False economy - mapping the scale of cuts to the voluntary sector

More than 2,000 charities across England have had their funding cut or withdrawn altogether by local councils, according to a study by anti-cuts website False Economy, based on over 250 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests responses. The False Economy website is a resource hub supported by the Trades Union Congress.

The cuts total more than £110m in this year, but the final figure could be far higher, as some local authorities refused to answer the FOI requests, some large authorities have not yet finalised where the cuts will hit, and only charities or voluntary groups receiving a funding cut of at least 5% are listed in the research.

In an interesting response to this report, Harry Coles, who blogs as Guido Fawkes, wrote in the Guardian that:

“The truth is that many of the groups mentioned by the False Economy report are little more than unaccountable and unelected arms of the state. These groups are reliant on public funds, and in the grand scale of our much-needed deficit reduction, the figure of £110m seems like a fair burden for this area of public spending to take. With the influence of government comes the burden of bureaucracy and waste. Attempts are being made to reduce both of those across Whitehall, so why not here as well?”

This is a response that has been mirrored to some degree in a blog piece by Richard McKeever of Community Links, although from a very different perspective, it has to be said:

“It’s a struggle – yet our focus has been on preserving our front-line wherever possible. Sensationalist press headlines such as Charities fight for survival as funding slashed across country miss the point. Rather than fighting for our own survival we we are daily striving to support our service users.  The demand for our services is greater than our capacity to deliver. Many of the people we work with – amongst the most vulnerable in the country – need our services more than ever as increasing unemployment and a withdrawal of state support creates more pressure.”

Meanwhile, Zoe Williams in the Guardian contrasts the fortunes of large private companies delvering public services on behalf of the state and the voluntary sector agencies further down the food-chain, noting:

“There is a Victorian flavour to all this: a state-free pincer with titan philanthropy on one side and a melange of religious activity on the other. The key difference this time, of course, is that instead of those titans we have G4S and A4e, and in place of a broadly Christian populace we have a churchgoing population of just under 3%, and most of them are in it for the schools. The question is not will it work; the question is how far down this road do we have to go before anybody will admit that it doesn’t work?”

We already know that the proposed cuts to legal aid will have a disproportionate impact upon not-for-profit advice services. It would appear that there is a feeling in Government that the very existence of independent social welfare law advice services is seen as being a driver for the demand for their services in the first place. And with children and young people’s services in particular being very badly hit, it seems that Zoe Williams question may have a much longer resonance than the more straightforward question about the ongoing viability of many voluntary sector agencies?

A whole raft of letters published in the Guardian about the False Economy report, including East Finchley Advice Service who are in imminent danger of closure, and Mary Ward Legal Centre making a very good point on legal aid cuts.

False economy of cutting support for charities - Guardian Letters