Councillors are the democratic wing of Big Society, says Jessica Crowe.
So, 40% of people say they know a fair amount about the Big Society and half think it could be good for their area and the country. But more than half (54%) think that ‘Big Society is a good idea in principle but won't work in practice' and nearly 60% feel that ‘it is just an excuse for the Government to save money by cutting back on public services.'
What do these confused messages mean for local councils – and local councillors? Are they part of the Big Society, or part of the ‘Big State' that the new government wants to shrink?
Perhaps we can start by distinguishing between councillors and councils. While councillors make up ‘the council' and make formal decisions as part of the local state apparatus, as local residents who give a huge amount of time and energy for free or at low cost to serve their community, elected members must surely form part of the Big Society ‘continuum'. If local councillors are freed from central government control and enabled through a power of general competence to do whatever they see fit to improve their local area, are they not, in effect, the democratic wing of the local Big Society?
However, a better question may be ‘so what?' What difference will the Big Society make in practice to either local councillors or the communities they serve? If it goes along with a shrinking not just of state machinery but of state-funded services, then whether those services are provided by the council, a voluntary group, or a private sector company is immaterial.
The answer to both the ‘so what' question and the question of where local councillors fit in the Big Society may lie in providing strong mechanisms of local accountability to residents. The Big Society, it is suggested, means increased diversity of service providers and community groups getting involved in public life, bringing greater choice and efficiency and a growth in self-reliance and community self-determination. However, it could also mean it is harder for people to find the services they need, less transparent in terms of who makes decisions and how decisions can be influenced, and less open to challenge by the public as a whole. If one community group runs a service (eg, a swimming pool) to the exclusion of others (think the interests of lane swimmers who often form the bulk of swimming pool-user groups against the interests of families wishing to splash about), how does the excluded group seek redress and who arbitrates between them?
Step forward the local councillor: sign-poster, public challenger and champion, mediator between interests in the interest of the public, arbitrator between competing priorities. In short, someone to hold all service providers to account, whoever they may be, on behalf of the public who elect them.
Councillors might exercise this role in different ways depending on their political views, experience and position on the council and in their community. For example: as executive councillors taking strategic decisions to make and regulate a local market or provide a service directly; as ward councillors advising individuals on organisations that could help them and taking up cases on their behalf when those organisations let them down or make mistakes; or as non-executive councillors scrutinising the delivery of services, no matter who provides them, hearing and weighing the evidence of service-users and others, and making reasoned recommendations for change and improvement.
Of course, many councillors fulfil these roles already, and the Big Society may only mean a difference in degree. But a more fundamental change would see all local service providers operating in the Big Society changing their practice, not just local councils and councillors.
