its localism and Big Society agendas, ‘requires leadership to build consensus and bring clarity to the varying interpretations of what localism means’.
Mark Lawrie, head of local and regional government at Deloitte, said a lack of understanding has led to communities ignoring localism and the Big Society rather than engaging with these policies.
‘From the beginning, what the government means by the Big Society and localism has, to some extent, lacked clarity,’ he said.
‘This has had consequences: people don’t understand it so they ignore it or they interpret it in a way that suits them.
‘Clearly, for the government’s localism vision to be realised, it needs to provide the leadership necessary to bring clarity to the interpretation as well as remove the barriers to implementation.’
The report says that without this, localism could be limited to ‘a few flagship reforms that have concrete policy direction, such as health and education’. In these areas the government has set out clear plans for social enterprises and other civil society organisations to deliver health services and for communities to run their own schools.
However, both the localism and Big Society agendas are supposed to support a more widespread use of social enterprise models, especially co-operatives and mutuals, which could take over the running of shops, pubs, community centres, transport services, and local services like recycling collections.
Deloitte interviewed 15 local authorities CEOs, who collectively manage over £7.4bn and employ more than 100,000 people. It found that 80 per cent of councils asked do not have a specific strategy in place to address localism, that community engagement was their primary challenge and that there was a lack of consensus on what localism actually means.
It concluded that local authorities need:
Download the report below.
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Comments
Doing it global
There's a new resource on Facebook called the Economics of Happiness who've just made me part of their admin team. It is all about localism.
We began our efforts in Russia by sourcing the Tomsk Regional Initiative and now engage in Ukraine's Sumy State University to offer presentations on Economics for Ecology.
In the Guardian social enterprise network today, I convey in a response, how sharing ideas in social enterprise has created ripples in the way we think now about doing things bottom up. Tomsk was the beginning, coming in behind Harvard and the Defense Enterprise Fund after $20 billion US investment in creating a free market economy disappeared and instead created a financial mafia.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-enterprise-network/2011/jan/27/learning-from-open-source-geof-cox
Jeff Mowatt
People-Centered Economic Development
p-ced.com
people-centered.net
Localism needs leadership (and business skills)
Before becoming a business consultant and lecturer, I worked in the third (voluntary) sector for many years and attempted to pioneer self-sufficiency within the organisations I worked for.
I had some notable successes, e.g. the first service level agreement signed with a voluntary organisation in Cleveland and a pioneer ‘national’ self-supporting care in the community project.
Contrasting my current work with my previous third sector activities I have one overriding observation, and concern.
To build a management team for a successful business, I would advise handpicked team members having both a shared strategic vision and, as importantly, specific areas of expertise, e.g. management, marketing, production and finance, etc.
Within many third sector organisations people elected to powerful positions such as trustees, or board members, are regularly chosen for many other reasons than the above, e.g. political, strongest views or just happen to live near the social enterprise.
My experience has shown that many have no basic business knowledge or understanding whatsoever and that some even have counterproductive agendas.
How can this government expect third sector organisations to be the backbone of future community economic stability without first providing the managerial training required to give these people the necessary skills needed to direct new organisations successfully?
Adrian Beadnell
I am a business and enterpise adviser, consultant and trainer currently developing a centre of excellence for third sector management training and social enterprise development in the North East.