Universities lead the way to the 'big society'

When David Cameron first launched his idea of the "big society", which would see citizens work together to run libraries, post offices, transport and more, the biggest criticisms were practical ones. Would people really give their time for free? And would volunteers have anything close to the necessary skills required to run local services?

Three months on, the big society is still in gestation phase. But if the prime minister needs inspiration, he might like to check out Britain's universities, where the pro bono philosophy (literally "in the public good"; in practice it means free) is thriving. Take the University of the West of England, where 200 law students and academics run a legal clinic with the Bristol Citizens Advice Bureau and practising barristers. The undergraduates interview and advise local clients supervised by a dozen academics and, when required, practising lawyers.

"We felt that it was appropriate to give students opportunities to see how law can work in practice, and to assist the local community," says UWE lecturer and scheme organiser Marcus Keppel-Palmer. The ethos is mirrored at universities across the country, including Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Kent, Oxford and many more: in fact, pro bono work has become so established that on Saturday the specialist charity LawWorks is hosting a big Student Pro Bono Conference at Birmingham University, hosting sessions on setting up law clinics and developing project ideas.

But the work isn't limited to law faculties, or even just to students. Across the UK, engineering, PR and business academics are all donating their time to supervise their undergraduate "advisers", and undertake their own pro bono work. At Queen Mary, University of London, Professor Stefano Harney and five of his business school colleagues have launched a free consultancy service to help non-governmental organisations (NGOs) become more business-savvy. The inspiration, he says, stemmed from "business schools in the UK rightly being blamed for turning a blind eye to the culture of greed and exploitation that led to the recent financial crisis".

He explains: "I wanted to do something concrete in the business school to indicate that our knowledge of organisations can also be constructive in society. It was fine to see business schools making noises about adding more modules on ethics, but I thought it was time for them to put their money where their mouth is by donating the free labour of their academics to civil society organisations."

Harney and his colleagues now devote hours to working with small NGOs who can't afford expensive consultants, offering advice on leadership, strategy and development. "We act like psychoanalysts to these small organisations, listening to them and often helping them to work out their organisational issues for themselves," he says. PhD students are also involved, and Harney is now planning to expand it to include undergraduates, teaching them how to work with NGOs in the process.

For students, the incentive of pro bono work is obvious: with graduate unemployment at a 17-year high, it's a way to add sparkle to CVs. Add to that the boost to local communities – especially crucial now, with the public sector cutbacks – and you have, as several academics tell me, "a win-win situation". So with universities under more pressure to prove their worth, it's no surprise that some are building pro bono work into the timetable.

At Portsmouth University, final-year students help local charities to improve their accounting systems as part of their coursework. "A trustee of a local hospice asked me whether students could help out with its assessing financial control systems," explains Caroline Willett, finance lecturer at Portsmouth and organiser of the scheme.

"The students got so much out of it that I realised working for charities was an excellent reciprocal relationship – the charities benefit from the university's expertise, and the students gain genuine work experience."

One of her students is Nathan Cable, 20, an accountancy student who is working with the Hilsea Lido Pool for the People, a charity working to refurbish and re-open a community leisure centre. "I've been helping with both the management and financial accounting, doing costing, budgeting, internal controls, and having meetings with the trustees to find out their long-term goals," he says.

Cable reckons he's much better at talking through accounting techniques as a result, and is also grateful for the experience of working out real problems rather than the neat ideas of a textbook. "I think it's an excellent model for the government to look into with their big society idea," he adds. "It should be used by different universities and businesses to ensure that charities who lack resources can run efficiently."

Back in London, Tim Barnes, director of University College London's enterprise department, says some of his university's enthusiasm for pro bono work comes from helping students to escape the Catch-22 of how to win a first job when all jobs require experience. He adds: "This isn't something to be cynical about: students are desperately trying to grab every experience they can to expose themselves to real industries and skills to get a job. When they do so in a way that helps the local community, it's even better."

UCL is one year into a £1.8m project part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, which matches businesses in the capital that are struggling with specific problems with students and academics who can help. Richard Rand, director of one firm involved in the scheme – Aerobic Bins, a company making more eco-efficient bins – approached UCL engineers to help develop his business. "We needed to find a way to quantify the reduction of waste in the Aerobic Bins," he says. "And through the scheme, we were able to tap in to the knowledge of master's engineering students and academic staff. The advice was first-rate, and the results have already triggered talks with a substantial future customer."

Barnes believes Britons fail to recognise the scale of community work carried out by universities. "It's like when people say 'my time in hospital was really good, but I hear generally the NHS is a mess'," he explains. "A lot of people have amazing individual experiences of working with their local university, but don't think of it happening on a bigger scale."

But he believes universities are getting better at explaining what they do for local communities. "Increasingly, universities are spending far more time and money making sure that the things they know and are good at are getting out in the wider world for people to benefit," he says. Barnes believes that pattern will only accelerate as the public spending cuts kick in. UWE's Keppel-Palmer agrees, saying universities are the "obvious sources of resource to enter into big society partnerships to try to ensure that some of the [spending cut] cracks can be filled."

But he warns that universities can't pick up all the slack, especially with their own post-recession changes. "If students find themselves less able to volunteer due to additional pressure caused by paying higher tuition fees, cuts in funding universities may impact negatively in a trickle-down manner."

By Lucy Tobin,

9 November, 2010
Source: www.guardian.co.uk

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