Abstract
The Big Society emphasises enterprise, voluntarism and entrepreneurial spirit to inspire communities. This chapter explores how the Big Society agenda fits with the environmental NGO sector in the United Kingdom. Given the large amount of wide-ranging, deep and immediate cuts expe-rienced by many actors in the voluntary, NGO and charitable sector since the Comprehensive Spending Review of 2010, the Big Society provides opportunities but also has attracted virulent criticism as an apparent smokescreen for these cuts in government funding. This chapter examines the role of the environmental NGO sector in implementing the Big Society on the ground, examining relations between the key actors and resource providers in delivery of projects. The ideas behind the Big Society have formed part of Mr Cameron’s discourse for a long time. It is his solution to what he perceives as Britain’s ‘broken society’ and his alternative to what he calls ‘big government’ of the previous Labour administration. It was also his means of clearly demarcating his premiership from that of his Conservative predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, who famously claimed that ‘there is no such thing as society’.
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© 2014 Rory Shand and Roger Higman
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Shand, R., Higman, R. (2014). How Viable Is the Big Society? Perceptions from Environmental NGOs in the United Kingdom. In: Brandsen, T., Trommel, W., Verschuere, B. (eds) Manufacturing Civil Society. IIAS Series: Governance and Public Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137351630_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137351630_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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