“What’s Big Society?” has become a joke in the UK, especially amongst the defeated defeatists. Despite having lived amongst the natives for 7 years this is another of the mysteries I haven’t been able to decipher as the answer is pretty clear to me.
Western governments have overspent in the last 20 years of fat cows to meet the increasing demands of spoiled voters and now they have to both cut public spending and service delivery. As our society can’t survive without public services there is an expectation that civil society – constitutionally set up to pursue public good – to take the lead. What’s difficult to understand?
On 2 occasions this week – at the LSE Galileo Group on the third sector and HM GOV Office for Civil Society meeting with strategic partners – I pointed out that the coalition’s policy in the field is not different from any other government but had the boldness to call it. Even the European Union has developed its policy equivalent: social innovation and social business.
Probably my understanding of native culture is still limited but I can’t really figure out how you could wait for government to explain such a thing as Big Society. You just do it.
I’m doing mine starting in Naples, the real big society as there is nothing else other than the society. The government is absent or corrupted. Markets are in the hand of Camorra, the international crime group celebrated by the best-seller Roberto Saviano in Gomorrah.
Actually, Euclid signed a partnership agreement with Unicredit Foundation – belonging to one of the top 10 European bank groups – for the international social innovation competition for Naples.
This is cutting-edge project putting at test social innovation – Big Society – in such a challenging environment as Naples, where traditional State-led and Market-led solutions have failed.
Social innovators and entrepreneurs from all over the world – more likely Europe – are called to provide ideas for 6 challenges identified in partnership with local civil society – eg. how to turn a villa confiscated from the Camorra into a profitable social business for the community.
The competition will be opened next week on 18 June.
The winners will be selected by international and local juries on 23 September, and will receive seed funding to develop the ideas into projects. In a further stage they will get the full budget for implementation if the projects are assessed feasible and sustainable by the organisers.
This is an experiment to test social innovation – Big Society – where traditional recipes have always failed; and methods normally used in architecture or informatics to foster innovation, can be successfully applied to social challenges.
If you want to sit down at the table with the big guys, you must prove that you bring an added value fixing problems the others failed to. It’s not difficult to understand.
