Businesses – your country needs you

While the concept is never far from the centre of debate, the principles behind the Big Society are universal – people need to be empowered and supported to help themselves rather than be supported by the state.

Perhaps this is the moment to stop worrying about the Big Society title, which generates so much heat (especially hot air) but so little light, and focus on how to make that happen.

The problem is that the situation we find ourselves in right now, regardless of who you think is responsible, is unacceptably precarious for people in vulnerable communities. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development is predicting unemployment will hit a 17-year high during 2011 – meaning those people who were out of work before this crisis are even further from finding a job.

This is not political point scoring, it’s a reality that there are millions of people waiting for the solutions to the challenges they face to filter down to them. I hope I’m wrong, but let’s assume for the moment that I’m right – that with a foreseeable future of diminishing public resources some of the challenges we face are so great they are becoming increasingly intractable.

Now, more than ever before, is the time for us to come together and coordinate our efforts – public, private and voluntary sector – to support work that will help the most disadvantaged communities get back on their feet.

Each sector brings something unique but often tends to go off and do it’s own thing. This isn’t going to be good enough if we are to make a genuine difference to the most disadvantaged communities at an acutely difficult moment in the fiscal cycle.

There is tremendous scope right now for businesses to step up to the plate and play a leading role in helping people join things up on the ground. Why should they bother? The answer is very simple. In my view, businesses should support the most vulnerable in society not just to be socially responsible, but because their own future economic success depends on this nation not being dragged down by poverty and lack of aspiration, and the apathy that so often accompanies these twin evils.

And if we do this together, the government can’t ignore it. The support of business is crucial. Are they supporting charities working on the front line? Are their staff volunteering or offering apprenticeships or work experience to those out of work? Are they prepared to stand up for and invest in the poorest parts of society – and tell the government they are doing it because it’s in the nation’s best economic interests to do so?

Groundwork has always worked in partnership at both local and national level – whether with the local authority, public or private sector organisations, to get things done in and for local communities. In our experience, the trick is to be clear at the outset about what the partnership will achieve for the community.

Our Greener Living Spaces partnership with Marks & Spencer has been just one example of the private sector working with the voluntary and public sectors to invest in environmental improvements that benefit deprived communities.

Thanks to £3.6m of support from M&S, 10,000 people have taken part in transforming 100 local derelict and underused open spaces into recreation and leisure facilities for all the family to enjoy.

In the northwest, our United Futures partnership with United Utilities does much the same. In seven years United Utilities have provided £2.5m worth of funding, supporting 129 community projects in areas disrupted by their infrastructure development work.

If the roads have been dug up for vital new sewers, United Utilities repays the community by improvements that will leave a lasting legacy after the diggers have gone. Projects include working with local schools on eco-programmes, improving local allotments, creating new parks – whatever the community needs the most.

It’s a perfect fit for all involved – organisations like Marks & Spencer and United Utilities fund projects that Groundwork exists to do and so bolster the work we are already doing in communities. And Groundwork helps them to make a lasting difference in the communities which house so many of their customers. It is vitally important that now, perhaps more than ever, business continues to invest in such capital improvement projects.

These projects, and other imaginative funding programmes, make a massive tangible difference to the local social, environmental and economic prospects. The recession may have broadly now shifted over from the private sector to the public sector – but if we keep at this together we can ensure that recovery eventually reaches every corner of our nation.

It’s about using the distinct skills of the private, public and voluntary sectors to set people free instead of casting them adrift. And that, in my book, can only mean good business and a better, more competitive, economy.