New Office for "Big Society"

The Government has created an Office for Civil Society and Nick Hurd will take on the title of Minister for Civil Society.  The new Office replaces the Office of the Third Sector and will take responsibility for charities, social enterprises and the voluntary sector.

This could be nothing more than a very minor name change.  Equally, given the recession and the huge cuts in public spending the Government is set to make, it could be a way to get the voluntary sector to deliver more public services for less.  Ominously, one of the three policy tasks in the in tray of Hurd's boss, Cabinet Office Secretary Francis Maude, concerns making it easier for voluntary sector organisations to work with the State.  The others involve getting more resources into the sector and making it easier to run a charity or social enterprise.

But the new Office for Big Society, as it will no doubt get called, should take as its starting point the report from the Commission into the Future of Civil Society called Making Good Society  The ambitious report says that the value and potential of civil society has been squeezed in recent decades.  It says that the key crises of our time; climate change, the economy and democracy will only be solved when civil society plays a far greater role.  This means dramatically widening the climate change debate.  It means making the economy a force for social good, rather than profit at any cost.  And it means opening up power structures to involve people in deliberation and decision making at every level.  Making Good Society also discusses how the media needs to evolve and become more plural, open to more players and serving local needs better.

It's ambitious stuff and one suspects that a small office in one corner of Whitehall can't achieve that much.  But it can be a catalyst and it can challenge the sector itself to play a more active role beyond its own interests, which often include bidding for contracts to deliver government services. 

It could even make Cameron's rather vacuous Big Society idea that "didn't work on the doorstep", a little more meaningful.  Their big society plan was launched today so we'll see.