Fishburn Hedges

29.06.2011

David Cameron has argued that through the Big Society “the grip of state control will be released and power will be placed in people’s hands.” This radical shift in the relationship between the citizen and the state will take place by public service reform, so that schools, social services, planning and even prisons are more responsive to the needs of those using them; and through social action, to encourage more people to play an active role in society. This will be achieved through charities, workers' co-operatives, social enterprises and above all, businesses.

On public service reform, leading businesses have demonstrated how it is possible to design services and operations to better meet customer needs. Look at the entertainment industry; new ways of delivering music and sharing videos have been found – by consumers and then latterly with music, by the bands themselves. This has had a major impact; as evidenced recently when HMV's announcement that its survival was contingent on a refinancing package, after it had continually failed to adapt its business model, coincided with the launch of the iCloud, taking Apple another step ahead of its rivals.

On social action, businesses already provide skills and resources that are invaluable for community organisations outside the office and factory walls. They are an important source of charitable donation. And it is in the workplace that people build relationships, based on trust and co-operation, which underpin both commerce and citizenship.

In recognising these trends, forward-thinking businesses have evolved beyond old models of Corporate Social Responsibility. At the Fishburn Hedges What’s Next…? event we heard how it is possible to facilitate social renewal and enjoy bottom-line rewards for such efforts: whether that is through improved customer relations, increased employee productivity or new product and services offerings.

Yet, such isolated examples of business best practice will not be enough to realise the full potential of the Big Society. Innovative organisational models need to be analysed and scaled.  Elinor Ostrom, the Nobel Prize winning economist whose work has been regularly cited by David Cameron, has argued that that an “adequately specified theory of collective action” is missing from both the “policy analyst’s tool kit – and from the set of accepted, well-developed theories of human organisation.” This tool kit must be developed.

The UK is particularly bad at learning from the past and constantly reinvents the policy wheel.   One option to halt this trend would be for policy makers and business managers to adopt the method of the natural and medical sciences: experimentation.  This has the advantage of effective testing and quick translation from idea to implementation to ensure new models are embedded.

There is little that is new in the Big Society; the reason why many of the ideas have previously failed is due to poor testing, vested interests and ineffective implementation.  David Cameron's desire - cited above - has been a mantra of British politicians past and present.  If it is to mean something this time, then it will require more than cuddly words.

Written by Joe Manning

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