Charitable Sector

Lord Best Excerpts

Tuesday 5th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for enabling us to have this amazing debate. As the 29th speaker, with so much brilliant material and seven wonderful maiden speeches behind me, I have discounted my carefully prepared speech and tried to think of something new to say. I shall pick up on a phrase that no one has yet used but which chimes with the theme of strengthening civil society—social capital, the link between charitable and voluntary activity and the building up of social capital.

I note the NCVO’s definition of civil society is that it means,

“people acting together, independently of the state or the market, to make a positive difference to their lives and/or the lives of others”.

The idea of social capital builds on the same notion. The concept dates from a 1916 article by one LJ Hanifan about support for rural schools in America. He talked about the value of people doing things together and building up a reservoir of strength and mutual support within local communities. He said that,

“'goodwill, fellowship, mutual sympathy, and social intercourse among a group of individuals and families”,

means that the,

“community as a whole will benefit by the cooperation of all its parts, while the individual will find in his”,

or her,

“associations the advantages of the help, the sympathy, and the fellowship of his”,

or her “neighbors”.

The concept of social capital became famous in the 1990s with Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone, which highlights the decline of people acting together and instead watching TV and playing video games at home, with the demise along the way of the bowling clubs in the USA. That all means that communities cannot call on the resources or reservoirs of help and mutual sympathy that Hanifan talked of.

My contention is that the charitable and voluntary sector strengthens, builds and rebuilds social capital often without the charity concerned being entirely aware that that is what is happening, to the immense value of society at large. Very often a charity appears to have a straightforward single objective—housing the homeless, caring for older people and so on. But on closer inspection the charitable or voluntary body turns out to be playing a wider role in strengthening civil society, bringing people together and enhancing participation and—yes—building that social capital.

I shall illustrate that with one or two studies from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, where I worked for many years. First, food co-operatives were ostensibly organised to improve diet by helping mothers to cook economically for their families, obtain fresh ingredients more cheaply, and so on. The organisations were indeed doing good work in meeting their dietary goals, but in reality they were about bringing together young mothers who were isolated and excluded, in many cases in large and potentially hostile public housing estates, building friendship networks and confidence, solidarity and sense of community on the estates. Similarly, a study of sports clubs showed us that although they set out to improve physical fitness and instil a sense of discipline, perhaps redirecting energetic young people away from more nefarious activities, in fact they also meant families meeting up and fundraising activities for the club, with people taking charge and learning new skills, strengthening civil society and building social capital. That goes, too, for local arts projects. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation organised a brilliant programme called Culture Makes Communities, which plugged into the transformative effect that the arts, broadly defined, can have in bringing together people at the local level, breaking down fear and mistrust between people of different backgrounds and ages. I well remember the arts project on a Wakefield council estate when young people were involved in making a big mural. They designed flags and staged a community play. An elderly resident told me that she used to be afraid to walk down to the newsagent, because the young people hanging around looked so menacing, but that now she knew their names and they called out, “Hello missus”, when she walked by.

I have come today from a meeting of the Royal Society of Arts—and I declare an interest as trustee and treasurer—where we looked at some 30 projects involving RSA fellows and small amounts of RSA funding. They range from projects that recycle light bulbs to mentoring young entrepreneurs and taking over a vacant mill for local, cultural and creative industries, as well as a community gardening project—and so it goes on. They show how a little professional and financial help can go a very long way and how that injection into a small project can build social capital.

I am a trustee of the Tree Council, which is there to get more trees planted and cared for. It has 7,000 unpaid voluntary tree wardens who bring people together in the act of tree planting and tending, building social capital among the people who gather for these purposes in and around these beautiful trees. Food co-ops, sports, the arts, heritage and tree planting—all those activities are about building up that social capital and making the glue that holds a community together, building bridges to a wider society that we all need so badly.

Charitable and voluntary activity, by mobilising people to act together to make a difference, is the most powerful way in which to build the social capital of communities and reverse the social decline that Robert Putnam and others have identified. That buttresses the case for local as well as central government giving every possible support to charitable and voluntary bodies.