The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, criticised the Prime
Minister's flagship policy as lacking "teeth".
The archbishop has
been one of the most prominent supporters of the Big Society, but he told The
Sunday Telegraph that he feared communities hit by the economic downturn
would suffer if they did not get support.
The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales said Catholics were
afraid the Coalition was "washing its hands" of its
responsibilities to communities and expecting volunteers to fill the gap.
"It is all very well to deliver speeches about the need for greater
voluntary activity, but there needs to be some practical solutions," he
said.
"At the moment the Big Society is lacking a cutting edge. It has no teeth."
Archbishop Nichols said Mr Cameron's project was at a critical stage, and predicted that the next few months could determine its success in alleviating the potentially damaging effects of government spending cuts.
He has previously spoken enthusiastically of the potential for the Big Society
to transform society, with its emphasis on "localism" – handing
greater responsibility to communities to govern themselves.
Among new powers
planned in the Localism Bill introduced last December, communities are to be
given influence over council tax increases and the option of taking over
state-run services.
However, the archbishop warned: "Devolving greater power to local
authorities should not be used as a cloak for masking central cuts.
"It is not sufficient for the Government, in its localism programme,
simply to step back from social need and say this is a local issue."
His comments are likely to be seized on by Labour as evidence of growing
concern over the impact the Government's spending cuts will have on
communities.
Leading charity figures, including Sir Stephen Bubb, the head of the
Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, have suggested
that the scale of cuts could undermine the vision of the Big Society.
"We're now at a very critical point, with the philosophy of the Big
Society getting clearer, but on the other hand the effects of the cuts are
becoming real and there's real pressure about what will happen on the ground,"
said Archbishop Nichols.
"As we said in our discussion document, a government cannot simply cut
expenditure, wash its hands of expenditure and expect that the slack will be
taken up by greater voluntary activity."
The discussion document was published at a meeting held by the Catholic Church
to discuss the Big Society and attended by politicians, including Baroness
Warsi, the co-chairman of the Tory party.
Concerns were raised by Fr James Hanvey, one of the archbishop's advisers,
that the Government was pushing through policies similar to those of the
Thatcher and Major governments, which were seen by some to be divisive.
"The political question that hangs over the Big Society is its
provenance," said Fr Hanvey. "Has the Conservative part of the
Coalition simply seized the economic crisis as an opportunity to push
through the unfinished neoliberal agenda of the last Conservative
administration? We should not forget the enormous social division that was
entailed in this. It signalled the end of a humanist and humane consensus in
British society."
Archbishop Nichols said there was a worrying tendency for the poorer sections
of society to be worst affected by cuts and accused the banks of failing to
contribute their share to helping the victims of the economic crisis.
"The poorest are taking the biggest hit while at the same time you see
huge bank bonuses and profits and this is not right," he said.