After ‘big society’ was mentioned nine times in the first five minutes of a meeting I was chairing, a colleague challenged the next person who mentioned it to define what it means.

As it happened, someone did manage - just. But it struck me that already, the term is being far too liberally applied.

Many housing associations purport to be ‘doing’ big society already, but I am not convinced that many actually are. Ultimately, we are talking the talk but how do we know if we’re walking the walk?

Big society in action
To figure that out we need to be clear about what our prime minister expects from big society. David Cameron’s speech laying out his ‘progressive vision’ last November is revealing. He professed an overarching commitment to make opportunity more equal. He acknowledged the importance of the 20th century welfare state in tackling the worst excesses of poverty and disadvantage. But he went on to argue that it all went wrong when the combined ethos of self-improvement, mutuality and responsibility fell apart and suggested the 1960s was a turning point.

Since then ‘big government’ has atomised society and increased dependency and irresponsibility. In laying out his alternative vision, Mr Cameron maintained that: ‘It doesn’t follow that small government will automatically bring us together [there is] a powerful role in government helping to engineer that shift.’

Mr Cameron closed his speech proposing two levels of change - redistributing power and transforming social action - to nudge society towards the goals of greater individual responsibility and trust between people.

His proposals for a shift in power underpin the Communities and Local Government department’s framework for change: transferring power where possible from the central state to individuals; or, if a collective approach is needed, to neighbourhoods. And where empowerment at this level is not practical, then power will be distributed to the lowest possible tier of government.

Social action is to be transformed by supporting social entrepreneurs and promoting community activism, for example, people running parents’ groups or getting together to discuss ways to improve the neighbourhood. Mr Cameron doesn’t think this will all spontaneously happen and is clear that support is needed to enable local activists to exploit new opportunities.

Social housing’s role
So where does housing sit in this agenda? At a meeting earlier in the week, I heard Charity Commission member Dr Andrew Purkis present his timely report, Housing associations in England and the future of voluntary organisations, about the biggest example of asset transfer to voluntary sector control - that of council housing transfer to housing associations over the past 25 years.

The report demonstrates that voluntary sector takeover of housing services has not necessarily led to better user satisfaction. What’s more, distinctive features of voluntary organisations such as independence, freedom to campaign and volunteering have withered away in large parts of the ‘voluntary’ housing sector.

A crunch question, which is also at the heart of identifying housing’s role within the big society agenda, is posed by Julia Unwin, chief executive of the report’s co-sponsor The Joseph Rowntree Foundation. She asks: ‘Do housing associations exist principally to provide good services to paying customers - an extremely important aim in its own right, or do they exist for a wider social purpose: to build social capital and work for people and communities in need?

The transfer of housing has been unique in handing over a capital asset base and a guaranteed income stream. In spite of the impact of a raft of detrimental changes such as housing benefit cuts, these resources mean that housing associations - as well as other housing providers - will not be hit as hard by public spending cuts as many other areas. They are often the most robust institutions operating in some of our poorest neighbourhoods where voluntary and community groups will be hit hardest by the cuts.

I was thinking about this the day after the meeting where big society was such a hot topic when I saw the headline ‘big society cash scramble’ in Inside Housing. The article reported the potential for housing associations to get a share of the nine figure sum being invested in the Big Society Bank (Inside Housing, 23 July).

The eligibility criteria to access this big society cash is so far extremely vague. Even so, there will no doubt be a scramble for funds when they become available in April 2011 - the point at which public spending cuts will really start to bite.

Housing associations do a lot of great work, but it is not always fully integrated, and in partnership with other organisations. Working in isolation does not meet the big society policy framework - one that we’ll have to operate in for the foreseeable future - and housing associations that assume they are already meeting the big society agenda may be in for a surprise.

Therefore, rather than rushing to bid for new pots of money for separate projects, housing associations need to think about spending in an integrated manner. They are in the unique position of being able to facilitate partnership bids with community partners, open up office space, meeting rooms and other facilities to those groups who are always the lifeblood of communities - regardless of the latest policy fad. At the very least, investing in community resilience and innovation to prevent things getting any worse is more important than ever before.

Heather Petch is director of Hact

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