Vivien Knibbs - Managing Director Orbit East & South
I’m really excited about Orbit’s Big Society Research project that is kicking off this month and concluding around March 2012. I hope it’s going to lead to us having a really good idea about what is important to our residents, and flag up some new ideas.
You might say we should know all of this stuff already – we spend plenty of time and energy engaging with residents, but the new Big Society and localism agendas are starting to deliver the shift from central to local control. We need to identify how we can support our residents to both make the most of and not miss out on the opportunities available.
The project sits alongside Orbit’s 2020 vision work which includes research by Cambridge University and others into wide economic, social and political change. But where as that’s more ‘top down’ the Big Society project is going to be ‘bottom up’ with the researchers from London School of Economics (LSE) spending time in some of our communities and really getting under the skin of the issues – that’s why its so exciting.
I hope it will give us good pointers to how our local offers may need to change as other organisations’ services fall away under the funding restrictions. We know that our resources, whether that be hard cash or our time and expertise, is going to be stretched further and further and having a reference point for making those difficult decisions about how we use our resources is going to be so valuable going forward.
The possibilities that social enterprise might offer for meeting some of the future gaps in provision is a further strand of the work. Will new models and solutions best meet the aspirations and needs of our communities?
So, watch this space! The project is just starting and there’s going to be lots of opportunity to get involved and give your views.
Tags: Big Society, Localism, Orbit, orbit 2020, resident, residents and communities
