Cuts to 2000 Voluntary organisations is just the tip of the iceberg

By Sarah Hayward / @sarah_hayward

Today’s depressing False Economy research on funding for voluntary sector organisations will come a little surprise to people who work in the sector or councillors trying to manage the toughest round of budget cuts they’ve ever faced. I strongly suspect that the news will get much more depressing for the voluntary sector.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about how hollow David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ big con is. But as False Economy release their research let me take you on a little walk around the coal face to see what these cuts mean in practice.

I am a cabinet member in Camden and responsible for our strategic relationship with the Voluntary Sector. Camden, last financial year, 2010-11 spent in excess of £50m with the voluntary sector. This was, before the cuts, about 13% of our entire budget for services – one of the largest spends on the voluntary sector in the country. My grants budget formed the smallest proportion of this.

The speed and depth of the cuts faced by local authorities mean many of us are left with little choice but to literally pull the rug from some organisations. Like many authorities a large proportion of our spending with the voluntary sector is discretionary. This means in many cases it has been harder hit, both here in Camden, and across the country, as we try to continue to provide our statutory services – including children and adults social care.

For me the False Economy report is timely. A week ago today organisations in Camden found out about the results of the application process to our main source of grant funding. The result was that some very valued organisations, that we have had long-standing relationships with, will no longer get grant funding from us. And while we’ve been able to create a one off pot of funding to help the voluntary sector with the transition from having funding to having less or none, I am convinced that some Camden based organisations will go under. I am convinced this will happen all over the country.

In Camden our grant funding has traditionally been very high, and it will still be one of the largest dedicated grant pots in the country. But my cuts are dwarfed by those hitting the sector that my cabinet colleagues are making – particularly those in charge of Adult Social Care and our Children’s services. And those services will still be contracting £10s of millions with our local voluntary sector.

But none of that matters to the individual organisations who have lost funding. Because the bottom line is they will no longer be able to deliver the service that their users relied on. In Camden and across the country, these users are often vulnerable for one reason or another.

The False Economy report doesn’t mention that misery is being piled on misery for the voluntary sector. All across the country the local authority is just one source of funding in a mosaic of public sector bodies that contract in volumes with voluntary sector. Probation, health, regional government, the police, central government departments and more have all traditionally funded the voluntary sector. They are being hit from all sides. And this cumulative impact could be even more devastating.

Councils are currently working on a three year funding round. Over this period in Camden we’re cutting £100m. With the caveat that our third year grant from government is not guaranteed. It could get worse. On top of this the government has promised a further three years of cuts from 2014-15. Our first estimate of the impact for Camden is a further £45-50m worth of cuts from central government. This will further hit the sector. It really is laughable when the Tory/Lib Dem government claim to want the sector to flourish.

In Camden our response has been straight forward, and really simple pragmatism. Improving procurement, aiding donations and developing a mechanism for more systematic leverage of support from local business. But these all take time to build and it will be too late from some. We’ve also developed a one off pot of transition funding to help organisations evolve to a situation without funding. While some will be able to use this to survive, some won’t. I’m sure of it.

The thing that makes me most angry, isn’t the contrary nature of the government’s message, it isn’t that Cameron regularly insists on repeating the lie about the Big Society, it isn’t even that the Lib Dems are remaining silent letting this happen in government while attacking councils locally like it’s nothing to do with them.

It’s the wasted lives that will result. It’s the lost opportunity. It’s that good organisations that will go to wall, solely because the government front loaded the cuts and hit Local Authorities hardest when had they been give a little more time they might have survived.

This is a choice the government made. This is a choice that both the Conservatives and Lib Dems made and must take responsibility for. It was their decision to hit local government harder than any other area of government, it was their decision to front load our cuts more than in other areas of government. Labour must make sure they take the blame.

But Labour must also work, where we’re in power, to try to do everything we can to soften the blow and limit the impact. Not because the sector is an end in its self, but because of the people that they and we serve who will lose vital services and support.