What does 2011 hold in store? Ian Allsop scans the firmament for signs of light.
It is customary practice for a columnist’s first column of the year to include some predictions about what the next 12 months may hold. A bit of harmless crystal ball gazing offers both a chance to demonstrate foresight and expertise, and fill space, with limited accountability. Unless someone goes back and checks what you forecast. However, you would never catch me taking such an option, as I predicted I wouldn’t this time last year, especially when such wisdom won’t be read until February.
One thing everyone can confidently assert is that it is going to be a “challenging year for civil society”, which is putting it politely. The simplistic summary is this: Charities operate to fill gaps in State provision. The State is rolling back meaning there are more and/or bigger gaps for charities to plug. But the State is also pulling the plug on providing plugs, while increasing the rate of VAT that charities must pay on some of those plugs. Which is a bit of a plugger.
Phrases such as “the phoney war is over”, “it will be a blood-bath” and “difficult and painful” show the levels of pessimism and that the phoney war on colourful negative imagery is lost. Luckily, if there are going to be messy battles ahead the sector is fortunate to have gained another well-deserved Knight in the New Year Honours list. Hopefully Sir Stuart and Sir Stephen will demonstrate Arthurian qualities of sitting down together round the table to work in a spirit of co-operation and gallant courage rather than charging off on their own seeking an elusive Holy Grail.
And it is not only charities who will struggle. The funding outlook at the Charity Commission is so bleak that it is considering alternative sources of income. Its supremo has had to get a paper round and a Saturday job, but then it’s a paraphrase of a well-known maxim that Charity Commission chief executives get Younger as time goes on. It may reportedly be considering charging fees for some of its services, which will provide an interesting twist to the legal wrangle around its own public benefit guidance for charities that do just that.
"Axing the Forestry Commission is clearly a case of policy-makers not seeing the wood for the trees"
But then the Commission has quite enough on its plate at the minute including refereeing the row about the lengths to which charities can campaign to influence the referendum on changing to the alternative vote system without compromising their charitable status. The easiest way to sort this out would be to let people vote on what charities should be allowed to do.
At least the Commission survived the so-called bonfire of the quangos, which independent research found was more mindless arson than a well-planned organised display. Quango as a word is now so loaded with negative association that few people are actually sorry about them going, even though they will arguably notice the difference when some have. For example, axing the Forestry Commission is clearly a case of policy-makers not seeing the wood for the trees.
As well as having balls of steel in the months ahead, charities could well do with the use of the aforementioned crystal balls. Apart from the financial realities of funding disappearing, the other big problem for the sector is the uncertainty of it all which makes planning ahead impossible and increases the potential impact of any cuts further down the line. Who could have forecast a situation where scenario planning would be so important?
Not that I am one to suggest that some of the coalition policy so far is rushed and ill-thought out. After all, why suggest something when you can assert it outright. And Cameron has been at pains to state that government pronouncements have not been made on the hoof – a denial he quickly scribbled down while galloping around on his high horse.
But it is all ok because Big Society will sort everything out. Sometimes you see and hear a term so many times that you become either immune or confused as to what it actually means, if indeed it actually had any meaning in the first place, in the same way that if you constantly repeat even the most ordinary word in your head it starts to sound odd and detached from its definition. However, I think the government is hoping that by sheer excess of usage, Big Society will be talked and willed into existence on its own. I predict it won’t.
What I will soothsay is that whatever pain is in the post the enthusiasm, passion and innovation of the sector will help it respond to the challenges ahead. And for those who do sadly end up with time on their hands there will always be my suggested “summer holiday reading list” filler column later in the year. Not that there will be any libraries left from which the books can be borrowed. Damn – and there I was trying to end on a positive note.
