HUNDREDS OF millions of pounds held in dormant British bank accounts will be used to fund Prime Minister David Cameron’s attempt to spur community groups and volunteer-led organisations into life.
Four districts have applied to be test-beds for Mr Cameron’s “Big Society” initiative, which was criticised by Labour as “DIY charity” during the election campaign and never fully understood by voters before they went to the polls.
Under the plan, Liverpool, Eden Valley in Cumbria and Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire will get State-paid community organisers to encourage locally led community projects into life.
Speaking in Liverpool, Mr Cameron said: “The Big Society is about a huge culture change where people . . . feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities.
“It’s about people setting up great new schools, businesses helping people getting trained for work, charities working to rehabilitate offenders. It’s about liberation, the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street.”
However, the move by the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition has led to attacks from trade unions, who fear it is little more than a cover for major cutbacks to come in the public sector.
Brian Stratton of the GMB union said: “People want quality public services delivered by dedicated professionals, not this thinly veiled attack on public services and the people who provide them.
“Volunteering is a great British tradition that Cameron is hijacking in order to disguise even more cuts to local services.”
Mr Cameron said a Big Society bank will be set up to funnel funds in dormant accounts untouched for 15 years or more to finance “dynamic social organisations”.
Legislation to harvest dormant accounts, which are believed to hold up to £500 million (€588 million), was passed into law by the Labour government in 2008, but the treasury never established a system to contact the account-holders as is required.
The government believes that up to £60 million could be ready to be transferred to community groups by next April, with much more to come later on.
Mr Cameron said: “I’ve been in Downing Street for a couple of months now and it seems to me that the business of government falls into two categories. There are the things you do because it’s your duty. Sometimes unpopular, but you do them because it is in the national interest.
“And yes, cutting the deficit falls into that camp. But there are the things you do because it’s your passion. The things that fire you up in the morning, that drive you, that you truly believe will make a real difference to the country you love. And my great passion is building the Big Society.”
However, charity groups funded by the State or local government are already worried that the support that they receive could be cut savagely – particularly by local councils who are, in a separate move, to get more control of their spending from Whitehall.