Big Society – a question of time?
I awoke at 630am yesterday morning and as I looked across the marital bed I saw my wife sat up with a cup of tea, reading a big wad of papers.
It turned out she was reading the papers for the Board meeting of social enterprise where she is a director. She had received the papers the day before, and the meeting was that evening. In between she had a life to lead and full time job to attend to.
The Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, had tweeted something the day before that got me thinking:
On Radio Five talking about volunteering and #bigsociety. BBC poll says half people do not have time to give. Not my experience.
Here’s a link to a story about the poll that he mentions.
My initial reaction was my usual knee-jerk one which accompanies hearing a politician challenge a survey which doesn’t chime with their view of the world. I then, rightly or wrongly, found myself questioning his “experience”. I wondered what that experience is. I hear that he’s a decent, personable guy, and I don’t particularly have anything against him. And he can only have his experience, like we all can. But is that experience – probably a pretty decent upbringing, and then a life spent in a political bubble – really one which puts him in a strong position to challenge this research? I’m not sure.
But my morning wake-up call led me to think about this more. I actually don’t think it’s a question of time as such. Most of us have spare time. I spent two hours last night doing a combination of watching Boys from the Blackstuff, (which, incidently, should be required viewing for all sub 35 year old wonks in Whitehall) eating cake, texting friends and staring into space. I, like everyone of the Why Don’t You? generation, could easily have been doing something less boring instead. Like volunteering my time for the Big Society.
I think it’s more about capacity to take on extra responsibility. Antonia’s Board membership, on paper, takes up a maximum of 6 hours a month. And who doesn’t have six hours a month to spare? But who has the capacity to share the responsibility for a business which turns over a few million pounds, and which could, at any moment, call for more of your time than you have available, at that moment? Volunteering isn’t all Ha Ha Ha, Hee Hee Hee.
A few years ago I was on holiday in Mallorca and I got a phone call from a member of staff at the fairtrade social enterprise where I was a director (I’d previously been a member of staff). I was told that our landlord was calling in the receivers, as we were behind with our rent. I was then asked what I thought we should do about that. I’ve since learnt not to take my mobile on holiday.
So, yes, of course it’s nonesense for most of us to suggest that we don’t have time to do a bit more. But it’s perfectly understandable for many people to say that they don’t have the capacity to take on a greater burden than they’re already carrying. Big Society evangelists would do well to remember that.
Well, yes and an important point that you allude to is that many (possibly most) people who have the inclination to volunteer in the community are already doing so.
I grew up in a household where between full-time jobs, (mostly church-based) voluntary work, membership of community groups and visiting the family my parents generaly just about had enough free time left to have their dinner.
What is not yet clear is how the vision of a Big Society handed down from Whitehall will galvanise large numbers of people who don’t currently have that inclination to change their mind.
Of course, the previous government had a (not very successful) plan about strong-arming unemployed people into ‘volunteering’ in exchange for keeping their benefits. As the numbers of unemployed people grow, I hope this isn’t Mr Hurd’s plan too.
There’s reason to be suspicious of the “big society” – it wasn’t focus-grouped in advance of the election. Because it wasn’t so much a policy designed to attract people to the Tories as it was a policy idea designed to allow brand-decontamination without substantially changing the product. So we have massive cuts to public and voluntary services as planned, but dressed up in rhetoric and initiatives to bring on-side public servants and people in voluntary and community groups.
I’d want to know why your missus only got her papers the day before. This chimes with a story told to me recently by youth delegates to the Council of Europe who said they very often received reams of paperwork the day before. It was simply impossible to read them all. They felt this was a deliberate attempt to stop them being properly briefed – to dissuade interrogative questions. A tentative conclusion: much is made of community involvement but for many organisations, whether statutory or voluntary, it constitutes a pain in the backside.
I think the question of giving time to Big Society, volunteering etc could be more about who is giving the time rather than the amount of time we collectively give. The notion of doing more voluntary work and making a bigger contribution is great but I´m sure there are people out there who are thinking HELLOOOO are you watching how much we´re doing already´!´I don´t think we´re shy in giving our time in this country by comparison to others though I could be wrong, but what struck my mind yesterday while I was sitting by the pool soaking up the sun in Barcelona (sorry) was I bet there are quite a few ármchair politicians´out there who while moaning about all of the problems we currently face in society do absolutely nothing about it but moan.
In my experience it´s far more empowering and productive to stop moaning and get out there and do something. Somewhere out there is a problem that remains unsolved because the armchair politician with a cracking idea for solving it is sitting in his or her armchair complaining about this terrible society we currently live in and tut tutting about our slipping standards.
[...] I suggested in this previous post, people’s resistance to volunteering isn’t always a matter of [...]