Annie through the looking glass...

Annie Gunner Logan on the meaning of certainty in an uncertain world…

“There is no such uncertainty,” said Rabbie Burns, “as a sure thing.”

I reckon Mrs May might eventually concede this simple truth, should she ever be minded to reflect on her oh-so-confident declaration that “Brexit means Brexit”. Sure thing, Theresa, sure thing.

Plenty of big ideas that were originally considered to be dead certs have, over time, proved anything but: a critically-acclaimed Stars Wars prequel; a garden bridge over the Thames; Scotland qualifying for the World Cup finals (don’t @ me).

Conversely, history is littered with events that were thoroughly pooh-poohed at the planning stages. “It’ll never happen” they cried, and yet war was declared, men walked on the moon, and – inconceivably! – Edinburgh citizens finally rode upon the trams.

Here in the voluntary sector, living with uncertainty is our organisational stock in trade. Will we get that critical grant? Will we win that all-important tender? Will we be able to expand this year, or will we have to cut back? Will any of us still be in a job, this time next week?

A good few organisations, including Pilton Community Health Project and the TIE campaign, got some pretty tough answers to those questions in recent weeks. Did they pack up and give in? No, they did not: they organised, they mobilised, they launched crowdfunders.

Not all of us in the sector have faced our own demise quite so bluntly, but I suspect we’ve all felt, at some point, like John Cleese’s character in Clockwise, that wonderful 1980s movie about resilience and the random collapse of order: “It’s not the despair,” he said. “I can take the despair: it’s the hope I can’t stand.”

Lately, I’ve picked up on a lot of angst among public sector colleagues about the increasingly volatile and unpredictable environment in which they’re having to operate. Much of this has surfaced courtesy of Brexit, but that’s not all: the financial constraints that we’ve faced since time immemorial are now coming down very hard on them, too.

It’s not the despair. I can take the despair: it’s the hope I can’t stand.

Annie Gunner Logan

It would be tempting – if terribly unkind – to respond by saying: welcome to our world. But surely we want to level up, not down, and face uncertainty together, with confidence?

In which case, public sector grant-makers might consider extending to us, in principle at least, two guarantees that they themselves enjoy: one, their organisations can’t simply disappear overnight, like ours can; and two, many (if not most) of their jobs are protected by no compulsory redundancy policies.

My own organisation had a bit of a hairy moment in the run-up to the new financial year, with a couple of key grant confirmations unexpectedly withheld pending further approvals. It was put to me that there was no particular urgency to resolve this, because the risk of imminent closure and job loss is something that the voluntary sector is, and I quote, “used to”.

I’d like to think that our political leaders have a more sensitive appreciation of what it’s like for an individual citizen to worry that they might not be able to access sufficient supplies of medicine, or even of food, as a result of decisions taken allegedly in the public interest.

But I can’t be absolutely certain about that.

Annie Gunner Logan has been working in and around the Scottish voluntary sector for longer than she cares to remember. Currently director of CCPS (Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland) with various non-exec roles thrown in.

@ccpscotland