Children’s Charities in Crisis. Body, Alison
ideological bias, sets them apart from other actors in the field of early intervention and preventative services. While many children’s charities experience significantly negative effects of Commissioning, several children’s charities have successfully negotiated a pathway between conformity and dissent. As a result, they have successfully negotiated contracts and tenders to their advantage, or even bypassed commissioning processes altogether, to secure a mutually developed contract. This includes small-scale grants which were considered to ‘go under the radar’ to large-scale contracts. This survival does not happen in isolation, but instead requires a relational approach in which some children’s charities deploy a range of tactics to secure additional advantage, while some Commissioners ‘bend the rules’ to facilitate advantage for certain children’s charities who they believe will deliver a ‘better’ service for children. Thus, we conclude that commissioning is neither a fair or rational process and suggest that now is perhaps the time to reconsider this relationship.
Chapter 8, the conclusion of this book, discusses the potential way forwards. Collaborative commissioning as a concept is receiving increased attention from policymakers, practitioners and academics alike. As an emerging idea however it is still an unknown. In this concluding chapter we discuss the potential of collaborative commissioning as a way forwards for children’s early intervention services and the continued unknowns surrounding it.
A note about language and definition
According to the UK Civil Society Almanac 2018 (NCVO, 2018) there are over 166,000 charities registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. However, of these charities, those with an annual income over £1 million account for 81% of the sector’s total income, yet represent just 3% of the total number of charities. In contrast, charities with an income below £100,000 make up 82% of the sector in terms of numbers, but represent less than 5% of the total income. Therefore, the vast majority of the charitable sector is made up of small and micro organisations, while the major and super-major organisations (over £100 million income) dominate the landscape in terms of income and profile. Children and young people are the most common beneficiaries of charities, with 59% of charities listing them as one of their core beneficiaries. Based on submission of accounts to the Charity Commission, this figure does not encompass the vast number of other voluntary sector organisations including smaller enterprises that sit below the Charity Commission’s radar: social enterprises, community groups, voluntary action groups and cooperatives.
Identifying a definition of the charitable sector is problematic and widely disputed. Politicians, policymakers and academics struggle to agree a commonly applied name. Consequentially a number of contested terms have emerged. For example, utilising the Wolfenden Committee’s term ‘the voluntary sector’ arguably places too much emphasis upon ‘volunteers’, thus ignoring the vast number of employees within the sector. Alternatively, to capture both formal and informal activity some actors refer to the voluntary sector as ‘the voluntary and community sector’. There is the Labour terminology of the ‘third sector’ which still resonates today and with it carries a number of political ideologies (Alcock, 2010), or the stricter term for charities registered with the Charities Commission and recognised as such by the Inland Revenue of the ‘charitable sector’, however this ignores the vast number of voluntary sector organisations who are not registered as charities. Additionally, we could use the Conservative terminology of ‘civil society’, which is unwieldy in application, or the American inspired ‘not-for-profit sector’.
Such debates stem from political ideology, competing social, economic and cultural agendas and the differentiation of the application of criteria for definition. Famously termed as a ‘loose and baggy monster’ (Kendall and Knapp, 1995) the voluntary sector is a unique combination of service provision, advocacy, fundraising and campaigning, provided by voluntary sector organisations from large professionalised, bureaucratic entities to small networks and informal voluntary networks (Jas et al, 2002). As a sector in 2017, it employed approximately 2.7% of the UK workforce, that is over 880,000 individuals, and achieved an income of over £47.8 billion in 2015/16 (NCVO, 2018). However, definition per se is not the vital factor, what matters is ‘adopting a characterisation that is appropriate to the purposes at hand’ (Halfpenny and Reid, 2002: 536). In this book, we refer to the organisations directly engaged in the research as ‘children’s charities’ and use the terms ‘voluntary sector’ and ‘charitable sector’ interchangeably throughout. This is in order to encompass the vast range of organisations from the formal, professionalised, bureaucratic organisations to the informal networks, while reflecting the need to differentiate it from the for-profit sector, commercial businesses and the state. Such a definition draws upon widest understanding of the voluntary sector and focuses upon the notion of the structural/ functional definition (Salamon and Anheier, 1992). Used by academics such as Billis and Glennerster (1998) and Kendall (2003) this definition identifies the voluntary sector as an assembly of organisations that are: ‘(a) formal or institutionalised to some extent; (b) private – institutionally separate from government; (c) non-profit-distributing – not returning profits generated to their owners; (d) self-government – equipped to control their own activities; (e) voluntary – involving some meaningful degree of voluntary participation’ (Billis and Glennerster, 1998: 81).
Preventative services and children’s charities: policy and paradigm shifts
New Labour, children’s services and the third sector
This chapter provides an overview of the concept of prevention within child welfare, particularly under the New Labour government (1997–2010). Coming to power in 1997, New Labour placed considerable focus, and financial investment, on reducing child poverty and social exclusion, and increasing universal early intervention support and coordination between services. The role of the voluntary sector became mainstream in the provision of children’s services, with the launch of several high-profile initiatives such as Sure Start, the Children’s Fund and the Connexions service.
In this chapter we demonstrate that social policy encapsulates child welfare from several alternative perspectives, often corresponding to whatever the current dominant social conceptualisation of childhood and the welfare state may be within that period (Hardiker et al, 1989; 1991). Focusing on the concept of ‘prevention’ within child welfare and building on these shifting understandings of childhood, and the concerns for children, this chapter explores how social policy operationalised under the Labour government, developed strategies to tackle issues surrounding children and young people who are considered disadvantaged, vulnerable or at risk and mobilised the voluntary sector within this response.
Every Child Matters
Following on from the Children Act 1989, the Every Child Matters Green Paper (DfES, 2003) and the Children Act 2004 enshrined in law a commitment for state intervention in the private realm of the family. The Green Paper covered three principal themes: early intervention and effective prevention, supporting parents and carers, and accountability, integration and workforce reform. Furthermore, it articulated five outcomes that all children should achieve – being healthy, staying safe, enjoying life and achieving, making a positive contribution, and achieving economic