Civil Society

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, we are indeed all grateful to my noble friend for giving us the opportunity to have this far-ranging debate on civil society. However, I must say that at this stage of a debate, I feel a bit like the bishop who, when asked to make a speech about sin, stood up, said that he was against it and sat down again. If I am asked about civil society I can say, just as simply, “I am for it”. Similarly, when asked about the future of civil society, I can say, “There is one”. However, we are concerned to examine the current situation, the potential difficulties and the role that we expect civil society to play, although there are many different interpretations of what constitutes civil society, and we have heard them today. The single common factor that we should remember is that it is about participation in decisions about services in your community, in how services in your community are shaped, in delivering those services and, particularly, in decision-making.

We should be clear from this debate that, despite rashly delivered statements about a broken society, civil society is not in decline. Indeed, to the contrary, although membership of political parties, churches and traditional women’s groups may be in decline, membership of new social movements, non-governmental organisations and pressure groups is flourishing. I want to focus on some of the matters that have been reported to me, and I should declare my interest as patron and president of various charities and as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Civil Society and Volunteering.

The first thing that I want to mention is, inevitably, funding. I keep hearing Ministers say to the voluntary and community sector, “You must do more with less. Don’t expect government at local or national level to support you financially”. Okay, charities understand that; but let us not forget that, as we have heard, a quarter of civil society organisations rely on government for most of their funding, and that it is a drastic change to go from encouraging voluntary organisations to become service deliverers—encouragement which has been given by successive Governments—to finding that the funding is no longer there. As we have heard today, who is it who suffers when that funding is no longer there? It is, of course, the most vulnerable in our society.

Nor should we be tempted into thinking that more government necessarily means less civil society and that less government means more civil society, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, reminded us. It has been shown in inner cities in Russia and the United States that when the state retreats, the vacuum may be filled by crime and gangs, as well as by civil society organisations. Many of the nations with the most active civil societies still have very active and involved governments. We must be wary, too—with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin—of thinking that philanthropy will ride to the rescue. It is by no means certain that our society is yet at a stage where philanthropy can fill the gaps, as seems to be expected by some in government. Even the best community organisers and the most enterprising social entrepreneurs need support.

The Government seem to have a suspicion of the infrastructure that exists to support the charitable sector, and they are right to point out that that infrastructure may need reform and rationalisation—far be it from me to argue that we should not expect existing mechanisms to change and develop. As a veteran of two mergers I am an active advocate of mergers and collaborative working—and we have seen some very effective ones, such as the recent one between the NCVO and Volunteering England. However, we must not throw babies out with bathwater. Many of these infrastructure bodies are delivering through their local organisations exactly the kind of innovations—such as time banks, community pledge banks, social enterprises and civil action—that the Government and society need. Let us not forget that.

I turn to social investment. I was a member of the original Commission on Unclaimed Assets, which released the money in unclaimed bank accounts into the social investment sector, and am now a trustee of the Big Society Trust, which oversees Big Society Capital. There is no doubt that this field is developing. Social impact bonds are increasingly popular. They are designed to transfer the risk of social programmes from the public sector to the private sector. An interesting one was launched just yesterday. Developed by the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies and Baker Tilly, this social investment bond has raised £2 million from Bridges Ventures and Big Society Capital. The money is going into a fund called It’s All About Me, which is designed to invert the market so that a child seeks out adoptive parents, not the other way round. It is a very innovative and interesting approach. I recently saw another such social investment project in south Wales. It helps children who are normally very disruptive in class not to be excluded through intensive intervention. These are excellent initiatives and very welcome developments.

However, we must sound a note of caution. There is a long way to go before the concept is proved. Many would-be investors are having trouble finding investment-ready projects. I do not think that these can ever entirely replace the funding lost, about which we have heard so much today, although they certainly can be part of the funding mix. I would be glad to have the Minister’s view of what proportion of voluntary sector funding social investment will eventually provide.

I will say a final word about volunteering. The statistics about volunteering are always absolutely stunning. The proportion of people volunteering at least once a year has increased from 65% of the population a couple of years ago to 71% recently. The Olympic and Paralympic Games, as we know, inspired volunteering on an unprecedented scale—as is always quoted. However, we must remember that that particular type of volunteering was a pretty easy gig. It was fun, you got to see events, there was a nice uniform, a link with people who were volunteering alongside you and so on. However, it bore little relation to the kind of volunteering that goes on throughout civil society: bringing people back from suicidal intentions, driving people to hospital who are pretty difficult and often not grateful, sitting with people with dementia who are doubly incontinent so that their carers can have a break. I am sceptical about what the Olympics can teach us about volunteering, except for the fact that a lot of trouble was taken with recruitment and selection and fitting people into the right slots. There was a lot of emphasis on supporting those volunteers—investment was made in them. I hope that the Minister will reiterate that the Government continue to see that volunteering needs investment. Volunteering is very good value, but it is not cost-free. I think that that is also a pretty good description of civil society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I can allay her concerns on this. I was very struck when I was briefed this morning on this by the sheer scale of the funds some organisations have used and targeted. It is that sort of development we are thinking about. I hope I have covered most, if not all, of the points made in the debate.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

Can the Minister answer my specific question about social investment and the Government’s view on what proportion of social investment will eventually find its way into the sector?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I would prefer to write to the noble Baroness rather than give her a half-informed answer now, if she will permit me. There are a number of social investment schemes under way but I do not have them entirely in order in my head at the moment.

We all share a commitment to a stronger civil society. I hope we all share a commitment to a stronger local civil society. I am very struck by the problems of large communities in some of our cities who feel themselves powerless but do not know what to do about it. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, that is part of what the big society initiative is really concerned with. It will take a long time. For example, in Harehills and Gipton in Leeds the local Methodist, Catholic and Anglican churches used to do an awful lot but almost no one goes to church any longer. Creating alternative social networks and a sense of local empowerment and local confidence is a huge challenge for all of us and the state, society and others have to work together on it.

I hope we are all committed to this. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and I recognise that this is a challenge that will face every Government in Britain for the next 20 years and more.