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Everyone’s talking about the ‘big society’ but what does it mean for social housing providers, asks Heather Petch, Director of HACT.

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

This article  originally appeared in Inside Housing (13/08/10)

The project, run by HACT in partnership with housing associations across England provides free housing training and six-month volunteer work placements for refugees. Participants also have the opportunity to gain a CIH-accredited qualification.
For more details or to request an application form, please email Devan.Kanthasamy@hact.org.uk or call 020 7247 7800. The closing date for applications is 17 September.  Read more about the experiences of a volunteer from the first wave of the project here.

Download the flier for further information.

Find out more about Reach In project.

HACT’s Collaborate 2 project worked with four clusters of small, community-based housing support providers to develop a range of approaches to sharing back office resources. The aim was to explore how resource-sharing could help small and medium-sized voluntary and community organisations increase their resilience and get better value from their limited budgets.

These fall into three categories: achievement of the objectives set out in the clusters’ workplans; unanticipated spin-off benefits; and an increase in social capital.

As at October 2009, the clusters had achieved the following workplan objectives:
London: development of a specialist outcomes indicator framework;

Bolton: establishment of a joint training consortium; upgrades of websites; trialling of an online giving module; rationalisation of ICT support; substantial savings in purchase costs;

Durham: work with a larger organisation (Centrepoint) to extend an embryonic shared database and reporting system; a series of Board capacity-building events; development of a joint training plan, which the cluster is looking to roll out beyond its membership in order to achieve critical mass;

Nottingham: upgrade of ICT systems and joint appointment of a support provider; development of shared database modules; access to HR support via the CLG-funded Beyond A Helpline service; agreement with a larger consortium partner for shared access to its health and safety support services.

The main concrete spin-off benefit arose from the sharing of information on purchasing of goods and services, compiled during the diagnostic phase. This enabled a number of organisations to switch to suppliers offering the best deal, or to negotiate jointly to achieve better value. One cluster’s members saved over £20,000 as a result.

In addition, participants report significant increases in social capital as a result of taking part in the project.

Download the full report.

Or you can download the executive summary.

The findings of this report are thus of profound relevance to the way in which the new thinking on meeting the needs of vulnerable people plays out in practice. It identifies actions key decision makers can take to support the continuance of a diverse range of service options for vulnerable people needing housing related support.

HACT’s Collaborate 1 project set out to test whether smaller providers could maintain a place in the Supporting People market by developing collaborative approaches to tendering. It was funded by Communities and Local Government (CLG), and delivered in partnership with Sitra and the National Housing Federation (NHF) during 2008/9. It resulted in a practice-based Collaborate Resource Kit published in 2009 and republished in 2010 due to its popularity.

Collaborate 1 showed that collaborative tendering can be a way for smaller organisations to survive and even thrive, but for this to happen requires:

capacity within organisations to put time into the process of collaboration, and to see it as a strategic priority;

availability of suitable partners;

commissioning teams adopting an “intelligent commissioning” approach and being in charge of the procurement process, with procurement teams playing a technical support role.

Only the first of these is under the control of the individual small provider.

Download the full report (1MB in size).

You can also download the executive summary of the report.

Download the flier for further information.

Find out more about Reach In project.

Put your idea into practice.

Find out more about our Golden Jubilee.

If you’re thinking of collaborating, we can help, with worksheets on partnering, a microsite about clustering, and lots more.

Collaborate 2 worksheets

These worksheets are based on the learning from HACT’s Collaborate 2 resource sharing pilots project, and should be read in conjunction with the HACT Collaborate 2 microsite.

This was a year-long project which worked with four clusters of small, community-based housing support providers to develop a range of approaches to sharing resources; the overall aim was to use resource sharing as a way for cluster members to build their collective capacity and influence.

Download An introduction to Collaborate 2

Download Worksheet 1: Why clustering? This worksheet gives an overview of the project model for resource-sharing clusters developed in HACT’s Collaborate 2 project. It is a brief introduction to the concept of a cluster, and some of the key stages in the process of designing and delivering a resource sharing initiative.

Download Worksheet 2: Stage 1 – forming the cluster. This worksheet sets out some of the key learning points on establishing successful clusters which emerged from the pilot phase of the Collaborate project.

Download Worksheet 3: Stage 2 – finding the focus. This worksheet describes the process by which a cluster’s Core Group can identify the issues its members have in common, and sift through them to come up with a short list of topics for a more detailed feasibility investigation. This stage is vital, not only for its own sake, but because it gives cluster members the first real opportunity to get to know each other, and to cement relationships by working together.

Download Worksheet 4: Stage 3 – developing the work plan. This worksheet suggests ways in which your cluster’s Core Group can approach the task of working up achievable plans from the initial shortlist of ideas generated by the Finding The Focus stage. It provides examples of approaches used elsewhere and ideas for resources for you to use.

Download Worksheet 5: Stage 4 – taking it forward. The aim of this sheet is to set out a few points that may help you to reflect on some of the issues that can arise as clusters move out of the formative stage and into maturity.

Download Worksheet 6: twelve top tips. This sheet provides twelve top tips for clustering.

Download Worksheet 7: IT tools for collaboration. The first part of this worksheet introduces you to three free programmes which can be extremely helpful in developing the work of your cluster. The second part provides instructions on how to access and use the ICT-based diagnostic tools on the HACT Collaborate 2 microsite.

Download Worksheet 8: resources and contacts. This worksheet provides links to the websites of various organisations which may be of use to you in developing the work of your cluster. It is by no means exhaustive – as with all these things, one link leads to another, but hopefully you will find at least some of these to be useful points of departure.

Download all nine worksheets (NB – this is a Zip file over 1MB in size. Please note that, depending on your internet connection, this may take some time to download – and you will need to be able to unZip the file once downloaded. See, for example, WinZip)

Are you a small voluntary organisation? Do you work with small providers? Are you thinking about the hard times ahead? Are you worried that The Big Society will be delivered by The Big Voluntary Sector?

The policy and funding environment in which support services are delivered to vulnerable people is changing. The new government has stated that it wishes to see voluntary groups play an increasing role in the delivery of services for vulnerable people. And it is likely to further devolve policy and funding decisions to local level.

The focus on community-based action as a way of delivering the vision of The Big Society, comes at a time when community-based voluntary organisations face threats from both severe cuts in public expenditure and trends in commissioning and procurement practice which jeopardise their ability to respond and – in some cases – to survive. Increasingly, contracts have been bundled up and redistributed to a relatively small number of large providers.

Find out more about Collaborate 1: sustaining diversity through collaborative tendering. Download the worksheets and read the executive summary of the evaluation report.

Find out more about Collaborate 2: sustaining diversity through clustering. Visit our Collaborate 2 microsite, download the worksheets and read the executive summary of the evaluation report.