Philanthropy

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

Like other noble Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Janvrin on obtaining this important debate and, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said, on introducing in an exemplary manner his case for encouraging philanthropy. Like other noble Lords, I am also extremely grateful to the Library for yet again turning up a marvellous briefing for us, including the definition of philanthropy as being,

“practical benevolence towards people in general”.

I was also glad that it included the statement by the Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, that he is trying to create new social norms around higher levels of giving of both time and money because for me, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said, the philanthropy that we are talking about, particularly in relation to working with the public sector, is giving time, skill and experience as well as money. Some people give time and some people give money, and both have to be enabled.

In that connection, I agree with my noble friend Lord Janvrin who said that the Government need to explain how philanthropy can complement what the public sector is trying to do. In particular, turning to the criminal justice system, which I know is not the Minister’s field, the problem faced by the voluntary sector working in the criminal justice system is trying to come to terms with exactly what “payment by results” means. If small voluntary sector organisations, of which there are myriad, have to wait for six years until the result is proved to get their money, they will go under and disappear.

I am very interested in an increasing tendency for donors to come together to fund projects, including in the venture philanthropy area. In this, they are extremely fortunate to be helped by the admirable briefing that is available from an organisation that the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, has already mentioned, New Philanthropy Capital. Over the years, it has produced a number of extremely carefully researched reports pointing out to donors where their funding would be particularly valuable. That idea has been picked up by Philanthropy UK.

If I may for a moment concentrate on why I think that is important in the criminal justice system, it is because 50 per cent of all work done to rehabilitate offenders is done by the voluntary sector. Therefore, it is extremely important that that work is maximised, taken on board and enabled by government. I remember that during my first visit to Feltham I asked to meet the voluntary sector organisations that were working there. Forty-three organisations turned up to meet me. Many of them were doing exactly the same work, but with boys from different parts of London. None of them knew that the others were there, and there was no organisation by the Prison Service to make a note of what they were doing or to go out and find people who could come to do work that was required. I am very glad that that has now been rectified and, in addition, there is at last a recognition that the foundations and trusts that provide this money must be included in planning. There is a now a group that meets Ministers to make certain that foundation trust money is included overall in planning and is not wasted.

I mention that because at the same time there is another increasing trend that I welcome. It is the coming together of groups of people who give time, not just money. The Arts Alliance, which is a group of all the organisations bringing arts to offenders, was formed to try to maximise what they can do, to represent them to government and to act as a conduit to pass the Government’s views down to the sector. At the same time, another group of foundations and trusts has come together to maximise the recommendations for the voluntary sector that were included in the Corston report for women, because they felt that the Government of that time were not maximising or moving them forward quickly enough and that that again endangered the money that they were putting into it.

At the same time, I have another example—not from the criminal justice system—where this coming together of donors is achieving results. Many noble Lords will be aware of the large numbers of casualties coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and of all the veterans from the Armed Forces facing other problems. There is the beginning now of a number of personnel recovery centres being established around the country to which they and their families can go for help. The help provided there on mental health, on employment and with practical help in other ways is being funded by collections of charities coming together. It seems to me that if there is to be a sort of new philanthropic movement in this country, it is very much spread around. Rather than small organisations doing wonderful things all over the place but in isolation, as we come into the increased financial stringencies it might perhaps make sense for them to come together and maximise what they do.

In that connection, I conclude by telling the Minister that, to me, if the public and voluntary sectors and philanthropy are to come together, the key word in it all is partnership. In order to maximise the extraordinary vibrancy and depth of philanthropy in this country, partnership is crucial. In doing that, however, I echo the words of my noble friend Lady Coussins in asking: please, please, will you do something to eliminate the bureaucracy, the red tape and the dangers of the things that the health and safety debate exposed last week which are inhibiting the ability of the voluntary and charitable sector to do all that it does so well for this country?