15 September 2006
All the main parties are looking to voluntary organisations to deliver more public services. Stuart Etherington warns that the sector will be wanting a lot more in return
The party conference season is now upon us. For voluntary organisations, these gatherings are an important part of the annual cycle of events that they use to influence government policy and the wider policy debate between parties. The focus of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations this year is the role that the voluntary sector can play in transforming communities. In this, the NCVO is a voice for the breadth of the sector, including the numerous voluntary organisations that cannot attend.
With all parties stating that they'd like the sector to play a greater role, it is vital that small and locally focused organisations are not shut out of the debate.
This is particularly important when discussing the future of public service reform. Both the government and Opposition have talked about actively encouraging voluntary organisations to deliver more public services. The prime minister emphasised this in his speech at the Three Sector Summit in May, stating that barriers should be broken down to liberate the voluntary sector's 'energy, talent and potential'. Meanwhile, Conservative leader David Cameron has stated that charities have a 'crucial role' to play in public service delivery.
Both parties are currently consulting the sector. The Labour Party recently wrote to the main stakeholder groups asking them to feed into its 'Partnership in Power' process. Its consultation document talks about encouraging the growth of social enterprises to help provide diversity and innovation in public services and asks how the third sector can play a stronger role. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party's Social Justice Policy Group is considering the main 'benefits and disadvantages of using the voluntary sector compared with the state to deliver services'.
However, concerns remain that these debates are not addressing the real issue. The NCVO believes that voluntary organisations should take on service delivery only where it coincides with their mission and values. Added to which, true reform means more than just transferring service delivery from the public to the voluntary sector – to make a real difference to our communities, public services need to be 'transformed'.
The limits of the current agenda were exposed in a survey conducted by the NCVO in May. This showed that while some transfers of public services have taken place, it is happening in such an inefficient and ineffective way that little progress has been made to truly transform public services. For example, 55% of respondents reported that funding had not been negotiated and agreed promptly for this financial year. This creates uncertainty over the future provision of services and is detrimental to service users, staff and trustees. Many organisations were also using their own reserves to meet the running costs of providing services.
Meanwhile, almost half of respondents stated that funding had not been agreed for longer than one year. In some cases, this has meant that voluntary organisations have diverted their resources to secure future funding rather than provide services.
In recent weeks, Public Finance has carried articles about the sector's role in service delivery from both the CBI business organisation and the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action. It is important to state that public service reform needs to mean more than an improved contracting process and more services delivered. It must mean providing services that truly understand and meet people's needs. Political parties must therefore rethink their whole approach to public service delivery.
This includes recognising that not all public services are inefficient or ineffective: many are very good. Public services are not automatically poorly delivered just because they are in the public sector, and not all public services need to be transferred to the voluntary sector, or anywhere else.
There are also key principles that the parties must adopt if services are going to be more responsive to the needs of the community.
First, the agenda of citizens and communities must be placed at the heart of the reform process. Services must meet the needs of all, not just the majority. They should be available to citizens who need a specialised service, which might have less scope for economies of scale and therefore tend to be more expensive. Public services must also be designed and delivered in a way that enables individual voices and the voices of communities to be heard. Where a choice is offered, service providers should ensure that service users have the information and support they need to make that choice.
Public services should also be delivered in a more joined-up way, recognising that what might appear to be a more expensive solution to one funder actually provides benefits and savings in other service areas. This could help to solve the problems that exist when statutory funders are reluctant to support projects or services if all of the cost falls to one government department, while some of the benefits go to another. Risks and benefits should be shared across government through effective joint commissioning.
The voluntary and community sector's advocacy and campaigning role must also be recognised. Organisations' direct experience of running services puts them in an ideal position to say what changes should be made. In many cases, the sector has developed projects and services in areas where neither the state nor the market have been willing or able to operate.
There are a number of steps that political parties can therefore take to ensure services are transformed. In particular, politicians must do more to encourage the statutory sector to listen to voluntary organisations and to involve them at an early stage in decision-making.
We will also be pressing politicians not to view the voluntary sector as an 'easy touch'. As the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action stated in Public Finance, the sector is no-one's 'patsy' ('Taking care of business', September 1–7). There must be explicit and ongoing cross-party support at national, regional and local level for the Compact, the agreement between the government and the voluntary sector in England to improve their relationship for mutual advantage.
The sector has three more 'golden rules', which we hope the parties will endorse. First, where voluntary organisations do deliver services, the public sector should factor in the distinctive value that they bring. For example, commissioners should include in contracts an expectation that users will inform the delivery of a service, and service providers will need to demonstrate how they listen and respond to their users. The contract should include the costs of this engagement.
Secondly, all contracts should be properly negotiated and managed, ensuring that the risk is appropriately shared and monitoring requirements are proportionate.
Thirdly, all contracts should be sustainably funded – providing longer-term funding where appropriate.
To ensure that these golden rules are upheld, voluntary organisations will need to develop a new range of skills, knowledge and expertise to manage contracts with public sector agencies. The NCVO's Sustainable Funding Project, in partnership with Futurebuilders England, has established a network to facilitate the development of these skills and to enhance partnership working. The Public Service Delivery Network will be holding its first annual conference in November, where voluntary organisations and statutory agencies can share practical experience and learning; improve tendering, contract management and negotiation skills; explore models; and gain insights into effective and efficient purchaser/provider contracting relationships.
By pressing the case for our 'transformation' agenda, we hope that the political parties listen before publishing their next strategy or floating their next 'big idea'. This process must start in Brighton, Manchester and Bournemouth and continue through ongoing consultation with the people using the services and those who are helping to deliver them. Voluntary and community organisations – particularly smaller, locally based groups – must be treated as true partners. By listening to the diversity of the voluntary and community sector, political parties could achieve the real transformation in public services that everyone wants.
Stuart Etherington is the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations
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