A big society will need to regenerate regeneration
Neil McInroy- Newstart magazine, June 2010
They say there were too many partnerships, too many centrally-driven outputs and initiatives, too much legislation, all of which created wasteful confusion and duplication. Now of course, the financial position and the emergent ideas around Big Society and localism do mean we are entering a new era where regeneration is splintering and cannot now be a 'big tent' and funded imbroglio of physical, economic and social players.
However, these fair-weather friends are not saying anything particularly new and more importantly are ignoring all the good things that did happen. Furthermore, they are dangerously wrong and misguided If they assume a Big Society is just about some kind of self-help, doing less and having a 'light touch' approach.
Therefore, I implore government to ignore these courtiers. The development of a Big Society will actually need to regenerate regeneration by recognising three key things.
Firstly, deprivation and poor places have not gone away. Quite the reverse, recession has meant it's got worse. We cannot address a 'broken society' through a reformed welfare system alone. This will not be able to tackle the systemic problems within places. Regeneration will be required. Building on the excellent partnerships (which are feted and copied by many abroad) and area-based practice built up over the 30 years, there will need to be a programme and some area-based partnership activity that tackles the worst in terms of social, economic and physical dereliction and systemic decay.
Secondly, we do need some form of central control. Localism is not some panacea, or some pill which will solve all ills. You can't just pass power over and hope everything will be OK. This is a socially divided UK and England. The baseline for a Big Society contains 'big' spatial winners and 'big' losers. Individual localities can't sort this out alone. We need a central steer and at times central power to intervene to address regional and local unfairness and spatial inequality. This will require national targets, benchmarks or standard levels of performance. They will have to be either centrally controlled and/or involve regional intermediaries and/or quangos.
Thirdly, we need projects, programmes and innovative activities. Yes — Initiatives! Of course funding-led initiatives were a bad thing. However, I think it is folly to start blaming and describing all projects as some malady as in 'initiativitis'. Less initiatives and projects is not a solution, it's a recipe for place decline and social disorder. The Big Society challenge is to create many innovative on-the-ground initiatives which can work with less or no money. In this there will need to be locally derived and bespoke initiatives which use the best of previous regeneration experience.
Finally, let's not forget that regeneration was partly forged in the economic and social hard times of the 1980s. In this, the Conservative government of the time understood that regeneration action was the key. This agenda was taken forward in the economic good times by New Labour.
We cannot listen to those who did well out of 'big tent' regeneration, but who are now closing their eyes to entrenched spatial iniquity and who in their blindness are leading us to an 'uncivil society'.
A Big Society needs to regenerate regeneration.
