How can all communities benefit from the Big Society?

Submitted by admin on Wed, 2011-09-21 12:55

Voice4Change EnglandWomen's resource Centre

 

 

How can I get involved?

Voice4Change England and the Women’s Resource Centre have been commissioned by the Office for Civil Society to provide advice to Government on: the challenges that inequalities present to the Big Society agenda and how to address them; and the opportunities for tackling inequalities that the Big Society agenda offers.

Over the next seven months we will speak to voluntary and community organisations focused on equality, to find out their experience and views on the Big Society.  We will ensure organisations are aware of key Big Society policies and programmes and help them explore potential opportunities and challenges.

  • First phase: Our work we will look at the Big Society agenda and its implications, across the equality strands, focusing on its three pillars of promoting social action, empowering communities and opening up public services. 
  • Second phase: We will focus on three Big Society programmes: Community Organisers, Community First grants and Local Integrated Services, working with women’s organisations and BME voluntary and community organisations.

We will report our findings to Government and make sure that equality sector voices, including those on the frontline, are heard. We will explain the challenges inequalities present for the Big Society and draw together a set of recommendations on how to tackle them. We will also identify potential opportunities to address inequalities through the Big Society and how these can be effectively turned into better outcomes for communities experiencing inequality.

Voice4Change England's Guide to Big Society Policies and Programmes

Big Society Briefings

Voice4Change England and Women's Resource Centre have developed a series of briefing papers focussing on three Big Society programmes:

  • Community Organisers programme - The Community Organisers programme is a £15 million Big Society Government-funded initiative. The programme aims to recruit and train 5,000 community organisers to help local communities to come together to tackle local issues and develop community projects in deprived areas in England. The Government sees community organisers as playing an important role in delivering the Big Society.Community organisers will be responsible for working closely with the community to identify local priorities, projects and opportunities, and support communities to improve their local area. 

Read our Community Organisers briefing

  • Commmunity First programme - The Community First programme is an £80 million government-funded Big Society initiative. It aims to get people to give time, money, goods, services, and facilities, to improve the quality of life of local communities. The initiative replaces the last Government’s Grassroots Grants programme which aimed to provide small grants for local community groups. However rather then just awarding small grants to community projects, it requires government funding to be matched with community contributions.  The programme aims to: encourage community self reliance; increase participation of all parts of the community; strengthen communities by identifying local priorities; and provide a source of grants in the future.  

Read our Commuity First briefing

  • Local Integrated Services - Local Integrated Services is a new approach to delivering local services which brings together budgets and local assets (such as buildings) and puts communities in control of co-producing and commissioning the services that they need. It looks at ways to effectively use existing resources and explores the benefits of pooling budgets. The Government supports the testing of community commissioning to see if it can produce better outcomes and create financial savings.   

Read our Local Integrated Services briefing

Get involved

The project offers voluntary and community organisations focused on equality an opportunity to have their voice heard by Government and to explore opportunities to address inequalities within the new national policy agenda. We have planned a series of activities including an online survey, meetings and events.  Check back on our websites for more details or contact us to find out how you can get involved.

For more information contact us:

Jemma Grieve Combes

Rebecca Veazey