David Cameron and Nick Clegg reminded their Ministers this week that reducing the Government’s debt is the only game in town, but are they focussing on the wrong type of austerity?

Economies always move in bust and boom cycles, the best that politicians can ever do is alter the frequency and depth of the cycles. There is another austerity challenge which could have more profound social consequences, but over which politicians can have greater sway.

A growing world population, more robust growth in developing countries and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns are starting to place pressures on the availability of basic commodities such as food, fossil fuels and clean water.

The recent drought in Russia has resulted in wheat prices growing by 75% since the end of June. Food and energy price inflation adversely hit the most vulnerable in any society leading to greater poverty and social tensions.

Government should be starting to set out a coherent plan for dealing with these challenges by putting in place policies that will make the UK more resilient to resource pressures. These should include a national water management strategy, targets for decreasing our reliance on food from abroad and an energy security plan.

It is possible to pick out vague strands of some of these in the coalition’s policies, but there is no clear articulation of an overall vision or any sense of urgency.

Most worryingly there are strong rumours coming out of the Department for Education that Michael Gove doesn’t feel that a sustainable school strategy is a priority and should be dropped. This is astonishing short-sightedness at a time when we need to help young people for a very different looking future.

Let's drink to the Big Society

On Monday I headed to the quaint, time-warped Suffolk town of Southwold for a meeting with the CEO of Adnams (tough life). It was an inspiring day, learning about the company over a lovely meal and some great beer in one of their pubs.

Adnams has truly taken sustainability to the heart of their business. A pint of beer normally requires 8 pints of water to make, but Adnams has been able to reduce this to 3. Their aim is to get the ratio down to 1 to 1. We were given a tour of their new brewery which is highly energy efficient and were told about the new anaerobic digester which is being made available to other local businesses enabling them to cut costs.

Adnams needs to do whatever it can to cut costs. Local village pubs are suffering hard times with more people staying at home drinking cheap supermarket alcohol. In many villages, the local pub is the only remaining social place where people can come together and if they close a vital part of community life disappears.

Our conversation with Adnams concentrated on how we can work with them to not only bring people back to the pubs but to make them vibrant hubs of a more sustainable and connected community – the Big Society in action.

The conversation soon made it apparent that the possibilities are endless and exciting. We left the meeting buzzing with thoughts which we will now turn into reality by creating a business plan and then seek funding.

End the financial year

On Tuesday, I headed off to a London Borough as part of the pitch process for a piece of work designed to help the council and local businesses to improve their environmental performance and save money. It is an interesting piece of work and has clear and ambitious targets. We will find out next week whether we have been successful.

Reflecting on the presentation made me realise how crazy it is that projects such as this have to be created around the constraints of the financial year. Whoever wins the contract has to cram the work in before the end of March.

In an ideal world you would run the project over a much longer period. It takes time to build trust and contacts, many of the changes that need to be made take time to implement and shifting the culture and values of organisations can’t be achieved within a few months.

Time and again we see brilliant projects and ideas being created which are then undermined because of the need to comply with financial year requirements. It also creates massive planning problems for running Global Action Plan, as we have to a huge amount of work to deliver this year and then a massive drop-off in the following financial year.  

If the Government want to improve efficiency and effectiveness then changing the way public sector finances operate would be a good place to start.

The implications of the Big Society for Global Action Plan  

On Friday I had a media interview about the impact that the Big Society will have on Global Action Plan. On the positive side, it is forcing me to think how we can ensure that our projects are truly being driven by the needs and requirements of local communities.  

We're already starting to look at how we can make the vision being created by young people - called Greenprint 2050 - the focal driving point of our work with 16-25 year olds. I am also convinced that we can deliver some of public services better and more efficiently than is currently being done by the large public agencies.

All of this will only be possible if money follows the idea. Polly Toynbee’s excellent article in the Guardian analysing what is happening to charity funding suggests that this isn’t happening.  

The scenario she outlines, particularly regarding the future of the youth volunteering charity V, is one I recognise all too well. The outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review will show the depth of commitment there really is to the Big Society. If funding isn’t available it will be merely a fig-leaf inadequately hiding a disinvestment in the charity sector.

Read Polly Toynbee's article first published in the Guardian on Friday 6 August 2010.

Follow Trewin on Twitter.

Contact Trewin

Do you have a question for Trewin? Send him a message using our contact form.

Do you want more?

Trewin has been blogging for Global Action Plan for the past few years. If you enjoyed this week's blog you can find more here.

 

• Email this page