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The UK riots in August provided a stark reminder of the fragility of the relationship between citizen and state in today's society. How is the RSA's Citizen Power programme in Peterborough helping to forge more positive connections within the community?

David Cameron has not entirely been able to sell the government's 'big idea': the Big Society. This may come down to problems with communication. Half of the population still has not heard of the Big Society and most of those who have do not know what the term  means in practice.

People are justifiably sceptical about the efficacy of the idea. The Big Society depends on mass participation, yet levels of volunteering have remained static for a decade, and while 80 percent of people say they would like to be more involved in their neighbourhoods, fewer than 5 percent do so regularly.

The August riots in London, Birmingham and elsewhere in the UK would suggest that the coalition government may have bigger problems to contend with. If we look closely, we can see that the two issues are interconnected. The recent shocking events have led many to repeat the mantra of the incoming government: that British society is broken. It will not be long before the coalition again positions the Big Society as the medicine needed to cure our society of state control and its said consequences: welfare dependency, social dislocation and a culture of selfishness.

David Cameron has reduced the riots to "criminality pure and simple". Yet there is nothing simple about the recent troubles or their causes. As the German philosopher, Axel Honneth, would argue, people need to feel recognised and valued by society in order to be a part of it. Demonising whole communities or groups of people, taking away social housing and refusing to tackle the root causes of the civil unrest will only serve to deepen the 'social misrecognition' that helps to explain why people feel able to resort to mass vandalism and violence in their own neighbourhoods.

In this context, the coalition's preferred strategy for bringing about the Big Society - exhorting people to be good citizens - seems naive. It is likely to fail to cultivate the mass participation and citizenship needed to repair the communities and lives damaged by the riots.

So, if this does not work, what will? There is no one answer. But a starting point is to rethink the relationship between citizens and local public services, which have an important mediating role between the state and citizen. Reformed public services, co-designed by citizens who facilitate and support them to meet their own needs, is one area in which we can nurture social recognition and the personal responsibility it engenders.

This ethic of reciprocity between state and citizen underpins the RSA's Citizen Power Peterborough programme. Supported by Peterborough City Council and Arts Council England, the RSA is working closely with citizens, community groups and public agencies in the city to create the conditions for community-led responses to some of the big social issues facing Peterborough. The six strands of the programme (see boxes) address problems such as drug dependency, a lack of connection between schools and community, anti-social behaviour and environmental sustainability.

A year in and the results are impressive. The project has brought in more than £700,000 to Peterborough and has involved more than 500 people. Five schools are working together, for the first time, to improve civic education for young people by connecting what they learn with where they live. New networks of citizens have been mobilised to reduce anti-social behaviour and encourage 'green' behaviour. Socially engaged arts practice is proving successful at improving community relations by bringing together citizens from different walks of life. Building on its work in West Sussex (see box, right), the RSA is developing a radical new approach to drug services, led by those who know most about drug dependency and how to prevent and tackle it: recovering users.

The UK riots provide the coalition with a significant test of its Big Society agenda. Restoring hope in those places affected by the riots, and rebuilding them both physically and symbolically, depends on active citizens stepping up to the plate. This means that the government, public services and citizens will have to cooperate better. In working towards this goal, the government could do worse than learn from the Citizen Power programme.

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Sam Mclean is director of public participation at the RSA.

Find out more about Citizen Power and read the full report - Citizen Power in Peterborough: one year on. You can also join our Facebook site or follow @citpower on Twitter.

Photography: Johanna Ward

Civic health Much of the RSA's work seeks to identify the hidden networks that exist within communities - including the Fellowship - and can play a critical part in making change happen. Through the development of ChangeMakers, the RSA is taking this work to Peterborough, a city of hidden assets and talents. Launched this autumn, the ChangeMakers network will map and mobilise individuals who can help address the social, economic and environmental challenges facing the city. Civic Commons The RSA has developed a Civic Commons group in Peterborough, where ordinary people from around the city come together to identify and help solve local problems, from anti-social behaviour to social isolation. In order to embed Citizen Power in its 'single delivery plan', Peterborough City Council will devolve greater responsibility to the hyper local level through new Civic Commons groups as they are introduced in different parts of the city. The Peterborough Curriculum As part of its broader mission to embed schools in their local communities and turn them into hubs of civic activity, the RSA is developing the Peterborough Curriculum with five schools in the city. This builds on the work of the RSA Academy in Tipton and the Manchester Curriculum. Teachers in Peterborough have already reported that they are now in contact with more organisations across the city, 46 of which have offered schools opportunities for learning. Sustainable citizenship Peterborough City Council is aiming to turn the city into the 'environmental capital' of the UK. To date, the RSA has worked with 80 local people to develop the city's 'green skills'. Recent projects have included energy-reduction initiatives and a scheme to turn unused land into sustainable community spaces. The goal is to create a permanent and growing network of environmental innovators and an online platform to share ideas and best practice. Find out more about our Sustainable citizenship project. Arts and social change The RSA has been working with local artists, creative industries and citizens to build the confidence and capacity of the local arts community. To date, six 'creative gatherings' have taken place and the project has encouraged the development of a new arts network, as well as collaboration between local artists and those working in public services. Find out more our work on Arts and social change. Whole Person Recovery: Lessons for Peterborough The RSA's Whole Person Recovery project in West Sussex is informing the Recovery Capital project, one of the core strands of the RSA's work in Peterborough. It provides a route map for designing more efficient and effective public services that can meet the specific needs of individuals with substance problems. Crucially, it demonstrates how to design and deliver services in collaboration with the service user and how to embed the support for them in the communities they serve. The project builds on the RSA's 2007 Commission on Illegal Drugs, Communities and Public Policy and uses action research to develop practical solutions with real people at a local level. Involving more than 200 former and current problem drug and alcohol users, the project designed five pilots through a series of innovative workshops and events. These included a website that allows individuals to measure their motivation for recovery and the resources they have to support their journey. The site provides information about where to go for additional support and links directly to the independent peer group, Exact. Another pilot saw the development of a film aimed at raising GPs' awareness of their role in supporting an individual's recovery journey. The project has also developed a high-level commissioning structure - the Whole Person Recovery System - that can be used to embed recovery at the heart of a community's service provision. It suggests how to engage all the people needed to support recovery, including individual users, their families and friends, treatment providers, other practitioners and the wider community.