The Panel on the Independence of the Voluntary Sector’s second evidence session was focussed on the experience of larger organisations and the reflections of infrastructure bodies, exploring amongst other things their view of their role in preserving independence of voice.
The summary below is not intended as a verbatim presentation of all the points made. Nor does anything in the text necessarily represent the views of the Panel or its members.
The panel heard evidence from:
- Clive Martin, Director of CLINKS, an infrastructure organisation whose members work in the criminal justice system.
- Ben Kernighan, Deputy Chief Executive, NCVO (National Council of Voluntary Organisations)
- Alex Massey, Senior Policy Officer, ACEVO (Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations)
- Anne Marie Carrie, Chief Executive, Barnardo’s and Martin Crewe, Director, Barnardo’s Scotland
Participants were invited to make a statement of around 10 minutes in length, and were then questioned by members of the panel.
Clive Martin, Director, CLINKS
Summary of evidence given:
- Clive Martin began by briefly explaining that Clinks is an infrastructure organisation whose members work largely, but not exclusively in the criminal justice system, working in prisons, probation, with young offenders and juveniles.
- He asserted that independence was related to finances. “Our ability to speak out is related to our ability to survive - organisations on contracted work are generally cautious of biting the hand that feeds them.” Two factors - lack of free reserves and the inability to access public donations on a large scale - made the ability of organisations to maintain their independence very tenuous. Reserves in the sector ranged from a large national organisation with reserves of £13m to reserves of 2-3 weeks for many smaller organisations. Cash flow was also an issue in relation to payment by results contracts.
- Independence of voice was being affected:
- Clive said that prisons are in most cases closed institutions, every voluntary organisation working there would, as well as delivering services, want to be free to speak out about conditions in prisons. Now they are competing for contracts – and it is the same people who commission services that they would need to speak out against. He said that “this does not make for a very happy mix”.
- The right to campaign was closely linked to independence and he noted that the voluntary sector was not now speaking out as it did in terms of criminal justice. When was last major campaign around criminal justice, he pointed out? There had been a number around women’s justice, but sadly very little else. The ability of the voluntary sector to speak out about real issues has been lessened because of loss of core funding – and when they did speak out it is often now about process issues.
- Those groups not served by contracts were increasingly falling off the radar: the ability of the sector to speak up for offenders not covered by contracts was shrinking because they lacked the knowledge of the issues.
- The relationship between voluntary sector sub-contractors and private prime contractors was increasingly important but how that would play out was yet unknown though he had a “healthy scepticism of how independence will look in that context”. He said that it was clear that primes would be private sector – the emergence of large voluntary organisations was not happening. There was no history of ability of subcontractors to express themselves against primes. He highlighted a number of points:
- The primes are large multinational organisations – one of them is the third largest employer in the world. When they are contracting with small organisations, the possibility of ironing out problems, or of dispute resolution are limited – a charity would be nervous of taking on legal might of such a large company.
- The Ministry of Justice are very reluctant to put dispute resolution in contracts. This is much more fundamental for us rather than issues relating to “running prisons”
- With reference to a recent view expressed in the media that charities should not run prisons, he said that there was some confusion of language, as they currently don’t run prisons – the issue is of subcontracting rather than running prisons itself. He said that voluntary sector provision of resettlement services has been going on for more than one hundred years – so it is not provision itself that is the issue.
- He asked what can be done? Clive said that this has been eroded over a number of years. He acknowledged it may sound self-interested, but asserted that it is fundamental that voice and advocacy for the sector is funded, and continue to advocate for this role of the voluntary sector. He added that it is strange that as a formal democratic process becomes weaker, with lower turnout and less political participation, that the role of the voluntary sector also diminishes. A collective voice was crucial –infrastructure must be funded. Core costs need ed funding but it was remarkably hard to get funding for them. One way forward was to work with organisations that did have access to public donations and use their voice to speak out.
Responses to questions from the panel:
Sir Roger Singleton – Do you see the issue with payment by results as being one of the whole approach, or just unfortunate consequences for organisations that don’t have strong balance sheets?
- Clive said that the real question about payments by results was that was being implemented across board, rather than being used for innovation a service that was not provided could be provided, as in the Peterborough social impact bond, working with previously unsupported prisoners with sentences under 12 months. Where it was being used more widely for services with offenders – for example in Doncaster - the voluntary sector becomes incredibly wobbly and vulnerable.
- He said that winning contracts can be a threat to organisations too. The last two Clinks members that shut won Payment by results contracts, but when they understood the contract, and the full potential liability they decided to wind-up.
Julia Unwin: Is Clinks as an infrastructure body freer to speak up than its members?
- Clive said Clinks was, but that it would be foolish to say the current culture didn’t touch them. They were under pressure not to question too much at certain times under encouragement of members, but were freer than their members.
Julia Unwin: Is it a felt pressure, is it just something we have to be brave about, and speak out?
- He said the payment by results issue was a good example. In public, all of their large member organisations claimd they were up for it, and all in favour. It is a new way of thinking, they want to be seen as dynamic, responding to the new government, and not old fashioned unfit for business. However, privately six of them had said they didn’t believe it but didn’t want to speak out. He said that Clinks could speak out about this and had done. Though one organisation had said they’d been saying too much.
Julia Unwin: What about the substance, or content of work, for instance are you under constraint about speaking out about the way prisoners are held? What about the role of specialists?
- The answer Clive said was “Yes and No”. For example on the issue of women offenders in the criminal justice system Clinks had said just what they thought was needed - including a system redesign. However, they felt they would have perhaps got more traction if they had been less strident, less critical. For some smaller organisations, with visitor centre contracts, there was a feeling that they had lost contracts because they had been a pain in the side.
Professor Nicholas Deakin: Is there a different experience between large and small organisations?
- Clive said that had you asked a year ago, he would have said yes. Now he thought all organisations are vulnerable but in different ways. Some small organisations surprisingly might survive better than thought – they have never been well resourced or funded, so can make adjustments to enable them to survive. But now it is difficult to know where the impact will hit first.
Andrew Hind –Is this a trend you have seen for a number of years, not just under the current government – what have been the changes over last 10 years?
- He said the issues had been developing over a longer period. In the early days of New Labour with the Compact, and the Deakin report, the role of the voluntary sector in terms of voice and advocacy was clearly stated, respected and funded through core. “Everyone was invited in to the tent, which became a warm and cosy place” and organisations spent a lot of time arguing about process rather than substance.
- As commissioning became embedded, there was stronger competition, and tighter money. At the same time the criminal justice was linked to votes – the government wanted to be seen to be running an effective criminal justice system. Organisations had to become more focussed on winning contracts and now core grants have more or less disappeared in the sector.
- He said that change came from within the sector as well. Increasingly, the sector saw its role to be to win contracts, and senior people came from business or government – not necessarily from within the traditions of the sector. There was also a shift in trustee bodies. They had become more corporate, with the aim of understanding business and government better. So, for chief executives and boards the more traditional sector roles put on the back burner.
Dame Anne Owers: We’ve talked about independence of voice, but we are also interested in independence of mission – does it make them do the job differently?
- Clive said that as an example, he went to the away day of a large provider. They were doing an exercise which asked, it is 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and you have a distressed client arriving at your door – what do you do? The conclusion of group he was with was that they would see what it said in the contract. He said that voluntary organisations are the A&E of society – and that this is an amazing example of how we have lost our soul and mission.
- He said that there are whole areas in the criminal justice system where no there is no voice – ethnic minorities, young black men etc. – there is almost no comment about that. It is the role of the sector, the mission of sector, to represent those on the margin who are silenced, but it is just not there at the moment.
Nick Wilkie – In relation to prime-subcontractor relations – do you have evidence of small organisations coming under pressure from primes?
- He said that there was some evidence from the Work Programme – they were hearing anecdotally that small organisations were being compelled to act in a certain way. They were saying that the risks of speaking out far outweighed the benefits and they wanted to continue doing business with the primes, so a large amount of information was not coming to the surface. He wondered how get this information out in closed institutions – perhaps inspections?
Nick Wilkie – Is it harder to address this with a large corporation than with a government department?
- He said that, yes, potentially it was more insidious. There is almost no redress – nothing that can be done. He provided one live example in the North East – a small organisation had a contracted relationship with the prime terminated without notice. They decided to take it up because they had no choice and they made a fuss. But if they were a national provider, or had eye on other contracts with same prime, this would not have come to light, he said. He said that it is particularly difficult, because there is no history of it, no system for it.
Ben Kernighan, Deputy Chief Executive, NCVO
Summary of evidence given:
- He began by mentioning “In a gloomy world” some examples of voluntary organisations who have been vocal in asserting their independence from government – these included The National Trust’s campaign over planning, MIND extricating itself from the advisory body on fitness to work, Save the Children’s campaign on child poverty, and the NCVO and partners’ charity tax campaign. Although there are good examples of independence in practice, he acknowledged that, there are significant challenges.
- A looming threat was that charity campaigns are coming under political attack, as was seen recently when Save the Children launched its anti-poverty campaign. Politicians were not just disagreeing with the campaign, but asserting that the argument should not have been made by a charity at all because it was motivated by party political bias. Some members of the Public Administration Select Committee (which is currently investigating the regulation of charities) had also questioned the independent campaigning role of charities that are funded by the state. This is not the mainstream view, he said, but is a threat in particular from some parts of the Conservative party.
- He made a number of points about weaknesses in the commissioning of public services that had a negative impact on independence, illustrating the points in relation to the Work Programme:
- There was a sector blindness in some parts of government – seeing the private and voluntary sector as one, and not designing contracts properly as a result which is unfavourable to the voluntary sector and independence of action. NCVO is working on a Code of Good Practice to try and improve the way these departments work with voluntary organisations.
- The size of contracts a problem – some contracts are too big to allow voluntary sector access to the work.
- In the Work Programme voluntary sector providers are subsidising their contracted work from other sources; and he also saw the gagging clause in some contracts as also a threat. The impact of the “Black-box” approach where data was having a subtle effect: the government’s interest is mainly in their relationships with primes and the black box was reinforcing the distance between front-line expertise in the voluntary sector and the government - and learning was not happening.
- Payment by results (PBR) must be redesigned, especially as it is a growing trend. However you will never be able to take all risk of cross-subsidy of PBR contracts – however excellent a charity is at improving employability, outcomes depend on wider job market you can’t control.
- There have been some recent Compact successes – the inclusion of the Compact in all departmental business plans is an encouraging sign, although how that plays out in practice remains to be seen. The Compact was also issued in the recent best-practice guidance issued by DCLG.
- On the blurring of boundaries between different sectors– the relationship with private sector is changing and becoming more significant, he said. Social enterprise definitions have always been disputed but there is now an acceleration of confusion, with the private sector co-opting the term. Also spin offs from government into the charitable sector are increasing and he thought it would be interesting to see how this affects independence.
- On an international level at a recent conference of national infrastructure bodies the greatest concern was the threat to the established sector posed by the development of informal movements – the protests movements – for example, in the Arab Spring - but also in countries with established civil societies. These groups are made possible through the social media, they don’t need much if any infrastructure and have a great deal of independence.
- He thought that most of public still have good sense of “what is a charity.” The public benefit test was important as was unpaid trusteeship, which increases the chance that mission is central to governance rather than financial gain.
- The shift from grants to contracts in government funding was seen by some as a threat to independence but in his view a nuanced approach was needed to this change. If you can influence contract design at an early stage, you may end up with contracts that don’t threaten independence.
- In the last 12 months, there had been a threat to independence of voice on diversity issues, which reflects the difficulty of organisations working in this area attracting money not from state. Self-censorship does exist: evidence from the NCVO’s Compact Advocacy project is strong that this is an issue but sometimes it can be wise.
Alex Massey, Senior Policy Officer, ACEVO.
- Alex Massey started by asserting that there is not a fundamental tension of principle between independence and receiving public funds. The sector has a right and duty to speak out and act on behalf of the causes and people it served, he said, and it was profoundly wrong of certain commentators to challenge that right. He welcomed the fact that the sector did continue to speak out and provided some examples. For example, ACEVO received money from the Government but did not shy away from being critical, for example on the charity tax issue, and also on the impact of cuts, through their youth unemployment report, and on the Work Programme. He thought that was also true for majority of ACEVO’s members. For instance, Barnardo’s had been very critical of the pupil premium. He said that on issues such as welfare cuts, young people, and the treatment of people from ethnic minority backgrounds, the voluntary sector was leading the way.
- However, there were practical issues affecting independence in relation to state funding of voluntary sector bodies, particularly on commissioning practice. For instance, some contracts were unrealistic, for example on risk, and proscriptive over process in a way that prevented organisations from being responsive to need. ACEVO saw this as a priority area and were working with government departments, cabinet office, DCLG, and local government to improve commissioning, for example on a guide for clinical commissioners. He added that the sector needs a stronger voice at local level as to how contracts and the commissioning process are designed. ACEVO are trying to get more influence at early stages.
- ACEVO also thought there were issues around sub-contracting arrangements but again this was more a matter of practice than principle. He emphasised that Payment by Results and sub-contracting trends were not going to be reversed and that it would be a calamity if sector backs away. The Compact, Merlin Standard need to be used effectively and they might need to look at whether additional standards were necessary. More could perhaps be done around highlighting good practice, calling out bad practice. It would be a backwards step for voluntary sector to not engage with public services given the excellent work that they do.
- As for the blurring of boundaries, he saw no conflict between working with the private sector and being autonomous. Leadership was a key issue here – it is incumbent on sector leaders to work out how to maintain their independence, and think carefully about how they engage, how they manage relationships, rather than shying away from this kind of work altogether.
Responses to questions from the panel (Questions were jointly put to Ben Kernighan of NCVO and Alex Massey of ACEVO)
Julia Unwin – Asking about your leadership role - there are two clauses in the Work Programme that in my view are in breach of a charitable mission – the “black box” and gagging clauses – how are you advising your members about these issues?
- Alex Massey said that ACEVO have been very critical of gagging clauses and had also called repeatedly for the Government to allow providers to release their data. However, ACEVO wouldn’t want to say they should never engage with a programme, because the work they have done is valuable.
Julia Unwin – But what would happen if nobody signed them?
- Ben Kernighan said that this issue highlights the importance of governance – trustees must take these decisions. They must make difficult nuanced decisions about how this affects them. Ben said that there may be an issue with the level of skills that exist in negotiating contracts – starting point in negotiations were – you must take on all obligations – some accepted it and some didn’t. Biggest risk is of scale or capacity to have contract negotiations. We will give advice to smaller organisations and encourage them to work with each other on this.
Andrew Hind – What are your view on mergers, especially the spate of forced mergers? NCVO/VE, NAVCA/Community Matters – will the organisations be stronger in financial terms, or will there be a loss of distinctive voices?
- Ben said that he was excited about planned merger between the NCVO and Volunteering England – the merged organisation would have features that are valuable, and both scale and independence. There were huge synergies, with both organisations seeking to build a strong civil society, although finance was certainly one driver. He stressed that the NCVO had always acted independently but as strategic funding tapers down to zero it would be able to sleep a bit more easily when it launched challenges to the government.
- Alex said that Volunteering England does a lot of important work – for instance on insurance for volunteers –which he hoped would be maintained. He said that it was a case of wait and see, but that in general he thought mergers didn’t pose a threat to the ability to advocate on behalf of members.
David Cutler (Baring Foundation) You mentioned the Compact – has it become more influential over last 3 years?
- Alex Massey said that the Compact gave a clear statement of principle and values. He thought that there was some degree of lip service. The DCLG guidance was a positive step, some questions about how many authorities are complying with that. Meaningful recognition of the Compact was patchy. However he said that it is something that we should continue to champion. It is valuable.
- Ben Kernighan said that the recent period had been extraordinary because of the cuts in spending. This government came in and acted quickly to cut spending. The Compact had very little bearing on decisions relating to those first decisions. However the Compact had come back into its own with spending decisions made at later stage. There was some evidence that the statutory best value guidance issued by DCLG guidance on not passing on disproportionate cuts was mostly being observed and the Compact was key on achieving that.
- Ben also said that he thought it important to note that the Compact has been maintained by this government: they don’t often maintain agreements they inherit. It is something against which we can hold them, especially when some people in their party are saying public funded organisations should not speak out against government.
Dame Anne Owers – The issues you are raising seem to be about practice rather than principle. The implication in what you are saying is that a level playing field with the private sector could be created, if only we had the right steamroller. What does that mean? Will it be a homogenised voluntary sector that is available – what about marginalised groups?
- Alex Massey said that improvements were needed more than a level playing field, which was not the answer – small community group never going to be the same as large private companies. What was needed was a recognition and appreciation of differences not a knocking down of all walls between the two sectors. The new Social Value Act was a positive step that could be seen as favouring the sector. For example, the sector often had a connection to communities that made it more responsive. Commissioning needed to reflect what is particular about the sector and entry barriers should be reduced – and the treatment of smaller organisations.
- Ben Kernighan said that we won’t see a level playing field. A polarisation is likely – some large organisations will do well in the contracting environment. As the amount of money put into the contracting process reduces, this would favour large scale contracts – so he was not optimistic about the prospects of smaller charities.
Professor Nicholas Deakin – What should the dialogue on voluntary sector characteristics be? There is perhaps sometimes a sort of masochism with the voluntary sector asserting “ we can be like business too,” rather than stressing what makes them different – I would want to see more a values driven debate.
- Ben Kernighan said that he believed in bringing people together – differences not as much as people think. That said, there was untapped potential for the private sector to become more like the voluntary sector – in how it deals with people, making contribution beyond financial. The voluntary sector was too often seen as instrumental and that the private sector has expertise the voluntary sector can learn from, but not the other way round. Although skilled volunteering can be very helpful. However, there are of course some private sector organisations that have a strong commitment to customer care. There is a risk of generalising that private companies only care about profit.
Sir Roger Singleton - Are you doing enough to give voice to these concerns, are there times when you feel constrained?
- Ben Kernighan said that he didn’t think the NCVO did feel constrained – but there was a difference between being constrained and how best to influence government, which can sometimes be best achieved by talking quietly behind the scenes. On their successful campaign against the charity tax, they had decided that using the power of media was appropriate as they had not been consulted by the Government in the first place - but this not always the best route.
- Alex Massey said that ACEVO didn’t feel constrained and had been quite outspoken. However, it was not always the case that voicing concerns in public is the best way: constructive engagement can be more effective. The trouble with the charity tax change was that it came out of blue during budget. In general, though, they prefer to be constructive.
Anne Marie Carrie, Chief Executive, Barnardo’s
- Anne Marie said she “didn’t come to the voluntary sector to be running a quasi-local authority, she came for its independence, ” having come from having worked in the public sector. It was important to cherish independence of all kinds, not just independence from central but also local government, independence from each other and independence within society. It was useful to also consider the different contexts of the three nations, with Barnardo’s operating in Scotland and Martin Crewe, their Director there, being present. She has been surprised by the sector not being as collegiate as she expected around these issues when she came in from the public sector.
- She said Barnardo’s did have independence of voice, action and mind, which stemmed from a clear sense of purpose and mission. Barnardo’s was 146 years old and its purpose to transform lives of children. The issues were enduring, but its methods changed. Its mission was to meet unmet need – children who are unheard, un-catered for. The Victorian answer was children’s homes, now it delivered services to the public, not ‘public services.’ It works widely, not just in social welfare but also in health, education, employment and skills and is addressing fundamental inequalities. Barnardo’s has a £250million turnover; 8,000 employees; 14,000 volunteers, and runs 850 services, reaching 190,000 children and families.
- She said that good governance and the calibre of its trustees was critical to independence of purpose. They have just reviewed their purpose – they were founded on evangelical Christian principles, and have recently reconstituted to be about all faiths and no faith. This was an independent action in itself as it might end up alienating some of its donors.
- She gave some examples of Barnardo’s independence of voice:
- on issues such as the scrapping of the Educational Maintenance Allowance, they could not have been stronger or more critical in public and also on the pupil premium. Protesting against the loss of housing benefit was another.
- The Munro Review of Child Protection provided a slightly different example of influence behind the scenes. They saw a draft the recommended changes to child protection system focussed on under fives, but which didn’t recognize the over tens and they were able to get the recommendations changed before it was published.
- Child sexual exploitation for the over 10s was the biggest single child protection issue in this country and in their campaign Barnardo’s were criticising local councillors for not recognizing this as an issue. This was a risk, as these local authorities were major commissioners of their services, but because they had the needs of children centre stage, this risk was not an issue.
- The four biggest children’s charities were also meeting quarterly together to provide a common voice on issues.
- On independence of action, she said that if in a contract there was nothing about reaching and improving the lives of the most vulnerable young people, they would walk away – and that Barnardo’s do walk away from possible contracts on a daily basis. On GP Commissioning – been asked on number of occasions to be involved, offered co-production or co-design of contracts – as those they were putting out had massive unintended consequences for vulnerable people. This is about being proactive rather than reactive. She thought the distinction between delivery organisations and commissioners was artificial– local Authorities are also deliverers.
- On the issue of subcontracting, Barnardo’s are a Work Programme provider and were able to take what they had learned from this and feed in to the design of the Youth Contract – specifically they raised the cream and park issue with the Department for Education.
- She spoke about Barnardo’s relationship with corporate partners. She said that Barnardo’s were very clear about the value of 3 corporate partners. KPMG gave £1.4m, it is about money, but also got £500,000 of pro-bono impact work. KFC were offering 100 apprenticeships for the most vulnerable children –they had to design the scheme for them, but these really are new jobs over and above their normal recruitment.
- On freedom to campaign, Barnardo’s had been criticised when she had spoken about against the poverty premium, pointing out how high interest rates were impacting on the poorest – for instance for pay to rent televisions. The attitude from some parts of the private sector was “How dare I, as a charity affect their bottom line”. But the real issue was financial inclusion and Barnardo’s was now working with RBS to help people have access to direct debits for gas and electricity rather than pre-pay meters.
- She said it is regrettable the panel have not heard from more large charities. Barnardo’s was seeking to be a ‘best friend’ to other, smaller charities in choppy waters. For example, they were quite alarmed by the lack of risk assessment by some small organisations are taking on TUPE and pensions liabilities in contracts.
Martin Crewe, Director, Barnardo’s Scotland
- Martin added that on independence of voice , local government can be much more sensitive about criticism than central government. He said that Barnardo’s take a risk based approach to speaking out. Independence of voice is a bit like a muscle – if don’t use it on regularly basis it atrophies.
- On contracts – he said that by the time you get to tender, contracts are pretty much set. He felt that too many organisations blindly go into contracts and don’t examine them thoroughly. Barnardo’s regularly walked away from contracts where there are terms that are unacceptable.
- He said that when he raises these issues with commissioners they often say that “you are the first people to raise that.”
- On payment by results, he said that the focus on results can be enormously helpful. If the aim of a programme is getting young people into work it is right that it should focus on just that. For instance there were 127 organisations in Edinburgh working to help young people into employment. Survival is optional – we don’t have a god given right to exist.
Responses to questions from the panel:
Dame Anne Owers – As a large organisation, you have welly – what about small organisations and issues of collegiality – how can this be exercised?
- Anne Marie Carrie explained that they were offering practical help. For instance on a recent Big Lottery service bid, Barnardo’s gave some smaller charities who work in wards in Manchester a grant for capacity to help them bid. Barnardo’s operated a hub and spoke model with smaller charities but all were equal partners. She added that in the other nations there had been a lot more collegiate work.
- She said that she felt the need to speak out because she knows she can and some smaller organisations can’t.
- Anne Marie said that lobbying local authorities and through the LGA etc was not important as it should be, as it is they who will be delivering the services.
Julia Unwin – Where are you feeling the pressure that you shouldn’t speak out? Local government can be very panicky – not just the government either. Local political blogs can turn nasty.
- Anne Marie said that the context in the four nations was often different for their messages. For example , Barnardo’s position on gay marriage was especially sensitive in Northern Ireland. She said that on child sexual exploitation, she had really wanted to go big on it, even though nobody wanted to know and she did speak out publicly even when they had just started a fundraising campaign and knew it was an unpopular cause.
- Martin said that there were very few examples of self-censorship but one example was in an area where they had half dozen contracts, one of them was under threat, and staff wanted him to go to the media, but he didn’t want to scupper the other five contracts.
Nick Wilkie – Does the fact that you are multi-funded, with donations being part of this, help - are you freer to risk upsetting some boroughs, and also to what extent are they constrained by public opinion in relation to public fundraising?
- Anne Marie said that in terms of their funding model, fundraised income is £45m– that is donations, legacies, and a retail surplus £9m - and it provides disposable money outside of contracts. Donations are not the bulk of their income, but they can put that money for instance into LGBT groups, asylum seekers that would not be popular – into “services that would fail the Daily Mail test”. They were also able to pitch to corporate donors in niche areas.
- She also said that the diversification of their services was really, really important.
- Martin added that when they go public, almost anything will upset some people. For instance when they spoke out about demonization and issues around ‘feral’ youth, they got a huge amount of backlash.
Andrew Hind – On the blurring of boundaries –my view would be in Scotland there has perhaps been more thinking into preserving what is valuable about civil society – a clearer public benefit test, on ministerial involvement in appointments to charity boards etc. If you agree, what has caused this, and how could the rest of the UK learn from it?
- Martin Crewe said that there was an historic embedded sense of civil society in Scotland, which was reflected in the work of the OSCR board, o f which he had been a member.
- Anne Marie said that independence and dissent is valued and positively encouraged in Scotland.
Nick Wilkie - I was interested in your “Best friend / Big brother/sister” analogy – in my experience a threat to small organisations independence is silos of public policy – for instance for a youth club – a separate employment contract or sports engagement contract. Do you have a full-time unit that looks at this, would you be prepared to take on risk?
- Anne Marie said they were in the midst of forming their strategic plan and these were issues they were exploring.
- Martin added that “we don’t have a unit to do it, it is in our DNA.”
Sir Roger Singleton – I’d like to ask about your UKBA CEDARS contract. This is a part of government much more used to contracting with G4S or Reliance. How successful were you in negotiating it to ensure they could work independently?
- Anne Marie said that they had held the child’s best interests at heart, and in reaching a contract they had to weigh up the interests of donors and of the child. Ben Kernighan put it well in terms of capacity of organisations to know they have some weight – that they can negotiate. This is a skilful business – not sure about how skilled the public sector are at it either.
- Martin said that quite a lot of work Barnardo’s do is within unequal relationships, so he thinks they are quite good at balancing this, this is what they are doing at Cedars.
Members of the invited audience were also given the opportunity to add their comments:
Sandra Beeton, Executive Director - Association of Panel Members
- She said that AOPM support young offenders in the Criminal Justice system. They had a clear mission but no funding, relying on volunteers – they were completely unfunded by government. Despite a clear role in terms of supporting volunteers and development of training standards, a role abdicated by the Youth Justice Board had been effectively conferred to them by the Government, as if they had the power to deliver.
- In terms of campaigning she felt the voice of the sector was muted in this area: Martin Narey had been very vocal but when he had left Barnardo’s a large gap had opened up again. She was shocked by the lack of knowledge in Government about how things actually worked. The Department of Education didn’t seem to know that when a child goes into the justice system, their education funding transfers to the criminal justice system, and they never get out, back to mainstream.
- She was also concerned about a lack of clarity re voluntary sector participation in development of the Merlin Standard.
Sarah Salmon – Action for Prisoners Families
- Sarah said that she would agree with a lot of what Clive Martin said – they had seen some of their members disappearing. Their members were going because they are small, don’t have capacity and because of a lack of grant funding.
- Action for Prisoners Families was itself small – with a staff of 13, turnover of £700k. It tried to help but they have been affected by commissioning. The APF mission is around welfare – supporting families but what the government wants to fund is reducing reoffending. They found that sometimes this matched their objectives and sometimes it didn’t.
- There was a problem with cherrypicking in some contracts, which she had heard reported in meetings – but she had been told by some organisations they can’t report their progress on these contracts because there is a gagging clause.
Kat Smithson, Policy & Public Affairs Officer, Charity Finance Group (CFG)
- She said that she agreed with Alex Massey: there is no fundamental conflict between public service delivery and independence. Most people agreed with that, but there were significant issues in practice.
- It could be considered that there is a political attack on the sector. Though this is managed at the moment, the charity tax campaign has highlighted a distinct lack of understanding of the sector within government.
- Although it is important, she wondered if the Compact was enough to hold the government to account on some of these bigger issues. It doesn’t give a clear idea of what government expects the sector’s role to be and such clarity cannot be found elsewhere in Government policy statements: for example, it doesn’t seem to appreciate the sector as a voice giver within the policy making process.
- She wanted to challenge Ben’s view that the public understand the sector. There is an appreciation for public benefit. However, in her view, the public struggle to reconcile this with public sector contracting and some other activities. She liked Anne Marie’s distinction between ‘public service delivery’ and ‘delivering services to the public’ as this framing demonstrates the irrelevance of who is necessarily paying for the service.
- She emphasised that improved transparency and accountability should be considered a critical aspect of protecting independence. Greater transparency and communication is necessary for charities to effectively challenge misconceptions, and to improve public and government understanding.
Julie Bishop, Director, Law Centres Network
- She said that the continuing changing policy environment was a problem. Even where you have a contract every change of minister or CEO means have to change way it is delivered, and have to use charitable funding to do this.
- As organisations providing legal services, independence is important but micro-management in contracts in how they should deliver, regardless of our expertise, combined with continual change, was a major issue. External funding was needed to maintain independence.