That has been our starting question for considering how government, business and civil society can support a big society in the UK. The realisation that we put endless barriers in the way to people who want to do good in their community – whereas the people who choose to do bad get left alone unless it is serious. The astonishing fact is that 1.7 million of us do lead a social or community venture despite all those barriers. The extraordinary good news is that nearly a quarter of a million are trying to set up a new one this year.
   
In previous times this was just a lost opportunity. In the new financial realities, we have no time to lose in changing track. The one renewable and boundless resource we have in the UK is the motivation, talent and creativity of our people.
    
For a long time now, the UK has worked on a basic assumption that if good work needs doing, someone in government should decide what that good is – and then specify it, put it out to tender, appoint a delivery agent, and monitor them against centrally set indicators of good. It is an approach which has run out of rails. It denies the talent and ingenuity of others to create better solutions, instead simply allowing for marginal managerial improvements. And it treats our citizens as passive consumers, rather than as the real agents for change.
    
This is not to deny in any way the vital roles of government, as the legitimate authority to sanction or refuse actions in the public good, and as the channel for our tax to go back into the places that most need it. But it demands a new settlement between government, citizens and civil society. No longer bully to victim and rescuer. Now as legitimate authority to mediate between people who ask for help and those who assist them in improving their own lives.
   
Government agencies have an exceptionally difficult path over the next few years. Faced with massive cuts, do they strategically change or slash and burn to balance the books; do they go for the radical reinvention of public services which could deliver the scale of change needed but may take too long, or go for short cuts which can produce savings quickly but which we know will not take us far enough.
    
UnLtd is the foundation for social entrepreneurs. Our job is to reach out and unleash the talents of people who can transform the world around them – people who we call social entrepreneurs. We back around 1200 a year to start up and 100 a year to get to major scale, using a mix of seed funds, development support, networking and connections. Our core operations are resourced through a lottery endowment, and we double this through external partnerships delivering support to social entrepreneurs in theme areas, from youth to older people, digital to green, urban regeneration to sport.
    
We know this approach works. After an average of 3 years, each person we support creates a mean of 4 jobs, 14 training places, 15 volunteering places, plus the social impact they aim for and a 90% personal confidence level to effect further change. Three quarters are still going and a further 9% have moved on to the next venture.
    
But, 1200 is just half a percent of those trying to start up. The UK desperately needs the work of social entrepreneurs: hundreds of thousands of community entrepreneurs doing small things in their neighbourhoods and building resilience in times of great stress, the smaller number who can scale up innovative new ways of meeting social goals. We cannot move from 1200 to 250,000 alone. We need to get many more agencies spotting talent and helping it to shine.
   
So here is our new strategic approach: partnerships with local organisations to boost community entrepreneurship, and with the social investment community on rapid scaling for growth in ventures that can meet public service needs. And it needs government people too, as mentors, advisers, helping social entrepreneurs understand how public services make decisions, the challenges they face, the opportunities for new models.
     
Looking around at the economic position and the social stress it is creating, and at countries like Ireland and France which are seeing strong opposition to the measures that may be unavoidable, it is easy to get depressed. I am not. There are people out there determined to help. One in thirty of us is a social entrepreneur. Whether it is reducing reoffending or re-engaging disaffected youth into education, encouraging communities in reducing carbon use or coproduction of health care, social entrepreneurs are key to our future. Let’s help them, let’s get the barriers out of their way, and connect the expertise of public servants with the passion and energy of the public.