Caroline Slocock says charities have allowed themselves to be forced into competition with each other for state income, with the largest often squeezing out charities with strong community links and specialist knowledge

Defend the voluntary sector’s independence, or lose it, says Civil Exchange’s new report Independence in Question: the voluntary sector in 2016, raising major concerns for charities right across the UK.

Independence is at a five year low, the report concludes, which is surprising when the voluntary sector, particularly in Scotland, has such strong, independent assets. Charities still enjoy huge public support and trust, and touch people’s lives in ways the old politics has been struggling to do. And in Scotland, as Martin Sime – a guest contributor in our report – points out, there’s a shared narrative with the Scottish Government about tackling inequality that is lacking in Westminster.

Certainly in England, the voluntary sector has lost not just influence and statutory funding over the last five years, but also increasingly control of the story of why it’s important too. Slowly but surely, the idea is taking hold that the voluntary sector is yet another vested interest, rather than an independent force for good. The message is that delivering services, rather than trying to shape better ones, is its appropriate job. We’ve seen it in the Lobbying Act, it was there in the UK-wide Tampon Tax Fund for women’s services, which has the same no advocacy clause that the Westminster government is now applying to all taxpayer funded grants across the country.

It’s time for the voluntary sector to be more assertive and collectively to stand up for the distinctive value of independent voluntary action as a force for good, not just as a deliverer of services

Caroline Slocock

At the same time, some UK charities have been shooting themselves in the foot. Poor fundraising practices, the selling of inappropriate commercial services, private sector like salaries, all raise questions about whether some charities are losing sight of their independent charitable mission, as they become more commercial.

We are seeing an erosion of respect for the distinctive value of an independent third sector. As more public services were contracted out, successive governments began to treat the voluntary sector like an arm of the state and encouraged it to become more business like. Gagging clauses then appeared in Work Programme and other contracts. Charities have been forced into competition with each other for state income, with the largest often squeezing out charities with strong community links and specialist knowledge, leaving the vital eco-system of locally-based support seriously weakened and undervalued by a procurement regime that has failed to deliver social value.

It’s now commonplace for the third sector to justify its importance in terms of its balance sheet and the numbers of people it employs, rather than through its connection to diverse communities, its expert knowledge, its independent voice. And yet that’s where the unique power of the third sector lies and is the very source of its independence.

The ability of the sector to speak up on behalf of under-represented interests and groups is particularly important when services and benefits are undergoing such major restructuring and when persistent social, health and educational inequalities remain in Scotland as elsewhere. But, as the sector is increasingly weakened, its capacity to act as a counterbalance to corporate power declines.

It’s time for the voluntary sector to be more assertive and collectively to stand up for the distinctive value of independent voluntary action as a force for good, not just as a deliverer of services. And every charity must demonstrate it remain true to its charitable purpose in everything it does.

Protecting the sector’s independence is about preserving a strong democracy and promoting good government, not self-interest. We lose it at all our peril.

Caroline Slocock is the director of Civil Exchange and principal author of Independence in Question: the voluntary sector in 2016