Community and Voluntary Sector Funding

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mrs Moon.

I commend the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) for the subject of the debate. I am extremely passionate about it because my constituency has some of the highest rates of volunteering in the country; more than 1,500 voluntary opportunities are being advertised there at the moment. Volunteering is deeply embedded in the fabric of the Wiltshire community. In fact, it is the very glue that binds it, filling the gaps left by the state. Voluntary organisations are essential for those two reasons and I welcome the Government’s support for the sector, although I encourage them to protect and support its work further.

Given a ballooning state, a huge deficit and an ageing population, the truth is that we will not be able to sustain the existing model and will be unable to continue providing all the levels of service that we have now. We will need to look to the voluntary sector for more and more, so it is imperative that we support and strengthen the industry today. In addition, as the hon. Lady said, charities save the state money in the long term.

For example, Wiltshire Mind, which is based in my constituency, receives no Government funding, but even the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust acknowledges the charity’s vital work and how it reduces pressure on services. Alzheimers Support and the Alzheimer’s Society are prime examples of charities that achieve better outcomes than many state-run organisations, because they are specialised in their sector. Volunteer centres act as pivotal hubs, promoting and filling roles, and they often excel at rehabilitation of ex-offenders and back-to-work programmes.

As we all know, the recession has hit the voluntary sector hard; its total income has fallen in real terms every year since 2009-10. That is because of not only the reduction in Government spending, but the reduction in giving—an obvious symptom of recession. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations estimates that the rate of giving fell by around 10% during the recession, and it has still not recovered. Individuals are the voluntary sector’s single biggest source of income, hence the impact.

Funding is not the only issue, and that is the point that I want to labour. We also need to encourage volunteering, especially among the young and the elderly. In 2014-15 47% of adults in the country did some form of informal or formal volunteering. Informal volunteering is most prevalent among 26 to 34-year-olds and formal volunteering among the young—those of 25 and under. That means that a huge number of people in the retired sector with time and expertise who could get involved. Volunteering would also help some of them to ward off loneliness and other such attributes.

[Martin John Docherty (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I recognise some of what the hon. Lady is saying, but does she recognise that such volunteering activity requires investment? It does not come for nothing.

[Michelle Donelan]

Exactly. I am trying to make that point and will continue to, but I am also saying that we can throw money at things, but it is not only a case of money—we must also promote the voluntary sector to ensure that we have the volunteers for tomorrow.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Carers’ organisations also recognise that the issue is not only about funding, but about the freely given caring provided day in, day out by carers to their families up and down the country.

[Michelle Donelan]

I agree. I am very much involved with the carers’ organisation in my constituency and I completely understand that point.

We need to go further to encourage and enable more people in long-term unemployment to go into volunteering schemes. We already do that, but we need to work more closely with volunteer centres to ensure that it happens more. There is a lot of concern about the loss of benefits to volunteers, so there is much work to do there.

We need to invest to encourage more young people to volunteer as well. Some fantastic work has already been done, such as that of the National Citizen Service. It is important today to focus not only on the negatives, but on the positives. Seventy-five thousand young people have changed their lives and got involved in their communities through the NCS. We should take note of the things that are working as well.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I share the hon. Lady’s positive view of the NCS and its good work with young people. At the same time we are seeing huge cuts to youth services across local authorities and the NCS works with a fairly small number of young people compared with the great majority who can access mainstream services. Does she not think that the cuts to local authorities also impact on young people’s preventive services?

[Michelle Donelan]

The cuts to youth services are for a totally different debate, because they are not purely about volunteering. There is a vast variety of youth services depending on the different areas and models involved. There is also the question of replacement: in many areas, including mine, the council has worked closely with the community to offer a replacement service that is the most cost-effective and efficient for the people using it.

In addition, the Government are providing funding for campaigns such as the national Step Up To Serve #iwill campaign, which aims to make social action part of the lives of as many 10 to 20-year-olds as possible. More remains to be done, however, and I am quite shocked that there is still no formal encouragement in respect of the value of getting volunteering into schools, through things such as voluntary placements. We have always had a system of work placements, but there has never been a system of voluntary placements as a formal mechanism in the UK. I have approached my local volunteer centre about the issue, and we are trying to do something with willing schools in my constituency.

We need to change the ethos and encourage more businesses to allow voluntary days, which would build on the Government’s initiative on that. There have been other great investments, which we should not fail to mention, such as Big Society Capital, tax relief for social investment, social impact bonds and £70 million for social investment in the investment and contract readiness fund.

[Dawn Butler]

In addition, business rate relief for charities is worth £1.7 billion. Does the hon. Lady not think that they should be excluded from the Government’s plans for rate relief? Those plans will hinder charities’ ability to provide services to the community.

[Michelle Donelan]

That is one thing we could look at, but it is not the only thing, as I shall get on to in the rest of my speech.

More needs to be done and it is time we looked at gift aid in particular. On average, the charity sector loses almost £1 billion a year from people not opting into gift aid. Perhaps we should not only promote it more as a mechanism, so that people understand it, but look at the logistics of having an opt-out instead for the working population. That might be one solution.

When compared with the state, charities are often far better placed to deliver services and value for money, as well as being far more knowledgeable about those services. The charities also provide specialised local knowledge and learning for volunteers. Young people can gain skills and a preparation for life and employment, while older volunteers can impart their own knowledge and reduce the training burden carried by charities. Charities may also reduce demand on the NHS as people stay active and healthier during volunteering. There are thousands of voluntary organisations in Wiltshire that bring in money from inside and outside the county in addition to Government funding.

While central Government may be able to replicate the functions of a local charity in part, that is not sustainable. That also does not take into account the unseen costs of not funding those charities, such as the loss of expert knowledge and the unquantifiable but large wider social benefit that community charities provide. I welcome the Government’s recent initiatives, but I urge them to go further. The reality is that we will need to rely more and more on the voluntary sector in coming years, so it is imperative that we support and promote it today.