September 2007

In July The Government Said It Really, Really Needs Us!

By Professor Ian Bruce, Director, Cass CCE

The summer was a momentous one for the third sector. One of the first announcements by Gordon Brown as Prime Minister was to outline what was billed by the Government as setting out a '10 year vision of how the government can support a thriving third sector'. This had been preceded in June by three major policy speeches on our sector from Ed Milliband shortly before he was promoted to the Cabinet (NB he is now the boss of our new Minister, Phil Hope). Perhaps the meatiest happening was the joint publication in July from the powerful provenance of the Treasury and the Cabinet Office (Office of the Third Sector) of the third sector review entitled 'The future role of the third sector in social and economic regeneration' Last but not least was Capacitybuilder’s report on its finally decided strategy for delivering the longer established but still potent ChangeUp strategy - to create a step change in the resourcing and competence of infrastructure support for the third sector. It is entitled 'Destination 2014'. I feel exhausted just listing all these, so you can imagine how one feels having read them all!

But is this just a case of the Government sales people saying 'never mind the quality, just feel the width?' There is some new money which is a good start even though it is less than is implied. Certainly the quantity of activity by Senior Ministers is unprecedented in the last 35 years - and perhaps ever. But is there any quality/depth of policy here? I think there is as I shall outline below. The crucial test though will be whether there is the political will to see the policy proposals through; and whether there is the technical competence within Government and the Third Sector to deliver.

I want to believe there is but the challenge is enormous. Just think of one easy example. The new policy puts huge and welcome emphasis on supporting “voice” ie pressure group and campaigning by third sector organisations. How will this commitment play with the groundswell of third sector groups campaigning against Heathrow expansion – a project close to the PM’s heart? How will “voice” be strengthened if the Government weakens the current public enquiry processes, as is widely predicted?

So what are all these pronouncements actually saying? My guess is that the core text is the third sector review entitled 'The future role of the Third Sector in social and economic regeneration: final report' (July 2007 Cm 7189) which is a comprehensive statement of the “what”. The Ministerial speeches supply the “why”.

What the Government is proposing is:

• Supporting a wider range of third sector activities, particularly community action and campaigning
  
• Investing more in the long term future of the sector’s work
  
• Improving local partnerships

The bulk of the report expands on this, concentrating on how the Government plans to help the third sector play a key role in 5 ways:

1. Campaigning and giving people a voice
2. Strengthening communities
3. Transforming public services (not just by using nonprofits but also through the third sector advising and influencing public service deliverers)
4. Encouraging social enterprise
5. Supporting the environment to sustain and expand a healthy third sector

So how much of this is new? First the comprehensiveness and key role given to the sector is not only new, it is unprecedented in my experience of the last 35 years.

Second, the central role given to Voice/campaigning is not only new, it is dramatic and welcome. Many of us will remember instances where earlier Governments’ representatives and the Charity Commission spoke against charities campaigning. Credit should be given to all those who pressed for it, particularly NCVO.

Transforming public services is both new and old – old in the sense that voluntary organisations have been providing commissioned public services on a large scale for over 75 years and have worked for public service improvement for even longer. But it is only more recently that governments have embraced and encouraged commissioning from the sector. As we know this raises dangers to independence but this can be managed (eg Mencap, SCOPE or Barnardos are heavily commissioning dependent but are hardly wilting flowers on the campaigning/independence front!). Acevo has been pushing hard in this area and I think the sector can rise to the challenge.

Supporting communities, encouraging social enterprise and improving the conditions for the sector are not new but are vital and welcome provided there is effective follow through. Improving conditions is a critical thrust but is particularly susceptible to Government 'left hand/right hand' syndrome, e.g. specific tax concession support being more than wiped out in effect by lower basic rates of tax.

So why is the Government doing all these things, especially Voice? Here the Ministerial speeches are instructive, especially those of Ed Milliband. His speeches of 14th and 25th of June are well worth reading in full. He gives a number of contributions which he believes our sector bring to the party (double entendre?) to help Government either uniquely or additionally. These include user involvement, innovation, alternative accountability, engagement, and culture change. (Ed Milliband speech 25th June). However the “Why” which intrigues me most is the role he believes we play in social (attitude) change through contributing towards 'a democracy which hears all voices and ensures the capacity for the most excluded to be heard' (Ed Milliband, 14th June 2007 'Building a different kind of state' p7)

He goes on: 'We have seen lots of important (social) change over the last ten years, which have helped create the beginnings of a progressive consensus on many issues which 10 years ago were very contentious'(op cit).

My overwhelming response to this argument is positive, especially given the examples he gives of rights of/for disabled people, gay/lesbian rights, climate change etc. Most important is that it is convincing evidence that the Government positively needs us rather than simply feels it has to genuflect in our direction - something which has happened regularly and ineffectually over the last 5 decades. However he is effectively saying that the Government needs us as advocates, which is only a short walk from the dark forest of manipulation, so we need to keep our compasses firmly set.

The last point I want to draw out of these exciting series of summer announcements is much broader than simply our sector - he applies this last point to all sectors, Public, Commercial and Third and most importantly to the Government itself. If it is delivered it will crown an idea which has been growing in Government circles for some time. In essence it is the need to implement a user/customer focus rather than a production/process focus - a marketing approach which some of us have been advocating for decades (i.e. meeting the needs of the individual within the objectives of the organisation). On June 14th (op cit) he says:

' ..we need a different kind of State: one that does more to give individuals a say in decisions that affect them, and does more to adapt itself to each individual’s needs. In a speech I made earlier this year I described it as a State where communities and the users of public services are in control. Gordon Brown recently described it in a similar vein – the ‘servant state’ (p1)

Many of us will be cheering this commitment. Ed, we need you to deliver it!

All the documents mentioned in this article can be found on the Cabinet Office website.

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