Charities must work with Labour — but speak truth to power 

What does this new Labour Government mean for charities? In the general election campaign, little was heard about the role of charities or the broader third sector. There was scant reference to them in any of the political party manifestos. The sections on charity in the Labour and Conservative manifestos were not radically different and hardly expansive.

Yet many charities have welcomed the new Government. Why?

An important reason is the change of mood music and tone. Gone are the juvenile jibes of the phony culture war seen under the Conservatives. Charities are now able to have sensible discussions with the Government on social justice without being accused of pursuing a “woke agenda”. We had attacks from the Right of the political debate on renowned charities like the National Trust and even the RNLI. The longest established tradition of respectful Civil Society activism seems sometimes to be under threat.

It is noticeable that many of the new members of Parliament, especially in both the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, have worked in the third sector, or have had significant experience of working with them. No less important, there are members of the Cabinet who have Third Sector experience. Outstanding among them are Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, and Peter Kyle — formerly my deputy at the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) — the new Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. Ed Miliband was a third sector minister in the previous Labour government.

What does this mean in practice? Rather than a government that was on occasion hostile to charities, we have a government that will look to charities to play a strong role in the public sector reform agenda. We see a return to the days when Tony Blair saw a significant part for the third sector in providing more citizen focused public services and appointed the first third sector minister and office in Europe. That role got downgraded until, in the last government it ended up in a large carpet bag portfolio of tasks that were not really regarded as sufficiently important for a Commons role.

It is also clear that the new Government faces a significant problem in the scale of the national debt and the demands on public spending at a time when they have ruled out significant major tax increases. So the search for more efficient ways of running public services inevitably should draw the Government towards looking at the role of charities and third sector organisations.

Looking at the priorities for the new Government, we ought to see a big role for charities in providing health and social care solutions, in mental health and addiction, and in the battle on climate change. The prison crisis reveals the need to have a serious approach to rehabilitation and charities spearhead effective rehabilitation services. Welfare reform, education and training, the arts and culture — all are areas where charities have long been active.

 Will the new Government embrace charities and put them back into the development of policy and the delivery of more effective public services? Will they respond positively to charity advocacy? The very first third sector minister, Ed Milliband (now the Environment Secretary) used to say that the role of the sector was to “bite the hand that feeds it”.

 A fine sentiment. But it has to be said the third sector leadership has been rather quiescent under the last Government and now needs to find its voice again. A new partnership approach with the Government is needed, although one that recognises the importance of “speaking truth to power”. I’m optimistic that we can achieve that.

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