This has been doing the rounds in Westminster, Twitter, cyberspace and elsewhere for a few weeks now and has been attributed to many, including TV presenter Andrew Neil, but it still merits an airing: “Q: What is the difference between ‘The Big Society’ and ‘The Big Issue’? A: Nobody buys ‘The Big Society’.”
David Cameron’s voluntarism initiative has also become synonymous with redundancy, as in losing your job is “joining the Big Society”. Even the man put in charge, Lord Wei, found he could not do it and make ends meet so had to scale back his hours. So far, so inauspicious – couldn’t really get much worse, or could it? TimeBank, the charity hailed by Office for Civil Society Minister Nick Hurd as the retort to the cynics faces possible closure – just months after celebrating its 10th anniversary – following his department’s refusal to give it a £500,000 grant. The organisation, which employs 35 staff and co-ordinates 300,000 volunteers and work experience candidates, was one of 42 organisations receiving government funding and invited to reapply to become a “strategic partner” and get up to £500,000 a year until the programme’s closure in 2014. Spending cuts means that only 14 designated “strategic partners” will get any funding. The Cabinet Office, we are told, is mulling whether it will publish the full list of organisations that have already been told they are being cut loose and won’t get any money. As for TimeBank, which says it is considering a legal challenge, a Cabinet Office spokesperson said drily that the organisation was given six months notice “which is ample time to plan for the future”.
