Coalition 'most decentralising government for 50 years'

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The Big Society should be used as a vehicle to engage the third sector and offer "bespoke", locally driven services, the PPS to Eric Pickles has said.

Speaking at a Conservative conference fringe event, 'Who's Working Locally to Deliver the Big Society Agenda?', hosted by Family Room, Stephen Hammond emphasised differences between previous administrations and the coalition.

In the past, local government had been forced to follow a central agenda that did not serve local people, but now authorities and communities had the chance to influence their local area.

The coalition is seeking to devolve power from Whitehall and sees it as an equal priority to solving the budget deficit and reforming welfare provision.

Hammond conceded that these were "extraordinarily tough financial times", saying that the era of direct provision was over, replaced by an emphasis on collaboration and commissioning of services.

Cllr David Simmonds, responsible for children and young people at the LGA, said that public spending levels were only being cut to those of 2007, not "a great time of austerity".

He called on the public and politicians to have confidence in local government, which has risen to significant challenges in the past.

Citing Norwich Council as an authority that is making the Big Society meaningful, Simmonds pointed to their outsourcing of services to the third sector, despite media portrayals of them "cutting services to the bone".

Whitehall is pushing powers out to local authorities, who should in turn devolve power to neighbourhoods and families.

The public should engage in decisions that defined resources and services, he said. The economic situation, whilst a huge challenge, can also be a big opportunity for government to become "closer to the people they serve".

Westminster Council's Cllr Aiken claimed the party had received a "democratic mandate" to drive the Big Society to the heart of services.

After the summer riots, local authorities were best placed to target intervention in the communities they knew and to create responsive programmes, she said. Services were best, she argued, when families only had to engage with one agency, which required "wrap-around services and budgets".

Westminster Council had been able to save £21,000 per family and reduce the average number of arrests in troubled families from nine to one-and-a-half per year by sharing information between agencies to build a "picture of the family".

The challenge to local solutions was the flow of money, with no incentive for early intervention to save net spending where services were shared by many different providers.

Cllr Aiken concluded by saying that there was a need to be smarter about funding, to move from annual grants to commissions and tenders for individual services.

In group discussions at the end, organisations provided a variety of feedback, with Clint Gaster from the Local Government Information Unit calling for data to be shared between authorities, and reminding councils that tenders do not have to be awarded solely on the basis of price.

A representative of Home-Start said it was important to recognise the Big Society at a community level. This could involve the creation of coalitions of volunteer partnerships to promote consumers' agendas locally, including the freedom to set bin collection and council tax policy.