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by Debra Allcock Tyler, Chief Executive, Directory of Social Change
Commissioning is crushing the voluntary sector. This sounds like an over-dramatisation but even a cursory glance at the anecdotal evidence and an intelligent assessment of longer term consequences shows that there are big problems with a culture of commissioning services traditionally delivered by charities on a demand-led grant basis.
It is certainly true to say that contracting is not henbane to all charities. The contracting/tendering process can work for those organisations which are well-positioned to take advantage of it. Those that have sophisticated negotiating skills; provide a service that the state understands; are large enough to absorb the risk of underpayment for expensive services; lose out on a contract without going into administration; compete with private sector suppliers vying for the same piece of the tax-payers pie; and have the time, energy and resource to negotiate complex government tenders.
However it is also extremely poisonous to the far greater number of organisations that can’t, or aren’t willing to sing to the government’s tune. So in terms of ‘the sector’, there are a small number of winners and a lot of losers.
Many small community groups are finding it difficult to get any grant funding – the smaller end of the sector is now starting to feel the effects of the phasing out of small grants programmes like Community Chests (Neighbourhood Renewal Programme), Community Champions, Local Network Fund, etc and the ring-fenced budgets being dissolved as part of LAAs. Grassroots Grants is welcome but no matter how much the Office of the Third Sector parrots on about it, the money hasn’t come through yet and still isn’t going to replace the amount of money that has been lost.
There is undeniable evidence that organisations that have been important community institutions for decades are facing closure, because core grant funding is either being cut or repackaged in a competitive tender to deliver the service. CVSs, Citizen’s Advice Bureaux and other local advice agencies are being especially hard hit.
Allowing this to happen is madness from a policy-making point of view – their activities aren’t just important for the sector they’re important for a whole range of key policy goals for the government. Not to mention the people who rely on them. And the sad fact is that these locally built, locally supported and locally used organisations take decades of good will to develop. Destroying them is quick and easy. One swipe of a commissioner’s pen on a contract will do the trick. Re-building them? A much tougher proposition.
OK – but does it really matter? Well, yes, because the local voluntary sector is fundamentally NOT about services. It’s about engaging local people; inspiring a sense of community accountability; and re-building broken communities by encouraging people to care for one another. The government needs to re-think its entire policy agenda or risk damaging beyond repair the very communities it professes it wants to rebuild.