Charities
Politicians should realise that the voluntary sector has a wider role to play than just delivering some government services, a leading charity body has warned.
Speaking on Wednesday, the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations said the government should be concerned about the many different roles that such bodies play.
Senior Labour and Conservative politicians have backed moves for the voluntary sector to play a greater role in the delivery of key public services.
Stakeholder Response: Charities Aid Foundation
Simon Hebditch, director of external affairs, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) said: "Developments in the charity sector over the last few years have led to an increased role for charities in service delivery to deprived individuals and communities.
"Now we all argue that partnerships between the sector, government and private business are the only way to really transform the way in which many people live and work.
"There is nothing wrong with encouraging positive partnerships between the State and the voluntary sector.
"However, this must never be done at the cost of the independence and autonomy of the voluntary world.
"The state must not fall into the trap of seeing the sector as a neat way in which it can reduce the level of public expenditure on programmes and services which the people of this country assume are being met out of their tax bills.
"Fundamentally, the voluntary sector must be fast moving, responsive, experimental, and constantly looking for new ways in which both services can be improved and issues raised with those who hold political power."
Stakeholder Response: Association for Charities
Belinda McKenzie, coordinator at the Association for Charities said: "It is normal that governments and shadow governments are self-interested. Their job is to administer the country and make it ever richer and more powerful on the world-scene.
"The charity sector represents a pot of ready money (seven to eight billion pounds given annually) and a workforce motivated by a willingness to serve and to do the 'donkey-work', an administrator's dream! No wonder governments - and not just this one - would increasingly wish to tap into that, any which ways.
"It is important that the charity sector, the object of such governmental self-interest, is wise to the trend, which like any trend will grow unless it meets resistance.
"Charities themselves are on a traditionally different wicket. They cater for emotional and spiritual needs in people and society as well as purely material ones.
"Many are entirely focussed on reducing and eliminating individual pain and suffering or on protecting the environment and heritage from spoliation by 'wealth-creators' and 'empire-builders' (traditional roles of governments).
"The desire to 'make the world a better place,' which underpins most charitable activity. Indeed, charitable giving does not necessarily reflect the government's vision of a richer, more successful, better regulated or more orderly-looking place, but into a happier and healthier place for all the human-beings and animals who live in it.
"These two contrary tendencies can achieve a harmonious, healthy and indeed creative symbiosis if treated as a kind of warp and woof which should never be merged yet can be brought to intertwine successfully.
"The resultant social fabric could be of the best, finest and most durable. Hence the independence of each sector from the other and mutual respect between the two is of paramount importance. It must be enshrined at last in law, a fact which has not been lost on a majority of members of the House of Lords currently debating the new Charities Bill."
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