By any measurable standard it has been a good 12 years for the charitable, voluntary and social enterprise sectors, or ‘third sector’. It’s true that the whole economy has grown, as have the public and private sectors, but the third sector is unique in having doubled its turnover and swelled its overall workforce by more than a third.
But don’t put this all down to Labour’s history of, and love for, voluntary action. The 1997 manifesto gave us no clues as to the impending transformation of charitable work – indeed, the only real mention is of a sector that is ‘central to our vision of a stakeholder society’.
The answer is public service reform policy. In the 1997 manifesto the word ‘reform’ appeared 35 times, by 2001 it almost doubled to 78. Here in the 2001 manifesto lies the key: ‘Services need to be highly responsive to the demands of users. Where the quality is not improving quickly enough, alternative providers should be brought in. Where private sector providers can support public endeavour, we should use them.’
The third sector didn’t need a name check, Labour was talking its language. After all, many charities have been providing personalised and responsive services for centuries. Public service is in their DNA.
The starting gun had been fired and third sector organisations began winning, and winning often. Who knows that 40% of ‘welfare to work’ contracts given by the Department for Work and Pensions are today delivered by the third sector?
Nowhere is this revolution more evident than in the provision of NHS services, where £4.7bn worth are delivered by the third sector. Service provision has been transformed from a two to a three-horse race as a result of charitable endeavour, and it’s a good thing.
Yet the hard-won policy victories that led to this transformation are in jeopardy. Andy Burnham declared in a speech recently that the ‘NHS is now the preferred provider’ of NHS care. There are three problems I have with this about-face.
First, the 2005 Labour manifesto made two very clear promises to the public on who should have the honour of spending taxpayers’ money in their service. The first promise it made was that: ‘Whenever NHS patients need new capacity for their health care, we will ensure that it is provided from whatever source.’ The second promise stated that: ‘In a range of services the voluntary and community sector has shown itself to be innovative, efficient and effective. Its potential for service delivery should be considered on equal terms.’ Yet it is no longer equal terms; you cannot have equal partners if one is ‘preferred’. We stand in danger of breaking a manifesto pledge on the eve of a general election.
Second, Burnham quite rightly wants to take the NHS ‘from good to great’. Yet he told the Financial Times recently that ‘where existing NHS services are delivering a good standard of care, there is no need to look to the market’. There is no explanation of how one moves from good to great when you have just told NHS providers that ‘good’ is good enough. If an existing NHS provider is delivering good services in a place near you, and there is a charity with exceptional services for the same price also close by, which would you rather your tax is spent on? Under this new policy, exceptional is not an option.
Third, you cannot have two policies that contradict each other running simultaneously. A headline policy entitled ‘preferred provider’ that contains smaller pro-competition aspirations will please no one. Except, that is, people for whom the status quo serves a purpose – and those people are never the ones who turn to the welfare state in their moment of need.
The third sector is no threat to the left, indeed it is a true friend to progressives, who by definition are restless for higher quality support for those in need. Like the statutory sector, people choose to work for charities through a love of public service. This plays nicely into the progressive agenda, which prioritises outcomes for individuals above all else and should at the very least qualify the third sector for ‘preferred provider’ status too.
If the past 12 years has taught us anything, it is that the third sector asks little from us but gives an awful lot in return. For that reason alone Labour should stand firm in a tried and tested area of policy that not only protects and supports the most vulnerable in society, but gives them the very best on offer.