Heh. I haven’t spoken to you since OUSU council 2002, I think!

Yep - another reader of third sector and charity worker here.

I agree with your basic position that more public service delivery contracts aren’t automatically a good thing for the sector.

However, if individual trustee boards are aware of the issues and the potential risks involved and make a decision that they can best serve their users by delivering public services under contract then more power to their elbow!

Nor are third sector organisations better at delivering services, or are closer to users etc just because they are charities. Indeed, that makes about as much sense as me saying I am a man so I must be good at DIY.

Though I think that is a bit of a straw man and fewer third sector leaders make that case than you’d think. Most just stress how good their organisation is, which, if they have to outcomes to back it up is fair enough.

The “we exist to put ourselves out of business” line is the extreme end of the outcomes approach and does make a lot of sense, but it is also overly simplistic. Poverty isn’t going to be made history overnight. Thames Reach isn’t going to eradicate homelessness next year. So until they do they need to seek sustainable funding in the medium term to make sure they can be around to help make it happen.

Instead of “campaigning charities”, what’s needed is Parliamentary accountability for all branches of Government, making Government responsible to Parliament and thus enhancing the democratic process so that money is spent better throughout Government (and less often, most likely).

When a mere Parliamentary question begins to matter again, as could happen with a de-Eufified system- unfortunately a contingent condition-, then the charities which succeed will be the ones that appeal to the public’s imagination as focussed through their democratic process, as happened in the best era for charitable giving. Antonia’s philosophy is a recipe for quagocrified chaos, benefiting only those familiar with arcane hierarchies of aid-quangos, such as herself.

There are many faults with charities, but the answer is to remove their carte blanche and subject them to proper public scrutiny through Parliament.

But they aren’t the Government of England, so that’s irrelevant, you might as well point out that Thatcher lost in Wales, unless you support breaking up the country into its constituent parts.

The dodgy trick of counting people who chose not to vote as voting against the result is nonsensical too. Indeed the research shows that if non-voters had voted, more of them would have voted Labour than the population overall.

Don’t give your money to those unprofessional charities with all their altruism and expert knowledge. Give it to a bunch of lying politicians who love to prop up failing industries and a bloated over funded military.

All the major problems in society are caused by an overabundance of state control in the first place. Of course, as a representative of one of the most authoritarian governments in history you’re all for reducing the role of charity aren’t you?

You couldn’t possibly have people organising and helping one another on their own could you? Heavens above, self sufficiency? Passing on massive savings to the taxpayer? How very un-Labour.

Of course, given the Stalinist tendencies of this government why don’t you simply ban charity?

Don’t make me laugh.

This government was elected with less than 22% of the vote. In terms of pure numbers of people voting, in England they lost by a million votes.

I don’t support the Tory ideas about using the Third Sector, mainly because all that will happen is that they will become arms of the state. We’ve seen it happen.

But please don’t try to pretend that this government has a popular mandate for its spending plans.

DK

But there are some areas where I feel charities can be more responsive and highly effective in providing services funded by the public purse. I think in particular of charities providing drug and alcohol treatment services where they are closer to the client group, trusted by the client group and more open to developments in treatment.

As someone else working for a charity, can I just say HOO-BLOODY-RAY to this!

J
x

I may have a contempt for the capitalist party councillors or MPs of whichever colour but their (sort of) democratic mandate as opposed to the generally fuzzy accountability of charity decision makers or the diktat method businesses; the far greater understanding of the needs of service users by council officers etc (rather than just their revenue raising potential by the rest); the general greater statutory obligation to consultation from government; the state’s more natural predisposition to equal opps (as opposed to just ticking the boxes with private company) and the (only sometimes) enthusiasm of staff to feeling they are making life better rather than increasing the share price - all can make public provision the best.

Not that I’m against the government giving cash to ‘Third Sector’ groups - I run a Community Interest Company which gets most of its income from various government agencies.

The ‘Third Sector’ does lots of things well and can often do new, different things in ways that the public sector.

The question is whether we want the voluntary sector delivering core services and whether the voluntary sector necessarily delivers levels of accountability that are better or even as good as public sector provision.

In many cases, the answer is no.