By David Robinson
The Council on Social Action was set up by the Prime Minister in 2007. It brought together innovators from every sector to generate ideas and initiatives through which government and other key stakeholders can catalyse, develop and celebrate social action.
The Council considered “social action” to include the wide range of ways in which individuals, communities, organisations and businesses can seek through their choices, actions and commitments to address the social issues they care about.
The Council on Social Action first met in December 2007, and yesterday the last meeting of the Council took place, over the short life of CoSA we have discussed many issues and suggested several new ideas in a brief overview of just some of our work here are four topics from our agenda and, two years later, twelve outcomes.
At the first meeting the PM challenged us to imagine a society where we might all have a one-to-one relationship, someone to turn to, through out our childhood years and thereafter in times of crisis or transition….
Our report on this subject in November 2008 made 44 recommendations. We have subsequently pursued them all; 31 are now either completed or underway. We made 11 more last month, four are underway already.
To further develop the ideas on the ground two “Leading Community” pilots will begin work, with independent funding, in spring 2010
And “extra time funding” has been secured from our three corporate partners to chase through and further develop all our one-to-one recommendations for another 12 months
At the first meeting we considered the challenge of sustainable funding……
A pilot for the “sustainable law centre” built around the one-to-one relationship between client and adviser is now being developed in south London by the Ministry of Justice and a group of independent trusts and city law firms.
Much work on developing the Social Impact Bond is close to generating the first pilots. It has taken a lot of effort, several partners and a long time but could transform the funding of preventative work and early intervention.
And it has led to further work on developing and sharing other alternative funding models and to the new “Alternative Funding” ning.
At the first meeting we talked about bringing together people, ideas and opportunities………
More than 1200 people from 20 countries have attended the first two Chain Reactions. Much larger numbers are connecting, collaborating and committing to new ideas for social action in the thriving Chain Reaction online community.
The Catalyst community awards for social technology have unearthed and profiled hundreds of inspiring stories demonstrating the power of technology for catalysing social action.
We have developed the idea of a National Talent Bank to promote and support employee volunteering amongst those with more time to share as a consequence of recession
And the Big Lunch, a twinkle in Tim Smit’s eye at that first meeting was served at more than 8,000 street parties last July.
And at the first meeting we discussed the importance of not just doing things but also generating new thinking and long term structural change……..
One-to-one is now a “common core skill” in the cross government children’s workforce training strategy, considered in procurement and a featured priority for all new policy in the DCSF “Making Policy” guides and tools.
And our eleven publications have included many more examples of the advice we have offered and the projects we have led. They have covered new ground on “willing citizens”, on “collaborative commitments”, and on the implications of our one to one learning for the reform of public services. Our two commentaries have reflected on what we’ve learnt through out the process as well as on the outcomes.
For further more information on these projects and all our other work see www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/social_action.aspx
David Robinson is Vice-Chair of the Council on Social Action and Co-Founder of Community Links.
