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Angela Smith: charities are not there to deliver services on the cheap
By Paul Jump, Third Sector Online, 9 March 2010
Third sector minister addresses mass meeting organised by Unite
The Government does not regard the third sector as a way to deliver public services "on the cheap", according to Angela Smith, Minister for the Third Sector.
Smith was speaking at a mass meeting organised by the Unite union at the Houses of Parliament yesterday.
The meeting was timed to coincide with the release of new research by the union showing that more than 90 per cent of voluntary sector staff feel their wellbeing and morale are being undermined by the financial crisis facing charities and the emphasis on giving them short-term, low-cost contracts.
Rachael Maskell, Unite's national officer for the community and not-for-profit sector, told the meeting that almost all of the 300 respondents to the survey had complained of stress and long hours.
"Things could be so much better," she said. "If workforce issues aren't brought centre-stage, the sector will be unsustainable in the long term."
Smith welcomed the report and agreed that it was important for the Government to understand the impact of contracting on the sector's workforce.
She contrasted the Labour Party's perception of the sector with that of the Conservatives, claiming that the Tories expected the sector to provide services more cheaply.
"Getting the balance right between the different sectors means not seeing the sector as organisations that could do things on the cheap," she said.
She also said discussions with Unite officials before the meeting had convinced her that some management practices in the third sector needed to be improved significantly. "Pressures can be coped with in much more union-friendly ways," she said.
Doug Nicholls, Unite's national secretary for community and youth workers and the industrial sector, said it was time for a major review of sector funding and an end to competition between voluntary organisations for the same contracts.
"Our organisations aren't built for competition and the market," he said. "They are built for caring and compassion."
Jim Dobbin, Labour MP for Heywood and Middleton in Greater Manchester, said the Government should legislate to ensure all contracts ran for five years.
Ben Kernighan, deputy chief executive of umbrella body the NCVO, called for more use of rolling contracts that could be automatically renewed every year.
"Far too often, decisions are made about the length of the contracts on the basis of the constraints on the funders and not what is appropriate for that kind of service," he said.
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Barrie Duke, 10 March 2010, 14:03
As the lady says it's all about 'perception of the sector'. The reality is somewhat different.
Working for a charity is no picnic. It's demoralising enough to see months of bidding and donors funds go down the drain each year in the competition for funds. Never mind the sudden loss of funds as contracts are 'refocused'.
Add to that the tendency for funding to be channelled through national bodies on the grounds that it's so expensive to deal with regions, areas and individual charities and you can clearly see the different perceptions that exist.
In rural areas, where services cost up to 90% more to deliver in terms of outputs, we're always having to deliver on the cheap - calling for volunteers who are willing to give a professional response. Any cuts in funding tend to bring projects crashing to the ground here where any loss in funding has nearly twice the effect.
William Blake's perception does not seem out of place or in appropriate for Angela Smith - 'Your heaven is my hell'.
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Melow Meldrew, 10 March 2010, 19:00
I am wary of charities operating as pseudo service provision anyway, given they know funding for a proper service will not come and they will have to beg to operate mostly. Charities should NOT be providing any service that is a state obligation in law anyway, it is the charities themselves to blame for taking over services they shouldn't be doing, THEY have created the dearth of provision byso doing, by agreeing to off loaded support options by the state for a paltry hand out, charity and the state are both culpable in denying support provision as a legal right, the state was never going to hand over the cash to run these services, only the ONUS on charities to do so, aand an occasional handout now and then. This where grass roots can do the most via rpovsion, they woudl certainly NOT provide for themselves via the begging bowl and would be using charity to lobby heavily for the state to meet its legal and mortal obligations, the fact is some charities have become a 'business' and greedy too. The 'perceptions' can ONLY come from grass roots, not outsiders brought in to run the corporate side, their aims and grass roots are not the same. The minister is confusing a non grass root executive view, with a grass root one. That is only true if representation is there, and it isn't.
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