Jayne Dowle: Hands up to join the new army of volunteers

I agree that individuals should be doing more to help communities, volunteering for projects and taking an active role in their neighbourhoods. But I am afraid he is going to have his work cut out.

His first problem is persuading people to take an interest in anything outside their immediate circle of family and friends.

I have inherited the volunteering gene from my grandmother, who sat herself on every committee going. But my mother and sister would run a mile if anyone asked them to do much more than sell a few raffle tickets.

So, much to the family's amusement, I have found myself volunteering for all kinds of things, from modelling in charity fashion shows to helping out with my son's football team. I just can't say no. And I have noticed that even in a group with a common interest, you always get the do-ers, and the ones who are happy to come along, but refuse to take charge of anything.

All those committed volunteers out there, already miffed that the government appears not to have noticed their hard work, will tell you that it is always the same people who shoot their hands up while everyone else stares at their shoes. Whether it's the WI or Neighbourhood Watch, lack of confidence, a quiet personality, other responsibilities which take up their time, there are all kinds of

reasons people prefer not to get directly involved.

And these are the people who have actually bothered to come out of the house to join something in the first place. What about all the others who are happy and content just to pootle along, going to work, looking after their homes and families, with no interest whatsoever in getting roped in?

The majority of my friends would put their hands up to this. Some serve as school governors, one helps conduct a children's choir, several are committed charity fundraisers or run sports teams. They might feel a bit guilty about it, but the others say they are busy enough, thank you very much, and just want to be left alone to live their lives.

Arguably, these are the kind of people the Prime Minister imagines on the frontline of his volunteer army. And if he can't persuade them, what hope has he of persuading all the people so disenfranchised from society that they don't even feel guilty?

I'm thinking about those who have existed on benefits for generations, with no experience of how organisations work or how to go about giving up some of their time to help others. How is he going to persuade that disaffected lot to haul themselves off their sofas and away from Facebook and daytime telly to plant a few bushes and run the local library? The nice volunteer ladies in his Oxfordshire constituency might keep the villages going with their jumble sales and garden parties, but it ain't going to happen overnight in the employment blackspots and forgotten council estates of this country.

Sorry to rain on his (volunteer-run, of course) parade, but I can't see his Big Society dream coming true. And my worry is, what is going to happen when these hordes of volunteers fail to materialise? Unlike Mrs Thatcher, who had privatisation to fall back on, he has nothing in his back pocket to offer as an alternative.

If the Prime Minister succeeds in his ambition to roll back the frontiers of the state so we don't have to rely on it, who will be there to run things?

Or is the idea that once he removes the tiers of government which organise after-school clubs and keep the streets tidy and run the post offices, and all these things fall apart at the seams, we will be so desperate for order to be restored that we will have no choice but to do it ourselves? I don't really call that a sensible way to run a modern democracy, do you?

And I do wonder where the money to run all these projects is going to come from. Surely he realises that the local councils he is intent on decimating, and the regional development agencies he is abolishing, have been the source of funding for all kinds of local initiatives, of the very nature he is keen on.

He talks of encouraging philanthropists to donate money as well as time, as is the model in America. But again, these are not going to materialise overnight, and in austerity Britain, even the rich are guarding every penny. The Victorian do-gooders on a mission to rescue the poor have all gone to heaven, and Lord help us if that kind of patronage is what we are heading back to.

I think this is the fatal flaw in the Big Society idea. The whole point of volunteering is that you do it because you want to, not because someone forces you into it. Talk about getting rid of heavy-handed government.

If twisting our arms up our backs to volunteer – or else – isn't heavy-handed, I don't know what is.