Recovery position

6 Jun 08
MIKE THATCHER | It’s national volunteers’ week. Which might explain why so many politicians have been out and about, lavishing praise on the country’s Cinderella services and unsung heroines and heroes.

It’s national volunteers’ week. Which might explain why so many politicians have been out and about, lavishing praise on the country’s Cinderella services and unsung heroines and heroes.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson popped into a charity shop at Bart’s hospital to launch a government consultation on voluntary work. Third sector minister Phil Hope told a National Council for Voluntary Organisations conference that the public sector needs to become a better funding partner.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader David Cameron pitched up at a social enterprise trust to launch his party’s ‘green paper’ on voluntary action. The underlying theme was that ‘the state can’t run British society properly, and shouldn’t try’ – a stance Hope described as a return to Victorian values.

The Tories have some headline-catching ideas. A day off each year for public servants to do voluntary work. A pledge to end government raids on lottery funding. A new ‘Office of Civil Society’ and a select committee for the sector.

But the guts of the paper concerns funding. Charities, it argues, should be allowed to turn a profit from running government services and ‘compete on an equal footing’ with the private sector.

At present, voluntary bodies receive around £5.3bn to deliver public services: a fifth of the sector’s income. But only 12% of charities have their full contract costs paid for by public sector funders.

The green paper promises to amend the government-voluntary sector Compact to create a more level playing field. But here’s the rub. If ‘full-cost recovery’ has proved so elusive in times of plenty, how likely is it that cash-strapped public bodies will pay up now?

And without it, how meaningful is it to talk about profits? Not very, says the NCVO, which points out that charities can perfectly legally make a return anyway – so long as it’s ploughed back into services. The difficulty is that most struggle to retain a surplus in the first place.

But no matter. The voluntary sector is delighted with all the attention. And the government and Opposition are happy to score points over a sector that is a source of cheap and all-too-essential public services.Recovery position

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