A despondent view (not just my own) that for all the rhetoric about the army of volunteers that can plug the gaps resulting from spending reductions, unless the right structure and the means to make it happen are in place, where will these volunteers go? What will they do? Many smaller charities are rightly in despair they are about to lose the local authority funding that underpins their work and so supports volunteering.

Without that money they can’t operate, and running volunteers isn’t about exploiting cheap labour. To be effective volunteers need support, maybe training and expenses, and need to feel they are getting something out of the experience. Volunteers are picky about what they do, and by definition can just leave if they don’t like it. More importantly the first steps into volunteering can be the hardest. Without encouragement people can find it a challenging step to take on the role of volunteer.

It’s ironic just when we need a strong civil society infrastructure the funding tap is being turned off for the very organisations that make it possible. Potentially leaving people on one hand desperately needing support, and others unsure how to join in with the big society. What we seem to need is some form of clearing house, a mechanism to coordinate the different resources, both financial and non financial, that exist within a locality of community. What we’ve seen at the PB Unit from our small grant events is that Participatory budgeting (PB) can contribute to a bigger society. 

Firstly PB can simply be used to decide more fairly who gets a share of the limited resources on offer. Even if the available money is going to be less than before there is lots of scope for changing the way the decision is taken on the remainder. Lots of scope to open up more commissioning decisions for example. And there is a certain lack of logic in saying local government needs to shrink and then saying the same body has to decide itself where to cut. No surprise if outside agencies, charities and non statutory services suffer first. Its only natural for service managers, if left to decide without scrutiny, to favour their employees over those in outside bodies, however charitable or worthy those bodies may be.

Secondly, what we have seen from following different PB experiences is that when lots of people contribute to a decision you get money driven right down to where its most needed and most effective.  PB small grants events can therefore be more accessible than old style ‘committee led’ grants particularly to very local groups.

Thirdly we often see that through meeting people at PB decision days that community partnerships form and people make new friends reducing a sense of isolation. Decision days also create new ideas and renewed energy for local groups and participants. Existing but untapped civil action can often be released through a well structured PB event.

I think it could do even more. It could become an innovative mechanism to unite individualised or personalised budgets. It would be really interesting if all those requiring care or local services could combine their resources to group purchase services. Whether it is cooking healthy food or mobility exercise classes, arts events or learning opportunities, specialised home care services. They could all come to pitch their services and pick up new clients at a local PB decision day event.

There is a role for local councils here in continuing to provide support for local development in a new, more social age. They need to be the facilitators of the big society.  PB is not just about local council funding. All sorts of decisions about limited resources could be decided in a more participatory way.  My view is the local council structure is essential to regulate the ‘social’ or big society’.

Citizens can and must do more than vote once every few years.  Its not enough to pay your taxes and then leave the state to provide for us.  All of us can and should participate more in our local community, and taking part in PB events can be a good way to do it. So some more PB please, not less, the decision should be ours, now more than ever.