Should charities deliver public services? No, says Barry Knight

Wednesday October 1, 2003

The Guardian



The past decade has seen a massive growth in the voluntary sector, which
is now set to become a fully-fledged partner of government, helping to
create and deliver government services. But will this approach deliver
on core social problems? The answer is "no".

Put simply, resources are going to the wrong places. This will be an
unpopular conclusion, but I'm no stranger to unpopularity. Ten years
ago, I found myself at the centre of a storm as author of a research
study published by the Home Office, called Voluntary Action. The book,
popularly known as the Centris Report, was publicly attacked by the then
prime minister, John Major, opposition parties, leading charities, and
even a Church of England bishop.

Why did it provoke such wrath? Because it criticised charity.

The study argued that much of the voluntary sector had lost its vision,
become bureaucratic, self-serving, and no longer met the criteria for
authentic voluntary action. And, with the commercialisation of welfare
in the early 1990s, much of the voluntary sector was set to become a
sub-contractor of government.

It suggested radical reform to create a "social economy" where public
interest companies would deliver state-contracted services in welfare,
housing and education. Payment would be based on performance against
agreed outcomes, and there would be no automatic right to the tax breaks
that charitable status brings. Freed from service delivery, voluntary
organising could address causes of inequality, exclusion and injustice,
pioneer new approaches to social change, and build a thriving,
multicultural civil society.

The charity sector went into overdrive - writing articles in the press,
lobbying politicians, and ensuring that I would not be invited to any
conference to explain my views. Our office switchboard was jammed, and
the faxes kept coming. One, from a friend in Cambodia, read: "Beware -
there is no more dangerous animal than a wounded holy cow." Charity had
been wounded all right.

Ten years later, the book has been rehabilitated, and most commonly
described as "prescient". Many urged Centris to repeat the study, and in
2002 we agreed. Our five-year study, entitled Audit of Civil Society,
involves monitoring statistical trends, interviews with people concerned
with voluntary and community action, and household surveys.

The interim findings are complicated, but three trends stand out.

First, there has been a huge growth in the professionalised voluntary
sector, largely due to government contracts and the adoption of private
sector techniques in marketing and public relations. Recruitment of
professional staff, rather than volunteers, has created an "industry".
As professional organisations have aligned themselves with government,
they have turned away from the general public, who are increasingly
suspicious of them.

Second, there is growth in "new voluntary action". Organisations here
tend to use their expertise to build a broad-based membership and
coalitions of like-minded interests to pursue campaigns to reduce
poverty, address racism and other forms of oppression, and to pioneer
social justice. Such voluntary action is often critical of the state.

Third, there is a decline of the traditional voluntary association.
Membership organisations, which provide a calendar of local social,
cultural and community events, have gone into sharp decline. Such
organisations, which provide the glue of associational life, are finding
it difficult to find volunteers and new members. Existing members are
nearly always middle aged or older, and young people are not coming
through.

In giving priority to service delivery, our audit suggests, government
is backing the wrong horse. Our surveys show that many people feel
disconnected in their relationships, and want to find new ways to
associate with one another and to participate in public affairs.
Services have much lower priority.

The prime target for voluntary and community action is to encourage
people to link with one another and participate in the public domain. In
our audit, we found organisations that are particularly good at this.

The Derbyshire Coalition for Inclusive Living is composed of 605
disabled people who use their common experience of exclusion,
discrimination and oppression to take control of their lives, live
independently and integrate with non-disabled people.

The East London Communities Organisation welds together 38 mosques,
churches, schools, unions, and community associations to work on a
living wage campaign and other issues of concern to Londoners. Together,
the groups can mobilise 1,000 in one meeting to put politicians of all
parties under pressure.

This activity revitalises civil society in a way service providing
cannot. Our audit suggests that what is needed from voluntary and
community action is social solidarity, not service philanthropy. Public
money is going to the wrong parts of the sector.

. Barry Knight is a founder of Centris, the Centre for Research and
Innovation in Social Policy and Practice. Initial findings of the
Centris audit will be published on October 6. Details from:
 office@centris.org (tel: 0191 232 6942