Government guts Big Society Bill – and cuts the staff in charge
A Conservative Backbencher’s Bill to promote social enterprise is being substantially re-written, with key clauses that force Government and Local Authorities to develop strategies to promote social enterprises set to be axed.
Meanwhile, Ministers have taken the highly unusual step of seeking to change the name of the Bill, deleting all references to social enterprises. The head of Social Enterprise UK said that change could be ”very bad news for the sector”.
Social enterprises (businesses with a social purpose) have been a key part of David Cameron’s and Francis Maude’s Big Society plans, with both stating that services run by Government should be transferred to social enterprises run by former Government staff. Indeed, Francis Maude has said he wants to see a million new people working for social enterprises by 2015.
Axing the requirements on Government and Local Government to plan how to encourage social enterprises will make it far less likely that every Government Department will champion the creation of new social enterprises. Indeed the creation of new sources of finance for social enterprises could actually be slowed down and we could see more examples of new social enterprises being by-passed in the award of contracts, such as in the recent case of Central Surrey Health.
This comes at the same time as Gareth Thomas MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Civil Society and Chair of the Co-operative Party, has found that the government department overseeing social enterprise and co-operatives, the Office of Civil Society, has shed one quarter of its staff in the past year, with funding scheduled to drop by 61% over the next three years.
Gareth Thomas MP said:
“After huge cuts in Government funding for civil society groups, now the Government want to axe plans for vital legal requirements which could have helped social enterprises to flourish.
“This measure would have forced those working in Government and Local Government to think through how they could promote the growth of social enterprises and could have been a huge shot in the arm for the sector.
“Instead it is yet more proof that the Big Society is just Tory-speak for ‘you’re on your own.’”
People: Gareth Thomas
Policy areas: Co-operative development
Tags for this article: Big Society, Cabinet Office, civil society, Conservatives, Gareth Thomas, Nick Hurd, Parliament, public services, social enterprise, third sector
that’s the point of the co-op, we’re not on our own we have each other. we can even do without government ‘support’ to organise our own structures. be the change.