The new shadow minister for civil society argues that while austerity measures have pushed many charities to “crisis point”, many niggling problems in the sector can be traced much further back, and are the responsibility of both government and charities themselves.
Lisa Nandy said while the rising demand on charities at a time of public spending cuts and a squeeze on voluntary income was the most obvious challenge facing the sector, that the picture was far more complicated than that.
Speaking to civilsociety.co.uk scarcely three weeks into replacing Gareth Thomas in the role, Nandy said that issues of a reliance on public service contracts as well as charities demonstrating impact, independence and transparency were core to the future health of the sector.
“All of these issues were bubbling around in the sector while I was in it, over the previous ten years, they’ve just been magnified by the impact of austerity and it’s tipped over to crisis point,” she said. “There are deeper issues in the sector rather than just the impact of cuts.”
The new shadow minister, who spent ten years working in charities before being voted in to parliament in the 2010 election, said that charity leadership needed to demonstrate “constant vigilance” to ensure that their organisations reliance on commissioning for income did not undermine their ability to hold government to account or lobby on behalf of beneficiaries.
“This is more an issue of how the sector responds than how the government behaves,” she said. “Charities biggest strength is their integrity, their brand, and they need to be very, very careful before they give that away. There is a heavy responsibility on the charity sector, and most charity leadership discharge that very well.”
However, she said while she was working in charities there was at times a feeling that being so reliant on government funding restricted the voice of charities. “My feeling, having spent the last two or three weeks talking to people on the frontline in charities, is that there is still a sense that the relationship [between government and charities] could be more detached.”
In a wide-ranging interview, the young MP said that she had been very keen to take on the role of shadow minister and was looking forward to the impact she could have on government.
Nandy said that the sector could expect to see some concrete Labour policies on charities in the next few months, but she shared some of her initial impressions of the landscape.
On charity executive pay
The recent scandals over charity executive pay have made their way to Nandy. “I think that the criticism being levelled at many organisations is unfair, but it is incumbent on the sector to explain and justify the decisions they made with public money,” she said.
“Charities have one of the most difficult roles in society because they have to command public trust, and because of that they have to be beyond reproach. So transparency, accountability, integrity – all those things matter more in the charity sector than they do in almost any other.”
However, Nandy warned that the executive pay issue was a distraction from more serious issues of remuneration and fairness within the sector. Having sat through a Unison roundtable last week - during which the union presented a report which found that one in 20 charity workers were working four or more jobs, and that 24 per cent were on less than the minimum wage – Nandy’s concern was that charities look after staff across all pay grades.
“Talking about pay at the top skews the issue,” she says. “It takes the public debate away from a debate about what’s happening to people on the frontline right the way through the organisation at every level.”
While some charities were good at treating staff well, she said it was evident that not all organisations were. “Some charities assume that because the organisation is doing such great work for its beneficiaries that the same level of care doesn’t apply to the people who work within organisations.”
On the Charity Commission
The executive pay issue has been a thorny one for charities in recent months, not least because of comments made by Charity Commission chair William Shawcross on the subject. Asked about her view of Shawcross and the Commission, Nandy expressed sympathy for the difficult job the regulator has to perform, making do with legislation which she described as a “least worst” option.
However, she said the Commission should not get drawn into behaving as if it represents the sector.
“As an institution, the Charity Commission is very important,” Nandy said. “But it is important that the sector is allowed to speak for itself.”
On government supporting charities
Nandy did not have any specific comment on how government might facilitate more public engagement with charities, but said that many people are prevented from volunteering or giving to charities due to pressures associated with austerity: lack of income, child care and consequently spare time.
She said that while her view of government stepping back and recognising community action could be likened to the Tory Big Society, that there was a fundamental difference:
“The state has a role to support institutions, individuals and groups which exist to be able to do more. That’s where Labour differs from Cameron’s Big Society concept. They think the state can just get out of the way and it will all just happen magically by itself. I think the state should enable it, and then get out of the way to allow it to happen.
“I don’t see the job of government as telling the sector what to do, but I do see a strong role for government in enabling the sector to be as good as it can be,” she said. “I think that relationship will at times be very uncomfortable. The sector plays a role in holding the government to account, and that’s absolutely right. At times ministers have challenged the sector to do better, and that’s right as well. It’s such an important relationship. Frankly, it’s important for democracy.”
She also emphasised that the role of shadow minister for civil society covered more than just charities, but the informal economy among other sectors.
On giving and fundraising self-regulation
On coming into the role three weeks ago, the member for Wigan identified fundraising self-regulation as one of the top priorities for her to look into. “The reason being is that the integrity and confidence that the public has in charities is everything and fundraising is a really important element of that,” she said – however, she had no initial thoughts on the state of the current system, whereby fundraising regulation is covered by the FRSB, Institute of Fundraising and Public Fundraising Regulatory Association.
Similarly, Nandy has yet to decide her policy on tax reliefs of incentives for giving, but said that government could most help charities by not undermining public trust and confidence in the sector via “political attacks” on pay and other practices.
Charities too, however, had a role to play in ensuring that people did not feel remote from them.
“There’s more the government can do, but really it’s a partnership” she said.
She repeated her well-known views that government would be hypocritical to cut services, and expect charities and the public to step in. “There is something wrong about the government failing to provide and then asking the public to give,” she said. “It is really, really troubling and unsustainable.”
On Nick Hurd and the Cameron Government
Nandy said one of her priorities as shadow minister would be to hold the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government to account, but that she sympathised with the tough role that Hurd has within his government.
“The Office of Civil Society was set up in order to have a roving brief across government to make sure that the sector had a prominence and was being considered by other departments when decisions were being made,” she said. “That can only work when you’re part of a government that gives high priority to sector and wider civil society. A government that understands that there is something other than the market that exists outside the state.”
This sentiment is one which has been echoed by her opposite number, Nick Hurd, who only recently said that government does not understand civil society.
Giving the example of the impact that the housing benefit cuts have had on services provided by homelessness and domestic violence organisations, Nandy said it appeared as though the Department for Work and Pensions had given “literally no thought” to the impact of those cuts on charities.
