Charitable Sector

Lord Bishop of Hereford Excerpts

Tuesday 5th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Hereford]

My Lords, I am very grateful indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for initiating this debate. The charitable sector is not only an enormously important element in the complex mixed economy of social institutions, it is also of course a sector which embraces much of the life of the churches, which have been instrumental over centuries in establishing and sustaining charitable activities of all kinds.

As your Lordships know, I am bishop of a predominantly rural diocese and know from my experience in Herefordshire and South Shropshire that the role of the charitable sector is highly integrated throughout those counties and communities, and this needs to be cherished and nurtured.

The roles of the charitable and voluntary sectors are absolutely crucial if we are to create more resilient social and community institutions. The charitable sector relies, absolutely fundamentally, on individual people giving of their time and skills, as well as their money, in the pursuit of the common good. The common good is usually best understood and appreciated in relatively small local community structures and relationships. So a flourishing charitable sector is essential to flourishing communities.

In the rural areas of our nation, life can be very fragile. The dominance of urban and suburban patterns of living, and the ways in which our economy concentrates resources in our cities, have marginalised some rural communities, especially in the most sparsely populated areas. Some rebalancing of economic and social priorities is urgently required. But over and against that fragility, rural communities have important assets: people make time to know each other and to build community, and these are real assets on which all of us need to build.

We all know about the hard, dedicated work, frequent meetings, persuasive conversations and huge effort that must take place in order that charitable and community work can be effective. We short-circuit these processes at our peril. They are the outward signs that charitable relationships are different from contractual ones. Our communities are inclusive organisms, not purpose-driven hierarchies, and the work of the charitable sector must never become so fixated on a business model that it loses the significance of the face to face and the importance of participative decision-making.

There are problems faced by all charities, large and small: the difficulty of recruiting volunteers, concerns about funding, the ageing of the volunteer base and the long hours that many of them work—to name but a few. For those dependent upon being funded by significant grants and with paid posts, there is the enormously time-consuming round of grant applications, with the associated anxiety and concern that this has to be repeated every one, two or maybe three years. Crucial time is spent on those funding applications rather than on the charitable work itself. Surely this is a situation that we are capable of improving greatly.

It is a matter of grave concern that among the working population the time and energy that people are able or willing to give for volunteering and charitable activity are increasingly limited. We have been reminded that the total number of volunteers has stayed steady, rather than grown. Working patterns demanded by competitive markets are not conducive to voluntary work, especially when husbands, wives and partners all have to work, with corresponding pressure on their limited leisure time. If we really value community, it is vital that there is a shift of power to give a wider, more flexible choice of work and leisure hours, in order that people can make space for voluntary and charitable activities.

We all know that, with economic times hard and getting harder, unemployment is already too high but likely to rise higher. However, it is not the case that higher unemployment widens the pool of people available for volunteering and charitable activity. The Jobcentre Plus network rightly concentrates on getting people back into paid work and ensures that unemployed people use their time accordingly, which militates very strongly against volunteering. I wonder whether there might be a new dynamic that would encourage unemployed people to combine the search for work, which is fundamental, with at least some voluntary, or even paid, charitable work. This would have three benefits for the long-term unemployed: raised self-esteem, a more interesting CV and a raised awareness of service to the local community.

Many issues that I have mentioned are not exclusive to rural communities, but I firmly believe that there is great potential in rural life to build up the charitable sector and its role in making for good communities. The specific nature of the rural context needs to be understood and incorporated into policy-making. I commend the practice of rural-proofing, whereby one stage of policy formation is to assess the impact that a policy may have on rural life. Our nation is a rich tapestry of urban, rural and suburban. We need each other, but that mutuality is not found by treating all areas the same.

At the heart of many rural communities is the church. Christian congregations form the base from which so many local charitable activities take place. This is well documented by important research undertaken by Professor Richard Farnell of Coventry University. In 2006 he stated:

“People who attend church regularly make a significant contribution to community vibrancy, both through their engagement with church based activity and through their roles in village life”.

This is further borne out by the 2008 Citizenship Survey, which suggests that those who are religiously observant are more likely to volunteer and give than their non-believing or non-practising counterparts—as the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, reminded Anglican bishops only three weeks ago.

Churches contribute to rural community life in an enormously wide diversity of ways, particularly for those in our society who are on the margins and more vulnerable—and not just within church congregations. Furthermore, we make available the use of our church buildings. I am told that there are 9,639 of them in rural communities, and in many of our villages, those are the only public buildings that remain open. In our diocese, for example, we have encouraged that wider use in many ways. Some permanently house a post office, village shop, Sure Start centre, library, radio mast for quicker broadband or a café and restaurant.

The charitable sector is vital to the flourishing of all our communities, but the economic, and to some extent cultural, context of today gives us cause for disquiet. Charities that depend on government grants to deliver services are hearing the rhetoric of the big society and feel needed, but at the same time see the reality of spending cuts and feel deeply threatened. Often, grants to charities are—alas—the soft targets for cuts. Is it any wonder that parts of the charitable sector are almost frozen in limbo at the present time, wondering whether they are more likely to be built up through the big society or exterminated by austerity measures? If that is the case for the larger charities, how much more is it the case for some smaller ones? Charitable financial giving tends to hold up well in the first part of a recession but then declines steeply. Much depends on how long the present phase of economic austerity lasts, of course, but some charitable activities need a minimal infrastructure if they are to flourish, although some infrastructure is absolutely vital.

In conclusion, the church is, as I said, cautiously optimistic about the potential of the big society and the enhanced role that it offers the charitable sector, but of course the charities cannot live on ideas and we await the policy details with interest, needing wise decisions that support the charitable sector—not least the work of the churches and not least support that will help our work in rural Britain.