Charitable Sector

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I have committed that number to memory. This has been an excellent debate and I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach. We have heard many fine contributions from new Members of this House and, in keeping with the theme of the debate, I offer collective congratulations on your maiden speeches. We are clearly going to benefit hugely from your wisdom, experience, expertise and humour. We are energised by the new enthusiasm around our Chamber.

There is much to celebrate. British people want a society in which each and every one can make their own contribution and where we care for each other with respect and dignity. Britain is full of generous people giving money and time. Millions of people are involved in their communities, in their children’s school and in advancing arts and culture. Others are involved in charities whose work has an impact on people’s lives throughout the world in terms of human rights, development issues, environmental protection and a plethora of other issues. People are also involved in and volunteer for charities that provide key services for the most vulnerable people in our society. Many charities work in close partnership with the state. While they must, of course, retain their independence, there is a strong and healthy relationship and dependence between the governmental sector and civil society which produces mutual influence and mutual benefit. That partnership is vital. We recognise that community empowerment is vital for a healthy society and a healthy civil society, but we also recognise that charitable and voluntary organisations often need a little help from the state, at least to provide some infrastructure in order to flourish. Of course I endorse much of what has been said in today’s debate. Thanks to charities and to volunteering, we have a compassionate country in which public service is the core part of the lives of many of our citizens.

Like my noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, the ideas of the big society are ideas that I have lived with and grown up with, and they are the ideas that we nurtured in the previous Government. The noble Lord, Lord Wei, said that the Government, the private sector and charities working in partnership form the big society; like others, I prefer the term “the good society”, but that is by the by. If that is the big society, then that is where I have been living and where we must continue to live, although, of course, those elements of the big society must and will continue to evolve to adapt to the changes and challenges of the 21st century. I am sure that the current debate around the big society will assist them in adapting, but it must not be an excuse for delivering services more cheaply, which is not to say more efficiently. We need more efficiency, but we do not necessarily need things to be done more cheaply, especially when that means people earning less than they should.

As my noble friend Lord Wills said, charity binds our society together and charities play a fundamental role in civil society. They innovate, advocate and give people a voice. They challenge the state and they change lives, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said of Barnardo's. Volunteering strengthens our society and government learns from the charitable sector. Charities usually grow from a response to community needs, and therefore they are in touch. As noble Lords said, charities also campaign for the values that they espouse. Can the Minister confirm that the review of the Charities Act will not have an impact on the ability of charities to campaign?

We all know that these organisations and this sector are facing a serious threat: the community and voluntary sector has real and serious concerns about its funding that have been clearly articulated during this debate. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford said, charities cannot live on ideas alone. I am grateful to him for speaking of the rural dimension of this agenda. The church is often the focal point of rural communities. In my village of Blaisdon, we have a church and a pub and they are equal in their contribution to the community.

I was interested to read a comment from Paul Twivy, chief executive of the Big Society Network. He said:

“At the moment, if you try to do any public meetings about the big society, everything is completely driven by anger, anxiety and nervousness about what cuts the spending review will produce”.

I trust that some of its fears will be assuaged by the Government’s spending statement on 20 October. I urge the Government to ensure that charities, especially small charities, receive protection. I echo the call by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, to ensure that the cuts do not fall disproportionately on those who can cope least, including the charities which serve them. The advice from my noble friend Lady Sherlock that Ministers should speak to charities about the impact of cuts before they are made is wise, as is her strong view, with which I am sure we all agree, that most charities must be able to speak out and be honest without the censorship of potential cuts.

As we have heard, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations reports that the majority of charities polled are concerned about their finances for the coming financial year. The Government want to promote their big society idea, but their planned cuts to the sector strike at the heart of the big society’s project and frustrate the ability of community and voluntary organisations to survive, let alone effectively participate in the project. I urge the Government not to make false economies in cutting funding to these often small organisations.

Among the organisations affected by funding cuts are support agencies for survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Despite the actions we took in government which led to a 50 per cent fall in domestic violence, this is still a huge issue facing the women of our country. One in four women in the UK is subject to domestic violence, and one in six is subject to sexual violence. In most cases, these crimes are not reported through official channels such as the police. Instead, millions of women turn to victim support organisations to escape the horror of their violent experiences and to reclaim their strength and independence.

In many cases, these support organisations, which are often charities, provide the necessary safe houses that make the difference between life and death. Without some funding from the Government, often these safe houses will close. While that will have a real impact on the survivors of sexual violence, it will also inevitably have a real impact on society. Cutting funding for these services is short-sighted and a false economy. Without support the women are not able to achieve their potential and to contribute to society, and their children might well have more disruptive lives, perhaps ending up in care. Ultimately, the small cuts in funding will lead to huge costs for society in human and in economic terms.

My noble friend Lady Wheeler spoke graphically of the importance to carers of the partnership between the public sector, the private sector and voluntary organisations at a local level. Localism in action and, yes, we want more localism.

I welcome the work that the Government are doing on reviewing the carers’ strategy, but carers in our society will be hung out to dry if the cuts mean that the organisations which seek to support them are forced to roll back their services. It would be a shame if the Government’s first steps into charitable sector reform meant losing programmes that have a specific focus on building a stronger society.

Several noble Lords have spoken about the capacity of the community and voluntary sector to participate in the Government’s big society project. A recent paper by the Institute for Public Policy Research, entitled Growing the Big Society, looked at charitable organisations operating in the north of England and outlined the critical success factors and barriers for the social and community enterprise sector participating effectively in the project. The research by IPPR North shows that the top three barriers to success all revolve around funding and finance. An organisation is unlikely to succeed if it does not have a cash flow and grants for revenue and capital. Financial management and effective human resources remain key components for the success of an organisation, but that is frequently frustrated by a lack of funding for these roles.

It has been suggested that a lack of funding can be replaced by a revival in voluntary activity. The Institute for Volunteering Research, in conjunction with Involve, NCVO and lottery funds, looked into who volunteers and why. While there are of course exceptions, a person is more likely to volunteer in a formal sense if they are well educated, wealthy women of a higher social class. Men of the same background are more likely to be local level participants. An individual having both time and an affiliation with a cause are two big reasons why people volunteer. Reasons for not volunteering include a lack of personal resources, educational, financial and associated costs such as childcare, and practical limitations such as the timing of events, access and location. People are more likely to continue volunteering if they have a stable living and employment status, as the right reverend Prelate suggested. Indeed, he spoke of the importance of a proper work/life balance to enable people to have space in their lives for volunteering.

Taking into account this and similar findings, we can anticipate that the wealthier areas in Britain are more likely to weather the sudden withdrawal of government funding and support. The case is far less likely in poorer communities, as demonstrated by my noble friend Lord Beecham from his experience as a councillor in a deprived ward. The Minister said that the Government themselves would be looking at the barriers to engagement, and of course I welcome that. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Brompton, spoke of the need for young people to be actively engaged in charities rather than as passive recipients of their help. We would all agree with her, and I hope that the local community organisers that the Government are now establishing will be able to act as catalysts. We look forward to a progress report on the pilot projects.

As one analyst put it recently:

“‘If you’ve got to do two jobs to survive, how are you going to have the time to be a school governor?’ … A big society needs people anchored in place and blessed with time, yet Conservative economics grants neither—except to the well-off”.

I look around this Chamber at all Benches with pride, knowing of the extraordinary work that so many noble Lords do with charities and voluntary organisations, but we have time, we have capacity and we have money. Many people in our society, while wanting to contribute to their community, simply do not have those luxuries. Many other people, including those who are struggling, do indeed find the time to serve their community and they make a fantastic contribution. I celebrate that, and I want more people to be actively engaged as they are, but those people must not and cannot be expected to fulfil entirely the tasks that a Government should be fulfilling in a civilised society.

This has been a valuable debate and I look forward to mining Hansard tomorrow for future debates. I fear, however, that the force and scale of the Government’s cuts could mean that it will not be long before we return to these issues. I conclude by sharing with the House some words from Geraldine Blake, the chief executive officer of Community Links, an innovative local charity that runs 60 community projects in east London and works with 30,000 people each year:

“Whilst we agree that governments cannot change deep-seated social problems alone, neither can communities. For willing citizens to be effective, they need to be the partner of the state and not the alternative. It is essential, particularly in very poor communities, that public services are protected, not rolled back. They cannot be replaced by volunteers, no matter how enthusiastic … please, please don’t waste a lot of time by setting up brand new stuff. Britain isn’t broken, there’s lots of amazing work already going on in and by communities, families and local networks. Invest in what is already working, and help it to work bigger and better”.

That is right. Britain is not broken, but we want it to work bigger and better. Yes, there is more we can do to help support organisations to make a positive difference in the lives of others, but this is a shared responsibility, a true partnership. We need an empowering state that continues to take responsibility for the essential services and ensures that there are no gaps so that people are not left behind. The charitable sector needs and wants to be strengthened, to work collaboratively with government, and to have secure funding to actually get on with its organisations’ missions. Civil society can only really flourish where it is underpinned by a state that actively supports the community and voluntary sector, which in turn empowers the communities it works with. This is the approach that we should be adopting. It is the approach favoured on these Benches, and I am sure that those on the government Benches will adopt the same objectives: for the good of charities, for the good of civic society, even for the good of the big society, but most important of all, for the good of our country as a whole.