The impact of the Blair/Brown/Cameron governments on the relationship between local authorities and the voluntary sector was profound: no more so than in Kent. The most important lesson to be gained from what happened in the county is that whilst Compacts are excellent in theory, the reality is they are disregarded with impunity by a local authority set on cutting funding and/or services to meet austerity targets. Commitments to long-term funding go out of the window.
For many voluntary organisations the problem is that reliance on local and/or national government bodies' funding to provide services is such, that should funding be cut or reduced severely, there is serious risk of financial instability. Fear of such an outcome, of the pressure that the funder can impose, means voluntary organisations lose their independence, or even close.
The power rests with procurement units of local authorities and other statutory bodies not with the providers of services. This power is used in a variety of ways:
* Pressure is put on the voluntary sector to organise into larger units. Charities with numerous self-standing registered charity branches are 'encouraged' to merge or risk losing funding. Thus local knowledge and support of the charities is lost.
*The funder indicates it is interested in receiving proposals for providing services from the profit-driven private sector.
*The funder names an organisation to receive funding for services and that organisation takes on the role of distributing the funding to providers through an annual competitive bidding process.
The purpose is to drive down costs through a competitive process or meek compliance to the demands of the local authority or other statutory body. Inevitably financial cuts leads to a drop in the standard of service, trustees and clients become discouraged, a charity goes into a downward spiral and then closes.
What is lost is the local dimension, the response and engagement of individuals and organisations on the ground with knowledge and experience of the community they wish to serve. You cannot put a monetary value on that.
So what is/should be the role of Church of England parishes? Each parochial Church Council (PCC) is an independent charity and therefore has to adhere to charity law. Charities are regulated by the Charities Commission. The trustees of a PCC must act always in the interests of the charity. Plenty of scope there for pressure to act in a certain way from the dioceses. Whilst it is open to a PCC to take on activities funded by local or national government or other state agencies it needs to be aware of the fragile nature of the funding and have contingency plans to activate should the funding cease. It is no surprise that most of the activities PCCs authorise are either self-funding or funded by the PCC.
The issue is that PCCs are taking on the role of safety net by providing services the state has either refused to undertake or withdrawn from. The danger is that as long as the voluntary sector generally is doing the job of the state the state has no incentive to take action. There has been little change for many years in the levels of poverty and destitution in this country, in levels of homelessness, in alleviating or overcoming the issues in areas of multiple deprivation.
The shocking situation is that at a time the state relies on the voluntary sector its policies are driving many voluntary organisations to the wall. Who will pick up the pieces?
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