Big Society | How the UK Government is Dismantling the State and What it Means for Australia

Big Society = Small Change

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in Big Society, Policy Papers, Public Service, Publications

DOWNLOAD James Whelan’s essay here

“Bush declared war on terror, Blair declared war on crime and it’s like Cameron has declared war on the public sector.”
The first instalment in CPD’s report on the ‘Big Society in Australia’, How the UK Government is Dismantling the State and what it means for Australia is a startling insight into David Cameron’s 2010 promise to “redefine the role of the state as a provider of public services.”

Some of the impacts of the Big Society programs in the UK so far have included:

  • £81 billion in cuts to public spending (2010-2013)
  • The National Health System dismantled
  • 500-700 thousand public service jobs gone
  • Corporations and the largest charities dominating the commissioning process: 35 of 40 Work Programme (employment agency) contracts were awarded to large corporations such as Serco and A4e.

This report will be followed is a prelude to our major ‘Big Society in Australia’ report due for release in late April.

DOWNLOAD How the UK Government is Dismantling the State and what it means for Australia here.

(Image above thanks to Fiona Katauskas)

 

Read what we are reading on the Big Society

If you want to find out what the ‘Big Society’ is really about, we’re also making our Delicious Account (the place where we save media and analysis about the ‘Big Society’ agenda) publicly available. You can find a stack of recent links here and here. Read what we are reading. Learn how ‘Big Society’ would change the public service and its place in society, and be part of the public service debate in Australia.

Our Public Service Research Program

The CPD Public Service Program aims to develop a robust knowledge base about the state of the public service: its funding and capacity; performance in delivering community services; and attitudes toward and expectations of the Australian Public Service. Click here to read more.

 

 

Find more ideas and publications on the Australian Public Service in one of our major research programs here.

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Author

About James Whelan

James Whelan James Whelan is the Research Director for Public Service Research Program at the Centre for Policy Development. James’ research history includes leading social science research programs with several universities and research institutions to examine deliberative and collaborative governance, environmental politics and social movements. He was theme leader for the Coastal Cooperative Research Centre’s Citizen Science research program, has published widely and presented at national and international conferences. James has worked with several social and environmental justice NGOs including Greenpeace and Amnesty International. He is founder-director of the Change Agency, a not-for-profit education and action research initiative that supports progressive social movements in the Asia-Pacific region.

more by James Whelan

  • Sue

    This discussion seems like a knee jerk over reaction to the misuse of an idea by the Cameron government. The carbon tax got me thinking about the value of Local Government and I think I remember Gough Whitlam trying to devolve power back to Local Government. Cameron’s mistake is to transfer resposibility without the funding, Whitlam’s mistake was to transfer funding without a clear framework of responsibilities for spending it. most of the real work done about transition to a low carbon economy is done at local level. Therefore revenues from Carbon taxation should devolve to Local Government authorities to arry through appropriate infrastructures for a “zero”(or close to) carbon economy. The possibilities afforded by Localism should be explored rather than an Us.v.Them campaign of tessellated nonsense.

    • CLJ

      How can the very discussion of such a change in policy be a knee jerk reaction when the discussion is relying so heavily on recorded fact?  The use of Us.v.Them is also worrying. Isn’t government supposed to be a representation of us? 

  • TTS

    As an unreconstructed socialist who has spent the past four years in the UK (I’m back “home” in W.A. for a couple of weeks to meet my brand new grandson), I am sickened to the stomach by the callous, cynical and politically partisan nature of the changes the UK government seems hell-bent on effecting regardless of their impacts, public and professional opinions or advice to the contrary.  
    David Cameron is selling off the state and will no doubt leave Downing Street a very wealthy man, while the country will be just a gutted shell.  I am glad I can escape back here at some point, and will not have to participate in the consequences directly for very long, but my English friends and family will not be so fortunate.  I hope Australians have more sense than to allow their “leaders” to take them down a similar path, but it’s hard (if not delusional) to be optimistic.Sue, you seem to be way too sanguine about this type of change.  I too support the devolution of control to the local level where it is feasible and sensible, but we must beware of creating a new stratum of local tyrants beneath the existing ones at federal and state levels (you can see this occurring already in many local governments).  I think “radical” US climate scientist James Hansen’s proposal, that all proceeds from a carbon tax should flow directly and equally to every citizen would have been the best way to have gone here, and Labor has come up with a compromise which at least goes some way towards this, although it’s certainly not ideal.  There’s no way I would want my local government to be given the cash from the carbon tax – it would find its way into their pockets in the blink of an eye!

  • CLJ

    I think the notion of Govt being ‘of the people by the people for the people’ is lost in the idea of  Big Society. It’s almost as if the hidden reality under Big Society is ‘of big business by big business for big business’. It seems to be the magnification of the age of ‘I’ dressed up in the clothes of ‘we’. 
    On the flip side, if it is ever introduced in Australia, I have no doubt that in time, after a period of societal suffering, it would offer the opportunity for Labor to differentiate itself from Liberal policy. 
    However in the meantime it begs the question, What really is the role of Government?

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  • GuiltyByStander

    Your central thesis is very disappointing and erroneous. Margaret Thatcher famously said, ‘There is no such thing as society’. Given the history of the Conservatives in the UK it is hard to believe that anyone could claim that a Conservative administration is trying to make a ’big society’. The Conservatives are and always have been advocates of big capital. What is truly scary is that a party could be elected that is interested in giving capital a bigger chunk of the economy  and further deregulating capital, even after the GFC. That is the real story here.

    • James Whelan

      Thanks for the comment ‘GuiltByStander’. Our report reaches similar conclusions. ‘Big Society’ is a misleading framing for changes that – as you observe – actually favour corporations and only the largest non-government organisations. I hope you’ll find time to read the essay, and our forthcoming report (due for release late May).

      • Luurlovessky

         ’Big Society’ is just another way of saying ‘small government’.

  • concerned

    JOE Hockey’s “age of entitlement” speech to the Institute of Economic Affairs in London this week – the Shadow Treasurer is talking about the Government that helps those who help themselves.  “The age of entitlement is over.” A Big Society is coming to AUS?