Solutions for a Big Equal Society?

Tough times are ahead, but we need to come up with solutions, argues Dan Silver from One North West.  

Tough times are ahead, but we need to come up with solutions, argues Dan Silver from One North West.  

What are the challenges and opportunities for equality organisations within the Big Society? This was the question we asked sixty organisations at our Equality: Making it Happen Conference, hosted last week in partnership with Voice4Change England (V4CE). 

Tough times ahead

Delegates at the conference agreed that tough times were ahead for equality organisations and the communities who rely upon them. Reflecting on Big Society policies like community organisers, local integrated services and community budgets, people saw little evidence of any framework that could ensure equality beyond the individual ambitions of people delivering the voluntary and community programmes.

Hopefully the Office of Civil Society’s decision to fund the event and wider research undertaken by V4CE and the Women’s Resource Centre, reveals a commitment to equality that will be matched with a commitment moving forward.

People at the event were clear in their belief that a strong voice on equalities needed to be rooted into the agenda.  Without this, the terms will be set by parties who don’t consider equality important.

Excluded from the decision making process

So, despite feeling disempowered by current policies, and at times excluded from the decision making process, it is our responsibility to highlight challenges, but crucially, to also provide solutions for a way forward. According to many at the conference, this will not be achieved under the terms of fairness set by the Government.

Fairness, as opposed to equality, is an inherently subjective concept. This political shift towards the language of fairness erodes the many years of progress  won through equality legislation. We cannot give up on equality, despite the strong calls for its abandonment under the ideals of localism.

A framework for equality in decision making

This is why in Tameside we have worked to provide a framework, launched at the conference, which allows for local responses and solutions, but does so with principles of equality: principles that listen, value and invest in the Black Minority Ethnic (BME) and BME women’s voluntary and community sector (VCS), which ensure minimum standards and include marginalised communities in decision-making and that provide the funding environment that recognises social value and supports a grass-roots VCS. 

In Tameside, this has empowered the BME VCS and has provided benefits to the statutory sector, providing a framework to guide future action and sustainable partnerships, all driven by equality.

Catalyst for future action

The challenge to the sector now is to provide solutions that show the intrinsic value of equality for all our communities, to the public sector and to the country as a whole. The Equality: Making it Happen Conference could be a catalyst for much future action.

The conference built upon a wide range of work that One North West have been undertaking since the coalition came to power back in May 2010, which has culminated in our North West Infrastructure Partnership’s policy paper: ‘Responsible Reform. Open Public Services for All’, which we will launch to MPs on February 23rd in Londo

Disclaimer: Blogs do not necessarily reflect the views of Voice4Change England.