Development trusts warn on 'Big Society' plans

Development trusts and community groups could lose their ability to innovate if more start delivering statutory public services under the Government's 'Big Society' plans.

At an event run earlier this week by the Development Trusts Association (DTA), delegates expressed concerns that the coalition government’s plans to encourage more community-led organisations to bid to deliver statutory services such as health and education could compromise their ability to innovate, and also their focus on helping people in deprived areas.

Chris Bailey, regeneration manager at Westway Development Trust, said: "Maintaining our ability to innovate will be a challenge if we start delivering statutory services."

Karen Butigan, chief executive of St Peter’s Partnerships, a development trust in Greater Manchester, said: "By increasing the scale and breadth of its work and delivering services that are so connected to government targets, I worry that the community sector would dilute its impact.

"We need to maintain our peripheral position – helping marginalised, deprived communities and campaigning for more money to be made available for initiatives specifically intended to support them."

Meanwhile Steve Wyler, director of the DTA, questioned whether there was sufficient appetite within the sector to take on the "huge challenges" of running services such as primary schools and health centres, and said it might be necessary for development trusts to set up new forms of community enterprise in order to do so.

Priya Thamotheram, head of the Highfields Centre, which is run by Highfields Community Association, said: "I have absolutely no interest in taking over the management of major, statutory public services."
 

www.regen.net 30/06/2010