The Council on Social Action
On 24 July 2007, Prime Minster Gordon Brown announced the creation of a new
Council on Social Action.
“This Government's social change agenda must go beyond the
traditional to embrace the new and diverse ways in which individuals,
organisations, communities and business engage in social change. And so
it requires a whole new approach from government: new kinds of support
and a new style of inclusive leadership.
To bring social innovators together to generate ideas on how the whole of
government can support the efforts of all those striving for change, in
all their diverse ways, I am creating a new Council on Social Action, led
by David Robinson, which will advise the Government on new initiatives to
celebrate, connect and inspire those working for social good.”
The new Council will be chaired by the Prime Minister, with David Robinson,
founder of Community Links and We Are What We Do, as its Vice-Chair. It
will be made up of leading social activists and innovators from a range of
sectors.
The Council will aim to generate ideas and initiatives through
which Government and other key stakeholders can inspire, catalyse and
celebrate social action. By social action, we refer to the wide
range of ways through which individuals, communities, organisations and
businesses can seek, through their choices, actions and commitments, to
create change to address the social issues they care about. In this way,
the Government’s social action agenda goes beyond traditional
understandings of voluntary action, to encompass the diverse range of ways
that people are finding to express their commitment to building a better
society – from ethical purchasing to recycling waste, from helping our
neighbours to reducing our carbon footprint, from volunteering to
charitable giving, from participation in community activities to
campaigning for social change.
The Council on Social Action will advise the Government and seek to
catalyse action amongst other key stakeholders on ways to celebrate those
working for good, connect people and projects in order to stimulate new
collaborative action, and do more across a wide range of sectors to promote
and facilitate social action.
The application process for this phase is now closed. However, we will
periodically refresh the Council's membership and so will consider
expressions of interest on an ongoing basis.
For more information on this or other ways in which you or your
organisation can get involved in the Council's work please contact us
on:
Further information
