Group discussions at the Big Society event at Hereford

At the event each of the discussion groups was asked to come up with at least one suggestion for what they believe to be the key components of a Big Society – namely, what’s really needed for this to actually happen. After debating some of the main points in their groups, these are the issues which were presented to all of the delegates:

• Volunteer-led projects which are run without any government funding may have the opportunity to survive and thrive while other projects rely on external funding sources
• Once you have volunteers, they need to be taken care of and supported – they can easily get drawn into areas they don’t have experience in dealing with
• The administrative layer is necessary if it’s there to support workers, but not just for bureaucratic purposes alone
• Funding is the banof the third sector – lots of these projects can’t be done without money, and are reliant on it
• Matching resources with needs is going to be a huge task -
• Should be national recognition that there’s lots of good things happening already, and perhaps reward them with resources
• There are issues around social mobility and gaps between those who have and have not, which could lead to disengagement
• The aspiration is positive, but will the reality live up to it?
• There is a dangerous undercurrent of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ which perhaps surrounds the Big Society at the moment
• None of these things are going to happen without resources and support
• Continuity of funding – organisations need to know what resources will be available to them
• Real partnership working and knowing your community – the key ingredients of success, allied with a degree of freedom to work towards common aims, at a purely local level rather than working towards a regional or even national prescriptive remit