Filed under: Big Society, Post Office, Social Enterprise | Tags: Big Society, Post Office, Social Enterprise
Back in London. I saw this piece of fresh Eine street-art across from the head office of my old client, the Post Office. Apposite… Change is coming, alright: the coalition plans to turn the Post Office into a John Lewis-style mutual – owned by employees. They say this is “Big Society in action”.
This week I’m meeting some people from the Big Society Network, so I’ve been doing some digging. And I dug up some questions.
- Can it be de-politicized? The Big Society is inextricably linked with David Cameron. It won’t take root unless it’s embraced across the political (and non-political) spectrum. Yet many people see it simply as lipstick on the pig of a small state ideology.
- Starting from scratch? There are already plenty of community organizers across the UK. National volunteer bodies like CSV and vinspire have been conspicuously quiet, and in some cases have had funding pulled. How can Big Society build on their good work?
- Big society, big brands? Interesting that Big Society Network is part funded by Asda Foundation. I wrote a previous post about the role of corporates like Tesco and Starbucks in local communities. Is this part of the plan?
- A “Big Society Bank”? This will be established with funds from dormant accounts – estimated start off with around 100m. This will be run by the Cooperative Bank – but who gets to decide where the money goes? And how?
- An “iPhone for Social Apps’? That’s how the Network describes its ambition. What about existing application spaces, like Gumtree? Or even the good ol’ Post Office, which has more branches than all the banks put together, in the heart of local communities?
And perhaps the biggest question:
- Big Society, or Our Society? As Julian Dobson points out, Big Society is a government story. It has a minister, Nick Hurd, and a suite of rooms next to Downing Street. How does it get genuine, unscripted participation?
At it’s broadest level, Big Society is a dream come true: community empowerment, local activism, social enterprise, building capacity, debating the line between citizen, civil society and state. As Mandelson recently said:
“We need to be state reformers rather than state retrenchers. We will have to find more of our solutions from within the communities that make our society. Insofar as that prescription corresponds to what David Cameron calls the Big Society then I think he is onto a good idea”.
But it’s all in the detail and the politics. Is the Big Society “prescription” for real? Or does it amount to being given a pedicure whilst having your leg amputated?
It’s been interesting developing the new Post Office campaign. Why is it that people love the Post Office (yes, really), but hate the big supermarkets? In an increasingly them-and-us world, Post Office seems more us than them. The banner claims it’s “our” Post Office; the People’s Post Office.
Images like this anti-Tesco demo are real brand nightmares. But is Tesco really all bad? What about the Tesco Community Awards? Computers For Schools? The Race For Life?
It was interesting to see the recent Demos report, arguing that the big supermarkets can make a positive local contribution. As the reports author, Max Wind-Cowie, told the Guardian:
“They [the supermarkets] have a role to play in helping deprived communities to regenerate by reducing stigma, boosting community morale and bringing low-cost quality produce into the area. It’s easy to be cynical about mainstream retail chains, but they can be the game-changer for transforming perceptions within and outside rundown neighbourhoods.”
It’s a positive view – but many people think supermarkets are tax avoiding, farmers-hating monopolies that drive local businesses out of communities. The New Economics Foundation responded that supermarkets “spell the end of civic life”, and Andrew Simms, author of Tescopoly, said that supermarkets don’t help communities, but “hoover money out” of local economies.
But why are the locals so anti-Tesco? It’s about community identity. The latest Citizenship Survey shows that 77% feel they belong strongly to their neighbourhood – and this number continues to increase. Even more – 85% – feel their community is cohesive. People fear that losing their local shops means losing some local identity.
Some brands have learnt this already. As Forum For The Future puts it, corporates go local. It’s the big idea behind the Starbuck’s turnaround – to individually design each store so that no two Starbucks will look exactly alike, a big rethink for a company synonymous with corporate homogeneity.
Images from Buzz Machine and Mark Simmons at Stokes Croft.
