THERE is a dichotomy in Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society vision.

On one hand he says he wants community and voluntary groups to have a greater role in the way the country is run.

Yet on the other the coalition Government’s swingeing spending cuts are making it impossible for many such groups to operate.

For example, the Droitwich-based Worcestershire Council for Voluntary Youth Services is having to scrap its ‘vinvolved’ team after the Government’s Office for Civil Society cancelled its funding.

The team’s £150,000-a-year contract will not be renewed when its three-year project finishes at the end of the financial year.

The team has helped find places for 2,000 young people in sports clubs, environmental projects and police training exercises.

Surely backing this sort of initiative is just what the Big Society is about?

Writing in The Observer yesterday Mr Cameron said: “Building a stronger, bigger society is something we should try and do whether spending is going up or down.”

An admirable sentiment, but we remain to be convinced about its practicability.

Many in the voluntary sector believe its future will remain uncertain as long as its foundations are being so brutally undermined by millions of pounds’ worth of cuts.