Britons Start to Turn Against Cameron’s Big Society Policy
Since July 2010, the proportion of respondents who disapprove of the proposed course of action has increased by 11 points.
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(02/23/11) -
Seven months after the introduction of the “Big Society” policy by Prime Minister David Cameron, people in Britain are seeing the program as a failure, a new Vision Critical / Angus Reid poll has found.
Prime Minister David Cameron presented the “Big Society” in July 2010. The policy calls for communities across the United Kingdom to take over responsibility for specific services and duties, such as local transport and libraries. The Government would establish the “Big Society Bank” and rely on funds from dormant bank accounts to finance community groups and charities.
In the online survey of a representative sample of 2,010 British adults, 37 per cent of respondents agree with the implementation of the “Big Society” policy, down 11 points since July. Disagreement with the policy is up by 11 points (46%).
In July 2010, more than half of Britons expected the “Big Society” policy to allow people to help themselves instead of relying on officials. That proportion has dropped by ten points and now stands at 43 per cent. A majority of respondents (58%, +4) continue to expect the policy to lead to more service cuts and jobs lost.
Last year, at least three-in-ten Britons thought that the “Big Society” policy would be a success for the voluntary sector, charity workers, and the Conservative Party. Now, only one-in-five respondents (21%) expect the voluntary sector to benefit from the policy, while two-in-five regard it as a failure for the Tories (42%), the Liberal Democrats (44%), and people in the UK (46%).
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CONTACT:
Mario Canseco, Vice President, Communications & Media Relations
+877 730 3570
mario.canseco@visioncritical.com
Methodology: From February 15 to February 16, 2011, Vision Critical conducted an online survey among 2,010 randomly selected British adults who are Springboard UK panelists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 2.2%. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region data to ensure samples representative of the entire adult population of Great Britain. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.
