The third sector and progressive linguistic gymnastics

By Thomas Fairfax

Recently I started looking into the effects on budget constraints for charities, using a particular instance I know in Suffolk as a starting point. Currently I’m awaiting replies to FOI requests submitted to both Suffolk CC and Babergh DC in relation to this.

However, in the process of reading up on the background, I was startled by the previous government’s very successful attempts to make sure the wider public didn’t know how it was supporting the charity sector.

I recommend the article, ‘Public Funding Cuts in the Third Sector Scale and Implications‘, by Antonis Papasolomontos and Kate Hand, as a good starting point for looking at the imminent problems we are due in the near future for the charity sector (though clearly it’s not an advert for good grammar, as the title shows). But it is a well argued analysis I’ll be quoting from freely, once I get the answers from the FOI requests to back up the scrying of the authors, prior to the election, with some hard post-election facts.

As I write this, the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) web page on the Cabinet Office website has been taken down, I assume for re-branding, given the Conservatives’ recent emphasis on volunteers and charity. I also had a browse of the Charities Act 2006 (not recommended reading unless you’re a masochist or an insomniac). Having also browsed EC/EU directives related to my work in the past, I think Westminster could learn a trick or two about clarity.

A conclusion I reached from reading these documents – and the archived OTS web pages on Google – is that, despite the government directly, or indirectly, supporting charities to the tune of £11 billion+ a year in the previous fiscal year, very few people outside the sector are aware of this. I certainly wasn’t.

It is, I’m afraid, another perfect example of politically correct, impenetrable, insider, exclusive jargon, which has replaced intelligible dialogue with the electorate – it’s the Unelite pretending to themselves they’re cleverer, or care more, because they know what the words mean – that is, whatever they want them to.

So, we have the self proclaimed ‘Progressives’ talking in gobbledegook about the ‘Third Sector’. No doubt they were also proud of the ‘radical change’ and ‘progressive solutions’ that ensued. I’m sure you can all think of similar examples, too numerous to mention.

I see prospective Labour leadership candidates openly airing the view that the country didn’t appear to grasp the ‘message’ or policies at the last election. I even see some saying they want a dialogue with the people. Hilarious! If some of these geniuses continue to use the unfamiliar jargon of a small, insular, out of touch, group, they will justifiably fail.

That dialogue should always have been easy. This time, for crying out loud, try English, and listening to the replies.

(Hopefully that naked figure of £11billion+ supporting charitable work in this country shows the last government were doing something, even if the well meaning insdiders responsible didn’t let on.)