Council chief rejects ‘Big Society’ comparison as communities set to control budgets

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

Shifting council spending power to community groups isn’t a reworking of David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’, a senior leader has said. 

Plans are currently being drawn up to change ways of working at two Gwent councils with the intention community groups will be better supported to help achieve goals such as addressing poverty and improving people’s health. 

The proposals have previously been described as transferring budgets from council departments to community groups which can then run services and facilities themselves and a response to diminishing funding for local government. 

Torfaen council leader Anthony Hunt said the project, dubbed ‘The Deal’, isn’t the local authority’s own attempt at the Big Society concept pushed by former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron when his coalition government came to power in 2010. 

“This isn’t us trying to step back from our responsibilities is maybe the difference,” said the Labour leader who denied the programme mirrored the former Tory PM’s push for voluntary groups to provide public services. 

“It’s not a way of withdrawing from our responsibilities but stepping up and also saying we haven’t got every answer but the question is how do we do it in a different way? 

“The Big Society got a bit caught up with austerity mark one, under George Osborne.” 

Examples of groups already working in ways Torfaen council would like to support are the North Torfaen Walking Group, in Blaenavon, and Cwmbran’s Indoor Bowling Club which the council this year provided with £262,000 toward repairs to the roof of its Cwmbran Stadium home. 

“They needed to fix the roof and that cost a lot of money and it is group of people, mostly 70 plus, and it is keeping them active and engaged during the winter. How do we help them? They want to attract more members and we want people to be more active.” 

Cllr Hunt said backing initiatives such as Blaenavon’s walking group to keep people healthy will produce savings: “How much does a heart procedure cost? It’s a lot of money including recovery costs. Keep people active for longer and the money from that will pay back tenfold and there will be better outcomes for people as well.” 

But the council will still be directly involved in providing services said Cllr Hunt: “It’s about using resources and we’ll continue to provide services and work with community groups to make a real difference. 

“There are things we need to provide, things like schools, social care and some universal services like roads and bins being collected. 

“There’s others where maybe the line between a service being delivered to people and a community hasn’t been quite as stark and we can say we are providing a service, such as a school, but how can a community group come in and help parents get more active?” 

Torfaen already shares a chief executive, and some senior staff, with Blaenau Gwent in what Cllr Hunt has previously described as savings at the top that protect frontline staff and services, and the neighbouring council is also working on its own deal on the same principles of empowering local communities. 

Both councils have run consultations on the plans, which will extend into the new year, when citizen’s assemblies will be held to discuss proposals while Torfaen intends bringing in changes to how it operates from the start of the new financial year in April. 

“We want people to be honest with us and tell us what they think are good ideas and less good ideas and that’s why we’ve not come with a blueprint of what we want to do, we want to take people’s ideas forward,” said Cllr Hunt.