Lord Glasman has slammed the government’s decision to award a £15m community organising contract to Locality, calling it a “paternalist” approach which is out of step with the principles of community organising.

Speaking at the Public Administration Select Committee’s first hearing on the Big Society, the influential ‘Blue Labour’ theorist said community organising involves developing leaders within communities, whereas Locality represents “the paternalist, eat your greens, don’t smoke, don’t swear” approach.

Drawing a negative comparison between the decision to give the contract to Locality and the approach of the famed Chicago-based community organiser Saul Alinsky, whose ideas are considered to have inspired Big Society thinking, he said: “It was the completely worst type of Tory ‘aren’t we doing a wonderful thing helping the poor person who needs my help in life’.

“Locality have no experience of developing leaders in poor communities, in working-class communities; they are very well-intentioned busybodies.”

He added: “Now I perceive there is no intention to bring leadership from outside the usual sources.”

Glasman, who spent ten years with London Citizens before becoming a lord, said of the Big Society more generally: “We can knock the idea on the head of a big movement happening, it's not there.”

Responding to the comments in a blog post, Jess Steele, director of innovation at Locality, said: “As an unelected peer of the realm in an overstuffed second chamber, this is a direct insult to every member of the movement of grassroots community organisations connecting hundreds of thousands of people rooted in real communities all over the country.”

She added: “We represent their views and our key decisions are made by them, so the name-calling is simply inaccurate.”