Charitable Sector

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Tuesday 5th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, it is very satisfying that we start what is likely to be a busy autumn with today’s debate. Not only does it enable me to seek to satisfy the genuine curiosity of the House in respect of a key item in the coalition agenda, but it is a subject area in which the experience of noble Lords in their lives outside this place can be brought to bear with great effect. It will be especially useful to hear of ways in which charities and voluntary groups can work together with communities and the agencies of government for the creation of civil society. The sheer number of noble Lords who have indicated their wish to join in this debate reinforces this expectation. It must be a long time since seven maiden speeches have been made in a single debate. I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords when I say that we look forward to hearing those speeches in particular.

There is a strong tradition of commitment to charities in this country by giving both time and money. The facts that there are over 170,000 charities in the UK and that we have the highest financial giving in Europe suggest strong levels of social responsibility in our country. Charities help bind people together. They act as a mechanism for people to come together to take action on a given cause and to provide a voice to individuals or groups who might otherwise not be heard. Where charities provide services, we see the good will of volunteers and donors being matched up to support others in society who may be less able. They do this not because there is a financial gain, or because they have been instructed by the state to do so, but because they believe it is the right thing to do. To me, this not only symbolises a strong society, it also reinforces a strong society.

Charities and other voluntary and community organisations also play a role in creating bonds and driving social capital among volunteers within the organisations. It is common to hear people talk of charity work strengthening their sense of purpose and well-being, and giving them opportunities for building friendships. The freedom for any of us to set up such organisations—to take action on what we believe is important—should be seen and cherished as a fundamental right. We should all celebrate and support the role of charities in society. Later this month there will be the first annual trustees’ week, which will be an opportunity to recognise the hundreds of thousands of people who voluntarily give their time to lead our charities and to encourage more to take on this incredibly rewarding role.

It would, however, be incorrect to suggest that civil society is as developed as it could be. While charities and other organisations can be inspiring, their role within society can be strengthened. Indeed, there are significant geographic variations in their distribution. Many areas with high levels of deprivation often have fewer local voluntary and community groups compared with more affluent areas.

While the Government have for a long time aimed to support the voluntary and community sector, I am not convinced that their actions have really been conducive to strengthening civil society. In recent years, the state has taken a bigger and more interventionist role in society, thus increasing the burden of bureaucracy and removing decision-making from local communities. Not only has this stifled local initiative and enthusiasm, it has led to an overdependence on the state.

Charities have not been immune to positioning themselves to respond to this. One sees ways in which they can be tempted to move away from their core agenda in order to maximise their corporate success. This Government are committed to reversing the trend and to supporting civil society to grow and to flourish as an independent force for good. The big society agenda is about giving power back to individuals, families, communities and groups—turning government upside-down—so that society, not the state, is in the driving seat.

But big society is most definitely not another government programme: it is quite the opposite. It is about challenging everyone to think differently. It challenges individuals to think about the personal and social consequences of their behaviour; it challenges communities to take more responsibility for their local areas and find ways to positively transform them; and it challenges the state to ask itself why it is performing certain functions, rather than giving responsibility for them to citizens, neighbourhood groups, voluntary sector organisations or social enterprises.

Taking up these challenges means rebalancing the relationship between the state and community and individual. For example, it might mean charities, social entrepreneurs, and the private and public sector collaborating in the design and delivery of services and individuals being more active in supporting their communities. Of course, the Government still have an important role. They must continue to protect vulnerable people and to provide essential services that only the state can and should provide. They also have a key role in building the big society—not by trying to control its development but by providing the tools and removing barriers and bureaucracy that prevent other parts of society from playing a stronger role.

Therefore, Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, and Nick Hurd, Minister for Civil Society, have clearly set out three things that the Government will do to support charities, social enterprises and other community organisations. These are: to make it easier to run a charity, social enterprise or voluntary organisation; to get more resources into the sector and strengthen its independence and resilience; and, finally, to make it easier for sector organisations to work within the state. I shall explore these themes in more detail.

The Office for Civil Society has now been set up in the Cabinet Office to co-ordinate work to deliver these three things. A full work programme which complements other big society work across Government is now under way. First, on making it easier to set up and run a charity, voluntary group or social enterprise, a key priority is to reduce bureaucracy within the voluntary and community sector that is currently stifling participation and social action. This will make it easier in future to set up and run civil society organisations.

My noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts is leading a task force to cut red tape, which has been set up jointly by the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The task force has a broad remit and will also feed its ideas into other work that is taking place across Government, such as the health and safety review being undertaken by my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham. I am thinking, too, of the Home Office-led review of Criminal Records Bureau checks, or the Treasury-led gift aid forum. While regulations of this sort are well intentioned, the bureaucratic downside can often outweigh the benefits they bring. Indeed, the word “trust” underpins charity. We need to trust charities more and give them the space to get on with their work without detailed top-down targets, lengthy forms or overbearing regulation. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend Lord Hodgson has to say about the task force this afternoon, and its recommendations due early next year, which I hope will liberate charities to focus more resources on front-line services and remove barriers to participation and social action.

Next year, there will be a review of the Charities Act 2006, giving us an opportunity to consider whether the current legal framework for charities is effective or whether there may be areas where we can further empower charities and strip out unnecessary regulation. Following a consultation earlier this year, there are already some sensible proposals for the review to consider in, for example, the area of what might make it easier and cheaper for charities to undertake land transactions.

The second area of action is to get more resources into the sector and to strengthen its independence and resilience. One of the key bits of infrastructure that will support charities and other parts of civil society is the big society bank. This will use funds from dormant bank accounts to open up access to finance for voluntary and community organisations and social enterprises to create a positive impact in their communities. It will work through intermediary bodies with a track record of supporting and growing social entrepreneurship. Setting up the big society bank is a priority for the Government and the launch is linked to the timetable for implementing the dormant accounts scheme. We are working with banks and building societies, the Financial Services Authority and The Co-operative Financial Services to ensure that the reclaim fund is in operation as soon as possible.

Another key piece of work is the Communities First funding scheme. Subject to the spending review, these neighbourhood grants will be available to provide small amounts of funding to unlock the potential for social action by new or existing community groups. The grants will be available in the most deprived neighbourhoods, estates and wards in England. Areas will be announced this autumn and the grants will be available from spring 2011. We also want to support infrastructure organisations, like the councils for voluntary service, which play a valuable role in energising local action by nurturing the small groups that bind neighbourhoods together. Therefore we are keen to find the best ways to improve the effectiveness of infrastructure organisations, which is why we will carry out a consultation on this later in the autumn.

On the third commitment, an important element of making it easier for civil society organisations to work with the state will be to reform public sector commissioning and to ensure a more level playing field so that charities, social enterprises and other sector organisations are more able to bid to deliver public services. This will greatly enhance public sector markets and provide opportunities for civil society organisations despite falls in other forms of funding.

The Government are committed to the compact, as the Prime Minister stated when he launched the big society programme at No. 10 in May. A draft renewed and streamlined compact has been developed by the Office for Civil Society, working with Compact Voice, which is currently consulting the sector on it. The Government are continuing their dialogue with the sector. In July, Ministers wrote an open letter to the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors asking for help in identifying good practice and any emerging risks to developing the big society. More than 200 responses have been received and are being analysed to identify key themes and opportunities. The results will be considered by the informal ministerial group on the big society, and a summit will be held with sector leaders to discuss joint action to support civil society in tackling issues important to local people.

Alongside work specifically focused on civil society, the wider big society work programme will interact with and complement the civil society sector. Examples of work here include establishing community organisers. They will be individuals who lead and co-ordinate work in their local areas to help people work together to make their community a better place in which to live. With strong connections to the local community, they will act as local catalysts to help galvanise change. The Government will provide funding to identify, train and support 5,000 community organisers over the lifetime of this Parliament.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but the conversation being carried on to my right is making it extremely difficult for me to concentrate on what he is saying. I remind local Lords who wish to converse that they may remove themselves to the Prince’s Chamber if they wish to have a discussion while business is being carried on in the House.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I was talking about community organisers and made the point that we hope to train and support 5,000 community organisers over the lifetime of this Parliament.

We will be launching the National Citizen Service—a programme which aims to develop young people’s sense of active citizenship through personal development activities and community service. We plan to run the first pilots of the National Citizen Service during the summer of 2011.

A key component of the big society is the transfer of power from Whitehall to communities. This is being led by Greg Clark, Minister for Decentralisation, and pioneering work is already going on in the four vanguard communities announced by the Prime Minister in July—Eden Valley, Liverpool, Sutton and Windsor and Maidenhead— where barriers to community-led action are already being identified and broken down.

I hope this gives noble Lords a sense of what the Government will be doing to support charities and encourage other voluntary and community organisations to thrive. I have also tried to illustrate the central role that these organisations play in civil society and how this role interacts with the state. As part of this, I hope I have been clear that strengthening civil society and building the big society is only possible with partnership and support from all the different players involved. Certainly, the Government do not have all the answers but they do have a key role in encouraging and facilitating charities, voluntary groups and individuals to play their part in building a better and more fulfilled life for all: a civil society no less. I beg to move.