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Andy Sawford says councils are already working on Big Society under another name When the LGIU brought together a group of council Leaders to meet with Lord Nat Wei – David Cameron's Big Society guru – together with officials at the DCLG and the Cabinet Office, we shed some light, perhaps, on why the Big Society isn't taking off. The first is that while many councils are doing great things to engage local citizens and communities in new ways, they don't want to be told how to do it, or even what to call it, by the Government. The second is that government representatives seemed pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm and practical examples of how councils are doing the Big Society in their own local way. One senior government official said it was the best meeting he'd been involved in on the Big Society. The decision by Liverpool City Council to withdraw from being one of the four ‘vanguard' areas goes to the heart of the current problem. The council felt it had not been included in the vanguard. Indeed, it felt positively excluded. The prime minister asked TV producer and screenwriter, Phil Redmond, to head it up, and to lead a community effort. Mr Redmond's correspondence with the Government, now made public following an Freedom of Information request, reveals that he was taken by surprise at the speed of the launch, and was concerned at the lack of substance. This ‘lack of substance' charge has dogged the Big Society progress to date, and with the announcement that Lord Wei is stepping back from his role for the Government, there are inevitable headlines that Big Society is on the rocks. The problem is that the Big Society appears to be the ‘emperor's new clothes'. There is a simple and powerful way of fixing this, though. The Government should celebrate local diversity in developing the Big Society ideas in communities. I often hear councillors rejecting the Big Society language, not because they don't support the idea but, on the contrary, because they feel it doesn't recognise their own efforts and role in engaging communities. We should redefine the Big Society as something which is shaped locally, and in which councils play a vital enabling role. As long as he's then prepared to share the credit as well as the challenge with councils, the prime minister can then show that there is much more substance to the Big Society. This shared approach will be about harnessing all the current good practice, and a common aim to develop a new relationship between citizens, communities, services and government, with democracy at its heart. Andy Sawford is chief executive of the LGiU

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WHITEHALL

Councillors can revive Cameron's Big Society idea

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