British prime minister David Cameron today unveiled the next phase of his “Big Society” agenda today and denied the idea was a cover for public service cuts.
Mr Cameron kick-started the initiative by announcing that community projects in four parts of the country are to be given state support. He hailed the Big Society scheme as “the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power” from the state to individuals.
But Mr Cameron was also forced to reject claims that the project was a way of masking cuts by offloading state work to the voluntary sector.
He told BBC Breakfast: "It is not a cover for anything. I was talking about the Big Society and encouraging volunteering, encouraging social enterprises, voluntary groups to do more to make our society stronger, I was talking about that way before we had a problem with cuts and deficits and all the rest of it.
"This would be a great agenda whether we were having to cut public spending or whether we were increasing public spending." He added: “This is not about trying to save money, it is about trying to have a bigger, better society.”
Mr Cameron today used a speech in Liverpool - one of the areas to benefit - to hail the potential for shifting power from the state to individuals.
But he insisted he was not "naive enough to think that if the Government rolls back and does less, then miraculously society will spring up and do more".
"The truth is that we need a government that actually helps to build up the Big Society," he added.
The other three areas picked to receive initial help with projects are Eden Valley, Cumbria; Windsor and Maidenhead, Berkshire; and the London Borough of Sutton.
Each will get an expert organiser and dedicated civil servants to ensure "people power" initiatives get off the ground and inspire a wider change, the prime minister said.
A local buy-out of a rural pub, efforts to recruit volunteers to keep museums open and giving residents more power over council spending are among the initiatives being championed.
During his Liverpool speech, Mr Cameron also confirmed plans to use funds stuck in dormant bank accounts to enable charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to take over the running of public services. Hundreds of millions of pounds should eventually be available in start-up funding as part of the push - which would see providers paid by results.
Years of top-down government control turned capable people into “passive recipients of state help”, lively communities into “dull soulless clones” and motivated public sector workers into “disillusioned weary puppets of government targets”, Mr Cameron said.
"We have to turn government completely on its head," he said, so it helped foster "communities with oomph", public sector workers with freedom to innovate and "a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action".
PA