With charities shutting and donations in decline, local authorities need to build stronger and more robust relations with their local voluntary and community sectors
It’s fair to say that the immediate prospects for public services and employees and community and voluntary organisations are ‘challenging’ to say the least.
The public sector will continue to face massive cuts. Meanwhile the voluntary sector has experienced huge reductions to its funding (both grants and contracts) in the last few months. These have, in some localities, been greater than those imposed on directly managed public services.
So for the third sector the world could seem bleak. Only this week we learnt that over 1500 charities have collapsed or been closed; that donations are lower than in past years and are nowhere near where they need to be make the 'Big Society a reality; and that the voluntary sector feels that it has been let down in major public sector procurements, especially the Work Programme. Yet understandably there is much political promotion of the 'Big Society' and the growing role for the third sector.
It is particularly ironic and deeply depressing that far too many local authorities and their public sector partners have singled out local infrastructure bodies for financial reductions at the very time when the need to grow and support the community sector is greater than ever. It is especially short-sighted and shows a distressing lack of long-term strategic vision and planning for a local authority not to support and enhance the capacity and strength of the local community and voluntary sector.
Rather than major tensions and disputes between the sectors in some localities and nationally, there should in fact be mutuality and common cause between them.
I am not arguing that the voluntary sector should have special treatment or protection when cuts are applied. Expenditure decisions, whether for increases or decreases, should be made based on their relative impact on wider policy objectives and outcomes for services users and the community. However, they should most certainly not be taken on the basis of what is least painful for the institution making the decisions. Rather, they should be value, policy and strategic commissioning-led, and definitely not made from a sense of self-protection or prejudice.
The voluntary and in particular the community sectors play a vital role in both delivering public services and in developing community capacity, supporting communities and neighbourhoods, representing and providing voice for communities to the statutory and private sectors, and offering advice and advocacy to individuals and families.
At a time of tough austerity and relentless government pressures on local authorities and other public bodies, there is a need to forge much stronger links between local authorities and the community and voluntary sectors. Local government should be finding common cause to protect communities and service user interests, Each sector should be exploring common grounds for alternative policies, programmes and funding opportunities including: social investment for capital requirements; the sharing of assets; and alternative revenue funding.
Major change to services and transfer of services and activities between sectors require transitional arrangements. They will only succeed when stakeholders are also involved in the relevant decision-making processes. When local authorities or others seek to transfer services to or wish the voluntary sector to find alternative funding, there has to be mutual agreement between the organisations – unilateral imposition or false expectations by the public sector are both dangerous and the foundations for disaster. An organisation that folds because it is bankrupt is in no position to progress.
Consequently, there is an urgent need for more dialogue, and much greater understanding and trust between the sectors. It is simply unhelpful for voluntary organisations to ask government to ‘direct’ local authorities on the latter’s spending decisions or to suggest that the lack of available money is primarily the responsibility of local government.
The voluntary sector understandably has to protect its political independence but it must also promote its values and stand up for its beneficiaries, members and users. Building alliances with those with common cause is essential to the pursuit of these objectives. There is no inconsistency in building alliances and at the same time arguing and negotiating robustly but honestly with those same organisations. Mature relations depend on such approaches and should be able to accommodate them.
For their part, local authorities and their leaders need to build stronger, trusted and more robust relations with their local voluntary and community sectors and the wider third sector.
As I have argued on this blog before, there are many practical ways to achieve this. The truth is that local authorities and other local public services have far more in common with the voluntary sector than they have differences. Such differences as they do have should be respected – but the key challenge is to find ways in which the sectors can work together at a national and local level to secure benefits for all citizens.
