Funding community action

Reports in the Sunday newspapers today - http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jun/30/big-society-network-grant - raise a question mark over the way that funds are being distributed to projects under the Government's Big Society agenda. The article raises issues concerning the selection of project, their effectiveness and business links with the key organisation, the Big Society Network and its charitable foundation. Such concerns clearly warrant investigation and discussion but it would be shame if this was used as an excuse for not funding and supporting community action. The problem is that community action is difficult, time-consuming and resource intensive. People involved are often doing projects for the first time and have no prior experience to fall back on. Business-style advice on 'how to get it done' does not neccessarily work in the different context of local neighbourhood relationship. There will be mistakes made. The key point is how community groups can learn from these mistakes and how such groups can learn from each other. Also vital is the input of resources and support to build community relationships and sustain these over time. This can look just 'too expensive' and the outputs may be small and take time to accumulate. But would this not be a better investment in the long run than, say, some major investment projects (HS2 to menetion no names!).