MIP Perspectives
TUC anti cuts survey says nothing new
written by: Alistair Thompson
Today the TUC has launched an ill judged attack on David Cameron’s flagship policy, the Big Society.
It claims in a new report that charities are facing cuts totalling £100 million, and this will have a devastating effect on voluntary and community based services which are the heart of the Big Society.
But their attack is not just misleading, it is complete and utter rubbish. Let me explain.
Firstly, this report only touches on a small part of the Big Society, because the policy is about much more than volunteering and the work of charities. It is, in its simplest form, about transferring power from officials and government to people and communities.
That is why the recent Big Society White Paper and the localism bill are about much more than just volunteering. This is not to diminish the importance of civic engagement and volunteering, but they are part of a much bigger idea.
The report then fails to identify accurately who are making these cuts. Answer: local councils.
Far from Mr Barber's assertion that the blame for these cuts should lie at Mr Cameron’s door, the reality is that the decision to cut money from these charities is a local one, taken at a local level, by councillors and officers not by the PM, Chancellor, or even Secretary of State for Local Government.
In fact, only in April Mr Pickles announced a new deal for the voluntary and community sector and implored council leaders to do everything in their power to protect the work and funding of charities. While Civil Society Minister Nick Hurd is overseeing a £100 million transition fund.
So the cuts are a local choice and not a government dictat - and we have seen how some local authorities have protected their voluntary and community sector by making a decision to cut elsewhere. This is not only going on in leafy affluent areas, this is happening in places like Walsall and Reading.
What this report does do is highlight the appalling inconsistencies in the way that this policy is being applied around the country, and while some local councils are working hard to protect the voluntary sector and embrace the spirit of the Big Society, other local authorities are slashing spending on the voluntary sector.
So why then are some groups facing the very drastic cuts that we are reading about?
Just as some authorities have chosen to protect the voluntary and community sector, so some have decided to protect their own in house services at the expense of others. These councils have taken a deliberate decision to cut their voluntary and community sector. Whether this is the right decision only time will tell, but each council will have to answer to their electorate and give an account of their actions.
But there is an important point here and one which the TUC backed report fails to address. Why, when the maximum cut that councils face is 8.8 per cent, have some decided to cut 50 per cent or more? I hope that the DCLG looks into this matter urgently.
And the other question that the report fails to answer is why do the Councils cutting charitable spending most drastically often have the worst spending records, with high management costs, a poor record of delivering on projects such new IT systems and poor collection rates? One suspects that they find it easier to cut external organisations than their own, but there might possibly be other reasons.
Finally, the data used in the report is incomplete and paints a misleading picture of the work of councils with the voluntary and community sector.
There are many good examples of councils working with charities and community groups to build Mr Cameron’s Big Society, authorities like Gloucestershire, which is transferring more than 30 buildings worth millions of pounds to community groups, Worcestershire which is working to make access to grants easier by publishing all the details about them in one place, or Hackney who are not cutting support but I understand are spending an extra £2.5 million on supporting the voluntary and community sector.
This TUC backed report fails to tell us anything new, or add to the Big Society debate.
It relies on worn out lines which have been trotted out by a succession of left wing deficit denying dinosaurs, who want to continue to spend money we have not got on unreformed public services.
It even fails to identify the true problem with this policy which is the need for every council, government department, school, social enterprise and community to sign up to this radical concept. Doing so could really change our society, but it will take time.
Alistair Thompson
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