Social Policy

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, I, too, thank the right reverend Prelate for giving the House the opportunity to debate this important issue, and the noble Lord, Lord Wei, for his fine speech. Perhaps I can take the tiniest bit of credit, as I may have been among the first to suggest to him that, with his background, this was the ideal forum for his maiden speech.

I begin by declaring an interest as chair of the advisory body for the Office for Civil Society, formerly the Office of the Third Sector, and as someone who has spent a large part of her life working in or closely with the community and voluntary sector. I therefore need no convincing of the importance of the incomparable contribution which the sector makes in shaping a good society or a good community. That contribution has never been more significant, because in the economic stringency of the times in which we live we all face the need for effective responses on all fronts: strong partnerships, integration and a society where relationships are underpinned with a strong commitment to a shared set of values. Those values help us all to understand what shapes a good society.

The importance of the community sector at both national and local level is not, of course, anything new, but the notion of real partnership between the sector and the state has not always been accepted. In fact, I think there have been times when only lip service has been paid to it. Partnership perhaps used to mean the state deciding what the community sector should do and the sector accepting the terms because that was the only way to achieve funding. Over the past 10 years or so, however, the partnership has become much more real and strategic. The sector has grown in scale and impact. There are more charities than ever before. Overall income has increased. More people are volunteering, and more people are setting up social enterprises. The sector is playing a greater role in supporting communities, tackling inequalities, creating opportunities and enterprise, and designing and supplying public services.

The previous Government placed heavy emphasis on supporting the sector. Examples include: the Compact as a framework for partnership working; a new Charities Act; investing in the capacity of the sector, including its infrastructure; introducing new forms of organisation; and many different funding streams. The creation of the special office within the Cabinet Office was itself part of making those relationships and partnerships real and effective, and I pay tribute to the skill and commitment of those who work there. I very much hope and believe that the coalition Government will remain supportive.

Of course, the sector cannot be immune to the economic challenges and must look for new ways of working to make the most effective use of short resources, and I am confident that the sector will do this. The sector is large, fluid and diverse and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, reminded us, we should never forget that three-quarters of voluntary sector organisations receive no funding from statutory sources. However, for those that do, it is important in the new financial climate that we remember their unique contribution and value organisations for that contribution, not for any notion that somehow this sector can provide services cheaper or even, I have sometimes heard it said, at no cost by the use of volunteers. Everyone who has real knowledge of the sector knows that volunteering does not happen without support and that organisation is vital. Let no one be under any illusion about that. It is wonderfully good value, but it is not cost-free, as many noble Lords have acknowledged.

When we think about partnerships across civil society, let us always remember the special contribution that the sector makes. In my view, two things should be singled out. The first is its ability to be innovative, spontaneous and entrepreneurial when addressing social problems. Because it does this, it often heads those problems off at the pass. As an example, I give the work of Citizens Advice. It works all the time: helping people with financial budgeting to prevent debt, or to manage the debt if necessary; negotiating where house repossession is imminent; and working with bailiffs to prevent a family being thrown out of its home. That is all free to the client. It is needless to say that these measures save the Government paying out significant amounts of money and save society huge amounts of distress, but this kind of preventive work is difficult to quantify and justify, and I hope the Minister will give us some reassurance about the priority that the coalition Government put on this preventive work.

The second thing that is unique to the community sector is its ability to engage with service users and the wider community. Only the voluntary sector has that unique perspective. It is closely in touch with disadvantaged people and communities and understands their needs. It is this which enables it to be an effective partner in the delivery of services and in developing social policy. This is the reason why partnerships are vital and why the voice of civil society, through its organisations, needs to be strong as such policies are developed. It is also the reason why we should always remember how important it is to ensure that the voices of users, patients, carers and families, especially those who are disadvantaged, are central in policy-making and why the campaigning side of the work of third sector organisations—the advocacy of which my noble friend Lord Judd reminded us—is so important. It is in this way that we ensure that policies are relevant, targeted and useful to the users, not to those who develop the policies. It is why, in my view, we must be extremely circumspect before we cut funding for this side of civil society organisations’ work, however tempting it might be to see the enabling, campaigning and advocacy work as somehow superfluous in difficult times. I seek the Minister’s reassurance on that point also.

This is National Carers Week, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for mentioning carers. Before I sit down I want to focus on the contribution of carers and their organisations. There is no better example of the big society, and no clearer example of how society is a very long way from being a broken society, than the contribution of carers. In some areas of social policy, taking note of the needs of carers is absolutely vital. It is vital that the voice of that part of civil society—the 6 million carers who contribute £87 billion to the economy every year with the care they provide—is heard and acknowledged in the areas of pensions, long-term care and the capacity of carers to continue to combine caring with paid employment. If we do not consider carers as central to the development of those particular policies, we shall never be able to engage them in the partnerships which this debate is highlighting and which are so vital to so many parts of social policy.