Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Civic Limits: How much more involved can people get?

Launch of a participative draft by ResPublica

ResPublica is delighted to share our latest report, "Civic Limits: How much more involved can people get?" This report seeks to provide some definition to this aspect of the big society debate by exploring the best available data on the state of civic life in Britain and describing what in practical terms is required to get more people involved. This is a draft written with the intention of initiating a dynamic conversation about what to do, as opposed to stating static proposals. It is in that spirit we offer Civic Limits and its recommendations as a starting point.  Therefore this is deliberately a first draft, a living text on which we invite input, contribution and comment.  It is not perfect; there will be errors and omissions, but we hope that all players in civil society will engage in re-drafting our initial thoughts.


Please do comment on our thoughts and recommendations, and we look forward to your active participation in the writing, editing and debating of Civic Limits.  You can download the full PDF here, or comment on the individual chapters on this site.

 

Click here to download:
Civic_Limits.pdf (1.85 MB)
(download)

Foreword

Well over a year since the election of the Coalition government, one of its core projects - the creation of a big society - remains a cornerstone of national debate. Yet despite the many column inches dedicated to it and policy documents seeking to build it, beyond the headline ambitions there is still no obvious collective sense amongst either ordinary people or many parts of national or local government of what a big society means or requires in terms of individual involvement and participation.

Click here to download:
a_Civic_Limits_Foreword.pdf (519 KB)
(download)

 

Part One: Introduction

2010 was the year of the ‘big society’. It was even recognised by Oxford University Press as the word of the year. Since the Coalition Government took office, the big society has solidified into a series of policies, programmes and even sparked an organisation or two. However, the greatest achievement of the big society so far however must be that it has sparked a genuine national debate about the nature of Britain today - one that has continued more than a year after the general election that initiated it.

Click here to download:
c_Civic_Limits_Part1.pdf (521 KB)
(download)

 

Part Two: Defining the Involvement Challenge

Summary: To set the context for this paper, we start by looking at recent statistics that show us how many people are currently getting involved in different types of civic activities in Britain (Section 2.1), as well as some research that shows who is getting involved and who is not (2.2). Based on this, we suggest that an ambitious target is needed for increasing civic involvement, extending the ‘civic core’ of people who are most involved from 30% to 60% of the population (2.3). We will also consider why some of the analysis of the problem thus far has failed to support greater civic involvement (2.4).

Click here to download:
d_Civic_Limits_Part2.pdf (857 KB)
(download)

 

Part Three: Individual Limits

Summary: To understand how we can significantly increase the levels of civic involvement, we must start by looking at the barriers that prevent individuals from getting more involved. The various modern pressures on people’s time are clearly an important factor here (3.1), closely linked to broader changes in our society, which have reduced many of the traditional spaces and opportunities for people to interact and engage with others in their communities (3.2). As well as these trends, the more practical issues of lack of skills, capacity and confidence can also act as significant barriers to involvement (3.3). While tackling these barriers is important, we must also make an effort to understand the underlying values and motivations that influence how people view society and their role in it, as well as the different incentives they respond to (3.4). Finally, not only getting people involved, but sustaining their involvement, is crucial (3.5).

Click here to download:
e_Civic_Limits_Part3.pdf (814 KB)
(download)

 

Part Four: Limited Techniques

Summary: Whilst it is important to look at the specific techniques of involvement, what we really need is a more fundamental change in our civic culture. We must firstly understand the limits of the current dominance of top-down, consultative approaches to involvement (4.1), and move towards approaches that both harness and create civic energy, and support social action (4.2 & 4.5). We should also understand the skills needed to facilitate such engagement, how online tools could be more effectively deployed, and how VCS organisations could be supported to play a more active role in civic involvement (4.3), while at the same time acknowledging the challenges posed by the various demands on people’s time and attention (4.4).

Click here to download:
f_Civic_Limits_Part4.pdf (647 KB)
(download)

 

Part Five: Financial Limits

Summary: When we look at the specific challenges posed by the current financial situation, it becomes clear that what is needed is radical, not incremental change, in order to harness the opportunity for significantly increasing civic involvement (5.1). To support this, we should seek to foster a climate of confidence and risk taking, and a desire to get involved, through communication that is ambitious and optimistic, but grounded in reality (5.2). The cuts are undoubtedly ‘turning up the heat’ of civic energy as people engage with the reality of changes in spending priorities, but they also risk undermining individuals’ sense of positivity and self-confidence. We must therefore be creative in designing strategies that can harness this energy, while plugging into people’s higher ideas and values as opposed to their fears (5.4 & 5.5). We also explore some of the challenges and opportunities created by the government’s current proposals to outsource services to the  voluntary sector (5.3).

Click here to download:
g_Civic_Limits_Part5.pdf (602 KB)
(download)

 

Part Six: Civic Unltd

Summary: We outline here the new approaches we believe should be adopted by Government, Local Government, the Voluntary and Community sector and Business if we are to transcend current limits on involvement. And we propose eight initial but concrete measures for tackling the challenges presented in this paper and transforming our civic involvement, building on the approaches advanced in Chapters 2-5.

Click here to download:
h_Civic_Limits_Part6.pdf (977 KB)
(download)

 

​