Big Society

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Like the two previous speakers, I do not want to talk about the theory of the big society. Instead, I want to talk about the reality of what is happening now. How can anyone argue with the notion of a big society—a society of stronger communities, where decisions are devolved to the most local level possible and where social action is encouraged? The problem is that the Government fundamentally do not understand that the big society already exists and they are hell-bent on destroying it.

There are already millions of people volunteering in this country. They run youth clubs and lunch clubs for the elderly. They run community centres and mentor offenders. They run churches and work with the homeless. They support battered women and provide meals on wheels. However, there is a common theme that runs through the circumstances of almost every voluntary and community group: they receive grant aid or other support from local authorities and, somewhere along the line, they are supported by paid staff. These may be people working directly in their organisation, such as in my Horwich and Westhoughton visiting services, where part-time co-ordinators recruit and train the volunteers, seek the elderly who need visiting and do the administration such as paying expenses to volunteers, thus leaving the volunteers to do what they have signed up for: visit elderly and disabled lonely people. It may be the paid person in the council for voluntary service—CVS—or the council who helps the group get funding or set up and organise itself, or it may be the paid people working in the group’s headquarters, such as at the Scouts and Guides. All of these people are essential for the voluntary sector to survive and thrive.

The Government also seem to ignore the need for professional workers to work alongside volunteers—for people to train volunteers, to mentor them, to ensure that the work undertaken is safe and appropriate, and to deliver the work alongside them. Volunteers are not, and cannot be, a substitute for them. Groups also need funding for room hire and equipment and resources, and an endless list of other things. Of course the voluntary sector fundraises, but many groups find funding hard to come by. Those rooted in poor areas, and especially those dealing with unpopular problems such as alcohol and drug misuse or offending or mental health issues, find fundraising difficult and sometimes impossible.

Volunteers and the community and voluntary sector are not free; they are not a cheap alternative to the maintained sector. They need Government support. Instead of giving support, however, the Government are destabilising the sector through cuts to direct grants and to local authority budgets. Fledgling organisations will not now get off the ground, and organisations such as Bolton Community and Voluntary Services will not be able to support them. I hope the Minister does not respond by saying that local authorities should protect the voluntary sector, because Bolton council is doing what it can to protect voluntary groups, but the Government have chosen to cut too deeply, too fast. Bolton will lose a quarter of its budget over the next four years. The Government are making the choice—the wrong choice—and leaving the local authorities to implement their cuts.

An example of Government madness is the cut to vinvolved, the national youth volunteering programme, whose funding will be cut at the end of March. This project is the big society in action, with young people being trained as volunteers to work in every sort of project we can imagine. Vinvolved provided fun, exciting and eye-opening volunteer experiences for young people. It provided one-to-one tailored, sustained support. Most of the young people engaged in the project were experiencing difficult social and economic circumstances; indeed, many were at risk of social exclusion. Volunteering enhances young people’s employability, gives them the opportunity to gain experience to put on their CVs, and allows them to get references and to develop contacts to help them find full-time work. It enables them to give back to their communities and, perhaps most importantly, gives them confidence and self-respect. What is the Government’s replacement? It is an eight-week summer programme for 16-year-olds.

I have spoken before in this House about the honour I had of presenting the volunteer of the year award for Greater Manchester to Matthew, a 21-year-old from Bolton. Matthew has multiple disabilities, had no confidence and was doing nothing. His Connexions adviser referred him to vinvolved, and he was offered a number of volunteering opportunities, which he took up. He became a dedicated and valued member of the team at StreetWise Soccer, and teaches soccer skills to a range of people several times a week. He is now taking a coaching course so that he can teach football to disabled young people. He would not be doing any of this if it were not for vinvolved.

Who is going to support young people into volunteering now? The Greater Manchester v team award was won by Bolton YMCA’s youth council. It is involved in fundraising, project planning, decorating, writing funding bids and supporting individual projects and users alike. It was said to be

“dedicated, energetic and a credit to the YMCA”.

However, without local authority funding and Government grants, the YMCA will not be able to employ the youth workers who support young people and other voluntary youth workers. They are the big society in action, but they are in jeopardy because of the Tory-led Government.

If we need further evidence, the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services has stated that three quarters of youth charities are cutting projects, and 80% of them are being cut because of the end of targeted help from the Government. The Government’s decision to front-load cuts is also creating chaos for the voluntary and community sector, leaving groups no time to find alternative funding. At present, 6% of the work force of Greater Manchester is employed in the sector. I will be very interested to see what that figure is after April.

I visited Moss Bank Park animal world last Thursday. The council is having to withdraw funding because of the £60 million in cuts it must find over two years, with £42 million to be found this year. A group of volunteers is forming who would love to take over animal world and the butterfly house, but who are in a race against time to get organised and to get funding in place. If the council had to cut only £18 million this year and £42 million next year, the group would have a better chance—but, no, the Government are going ahead, too deep and too fast.

The coalition parties want to take the state out of support for our society and want to do away with any targets. However, targets are the device that ensures that the vulnerable—such as teenage mums and homeless addicts, and young scallies hanging out on street corners who are unwelcome in the voluntary youth club—get the services they need. The state has a duty to ensure that our citizens get the support they need, and that cannot just be left to possible voluntary action.

The big society exists, but this Government are destroying it. The big society can never be a replacement for local authority services, however. The big society works best where there is a partnership between local authorities and the voluntary and community sector. Volunteers are not a replacement for paid, qualified, professional staff; they complement them. This Government must stop this destruction before it is too late.