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Still Below the Radar?

Community groups and activities in a Big SocietyMMU: International Anthony Burgess Foundation

Angus McCabe 28th October 2011

THIS SESSION

• What is ‘below the radar’?• Current policy: all change or continuity?• Responses to the ‘new’ policy agenda• The impact of policy on community based

groups?• Looking to the future: youth and community

action.• Assumption: youth in communities!!!

STARTING POINTS 1• Perhaps one of the few remaining big mysteries in nonprofit

sector research is the question of what we are missing by excluding those organisations from empirical investigations that are not easily captured in standard data sources. (Toepler: 2003 p 236)

• “Bottom-up and community-led activities which so often bubble along under the radar are receiving new public recognition. This is in part because we are on the threshold of political change and deep economic restraint…” (Oppenheim et al., 2010: 2).

STARTING POINTS 2• A literature review illustrating:

Less research into community activity (focus on formal voluntary organisation)

A fragmented literatureA grey literatureA literature with gaps and absences

• Toepler remains true……so

DEFINING BELOW THE RADAR

• Unregistered groups (unincorporated associations not on charity of other regulatory registers)

• Income thresholds: under £10k (NCVO), under £25k (Thompson) under £35k (CEFET)

• Below other ‘radars’: local directories, web, policy, funders etc

• Issue of ‘fuzzy’ boundaries and definitions

RESEARCHING MYTHS AND REALITIES

• Drawing on the literature review:

Are community based/BTR groups distinctive/different?A ‘sector’ or diverse sectors?Charity deserts or ‘oases of activity’: mapping community

activity below the radarCommunities lack capacity; learning, skills and knowledge

in BTR groupsWho/what do we know least about?

BUT…SOME EARLY CONTROVERSIES

• The term ‘below the radar’: a deficit model of community activity?

• Why map/micro map? A diversion or a central activity?

• Expectations and contradictions: for every truth there is and equal and opposite truth

POLICY CONTEXT QUIZ 1

• “It is my belief, after a century in which to tackle social injustice the state has had to take power to ensure social progress, that to tackle the social injustices that still remain the state will have to give away power.”

• Who said this?• And for a bonus point: When?

EXPECTATIONS OF COMMUNITY

• “You can call it liberalism. You can call it empowerment, you can call it freedom, you can call it responsibility. I call it the Big Society” (Prime Minister David Cameron: 19th July 2010).

• Increased role in (public) service delivery: youth and enterprise

• More ‘active citizens’: from grey hair to brown?• Asset management• Reconnecting the democratic process• A ‘bastion’ mitigating the effects of globalisation

COMMUNITY POLICY; CHANGE OR CONTINUITY: 1?

• Big Society, localism – double devolution and ‘Communities in Control’ (2008)

• Participatory budget setting• Asset transfer – The Quirk Review (2007)• National Citizen Service – Building Britain’s

Future (2009)• Promotion of social enterprise• Social Investment Bank – Big Society Bank• Communities as ‘change agents’

COMMUNITY POLICY; CHANGE OR CONTINUITY: 2?

• Continuity with a ‘new language’? From pathfinders to vanguards and kick-starts etc

• ‘Freedoms’ rather than targets• De-regulation• Speed of cuts/deficit reduction strategy• Change of ‘tone’ – from ‘nudge’ to ‘push’?• From community development to social

action, but………

RESPONDING TO THE NEW POLICY ENVIRONMENT

• No single ‘sector’ response:• Enthusiasts• Pragmatists• ‘Bi-polar’: depending on role/positioning• Reluctant followers• Opponents• The two ‘O’s: opportunity versus opposition

THE IMPACT OF CHANGE

• Too early to tell – but early indications:• For many below the radar groups: no impact:

receive no funding/not linked to governmental policy agendas

• Loss of small grants/pro bono support for groups with wellbeing agendas (pensioner groups, mental health support groups etc.)

• The ‘multiplier effect’?

THE CHALLENGES OF DELIVERING THE NEW AGENDA 1• Rates of volunteering; static over last decade;

concepts of a ‘civic core’• Understanding motivations: good citizens,

social citizens or angry citizens?• Public perceptions of policy shifts• Change in role at a community level: – From active citizen to big citizen– From influence to management and responsibility– A reluctant civic core?

THE CHALLENGES OF DELIVERING THE NEW AGENDA 2• Aspirations or assumptions around philanthropic or

corporate support for the delivery of public services• Social action versus individual rights: consumerism or

citizenship? • The need for a ‘new public/civil servant’: from

manager to ‘storyteller, architect or bricoleur’• Local freedoms versus ‘central influence/control’• Disengagement: and not just youth….

THE CHALLENGES OF DELIVERING THE NEW AGENDA 3• ‘Scaling up’ or ‘replication’?• The nature of contracting: fewer and bigger?• Risk averse commissioning• ‘Barrier busting’ but barriers to community

activity beyond government influence?• Funding and the ‘funding gap’ between ‘old’

and ‘new’ money• The private sector role: not bio-diversity?• Other?????

FUTURE GAZING 1

• Thriving community activity ‘beyond the state’: still below the radar

• Struggling groups offering services to the public but not (statutory) public services

• Increasing gap between have’s and have not’s in the ‘third sector’

• Public perception of government, local government and the formal voluntary sector

• Freedoms versus ‘checks and balances’• Equalities

FURTHER INTO THE FUTURE?

• “I don’t want to predict what the future, say in five years, will look like for voluntary never mind community groups. There may be a leaner but more efficient and effective sector, a more entrepreneurial and business like sector – or just a leaner one. What we will see played out in some form is a profound change in the relationships between people, government and the sector.” (Development Agency Interview)

FUTURE GAZING 2;YOUTH AND COMMUNITY ACTION

• Demons or Debtors?• Communities in crisis/feral youth?• Closing and claiming spaces and places?• Youth services or services for youth?• The continued separation of youth and

community?• Hidden economies?• The profile of active citizens…..the long term

implications of demonisation and debt?