This week David Cameron relaunched the Big Society – again. Before reporting YouGov’s latest findings, and in order to forestall the charge that what follows is an anti-government rant, I should make clear that I think the Prime Minister’s idea is a good one. It must be healthy to engage people more in their local communities and to expand the role of the voluntary sector in providing the services that people need.
However, the evidence is clear: most people are baffled by the term ‘Big Society’; and, when it is explained to them, they have little confidence that it will work. For years, when interviewed about policies that the public don’t warm to, ministers from both parties have offered the excuse that the policy is fine – it’s the presentation that needs improving. For once, I believe that excuse is justified.
As Cameron relaunched his idea, YouGov repeated a series of questions we last asked three months ago.
1. The Government has said that a key plank of its policy is to encourage a 'Big Society'. How well, if at all, would you say you understand what the Government's 'Big Society' plan is?
29% said they understand it very or fairly well, while 62% said not very, or not at all, well. This is a slight improvement from mid-February, when 24% said well and 72% not well. But a year after the General Election, Cameron can’t be happy that ‘not well’ still outscores ‘well’ by two-to-one.
2. David Cameron has said the Big Society is about giving more power to local communities and people, by taking more power away from government and allowing voluntary groups and communities to run public services. Examples include giving more powers to local government, encouraging people to take an active role in their communities and supporting charities and volunteer groups. In principle, do you think the Big Society sounds like a good or bad idea?
Voters are divided, with 45% saying the Big Society is a good idea and 34% saying it’s a bad idea. A significant minority, 22%, have no view either way. With this question the movement has been the wrong way: in February, 49% said it was a good idea and 31% a bad idea.
The next question finds no reduction in public scepticism:
3. In practice, do you think the government's policies to create a Big Society will actually work?
Only 9% think it will work, while a large majority, 73% say it won’t work. In February the results were: work, 10%; not work, 71%. Even Conservative voters reckon by three-to-one that the Big Society won’t work.
Our final question helps to explain public scepticism:
4. Which of the following statements best reflects your view?
The Big Society is a real vision of how the government can cut the cost of delivering services and get more people involved in their local communities
The Big Society is mostly just hot air, and is being used as a cover for the Government while they cut investment in public services
The results this time are virtually the same as three months ago: ‘real vision’: 19%, ‘mostly hot air’, 59%.
Not surprisingly, Conservative voters are the most sympathetic, with 42% saying ‘real vision’ and 26% saying ‘mostly hot air’ – but this still means that fewer than half of all Tory supporters share Cameron’s faith in his big idea.
I reckon the Government is failing on two fronts. The first, as indicated by our final question, is that the Big Society has been launched at the wrong time: when public services are facing acute financial pressures. Indeed, ministers have been sending out mixed messages – proclaiming the need for a bigger role for community action, at the very time when government financial support for many charities and voluntary organisations is being cut.
The second front concerns the connection between the idea and the policies needed to bring that idea to life. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s big idea was the free market. She made this vivid with three powerful, emblematic policies: privatisation, council house sales and trade union reform. Everybody with a passing interest in politics had a reasonably clear sense of what ‘Thatcherism’ meant.
There is no such clarity today about Cameron’s big idea. Until there is, and until the Prime Minister manages to persuade voters that the Big Society is not a cover for public spending cuts, the Big Society is doomed to remain unloved.
