By Ben Archibald from NICVA
Published on 24 Nov 2006
A conference at NICVA has considered the implications for the sector in an era when, increasingly, voluntary organisations are delivering Public Services.
The packed conference, entitled 'What's on your Horizon?' was designed to tease out the sector's attitude to the prospect of continued sectoral provision of public services. Some challenging reviews and robust discussions ensured the event was a great success.
Speakers
The conference, introduced by Seamus McAleavey, NICVA's chief executive, heard from Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of England's National Council for Voluntary Organisations, from Ryan Sampson of Age Concern England, and from Barnardo's Northern Ireland's deputy director, Maurice Leeson.
The NCVO experience
Stuart Etherington (pictured) told the conference that a sector involved more in service delivery offers the opportunity to redesign those services, but that both voluntary organisations and government needed to embrace the 'transformation' or services through sectoral involvement, and not simply be satisfied with transfer of services.
Labour's mandate
He said that Labour's mandate upon election in 1997 was to spend more money and improve public services, but that the money available had fallen, and was likely to continue the trend with the coming spending review. He pointed to the shift in funding to voluntary groups from grants in the past to contracts today.
Under the right conditions, the sector really can deliver better public services
He went on to say that, if the current government really is seized of the benefits of the sector's ethos and approach, under the right conditions the sector really could deliver better services. He intimated that this could well be the case, and opined that problems in programmes are less at the strategic and aspirational level, where people are committed to transformation of services, than at the programme design level.
Mr. Etherington's key message was about the values of the sector and the need for what he termed 'co-production', where service users are key to the process of designing and running the services; users must have choice, but they must also have a voice to change services if they don't deliver.
Age Concern England
Ryan Sampson, of Age Concern England, (pictured) gave an account of the challenges and opportunities facing the sector from the point of view of a large organisation primarily involved in the delivery of services. For Age Concern England, performing public services is not new, and he said that the key issue for organisations like his is not whether to do it, but where to draw the line.
He argued that Public Services are not Age Concern's main priority, pointing to the advocacy and campaign functions of the organisation. The reason for Age Concern's involvement in delivery of services is simply that, left to government, public services are poor. They engage in Public Services because they know they can do them better.
We don't need to do case studies anymore. We know through friends and our own experience that public services are poor and can be delivered better.
Ryan dispatched a few myths and conceits in his speech; Full Cost Recovery is simply not happening in the sector; the process of moving funding to preventative health care rather than acute is not happening, simply because the need for acute health care is growing. In addition, the idea that the sector can bring radically fresh thinking to delivery is heavily qualified by the need to deliver on contract terms.
He said that, whilst there were advantages to third sector delivery of some services, the Third Sector had inherent disadvantages, being forced to accept disadvantageous contract terms, and being seen as often naive. He went on to say that myths about the guaranteed ability to engage with the service user by the sector can have a negative influence.
Organisations need to remember that it is not possible to be small and huge at the same time, and that, often the positive aspects of voluntary and community sector service provision, which can be significant, are done damage by the drive to seek and deliver on services contracts.
The question is 'can we deliver an ecology for the sector where large groups exist alongside smaller groups in a complementary manner', he suggested.
Barnardo's Northern Ireland
Maurice Leeson (pictured) of Barnardo's Northern Ireland spoke in great detail to the need for groups to hold onto their distinctiveness, values and identity when approaching service contracts. 80% of Barnardo's income is from statutory body sources, he said, and as a result, service delivery and policy work is interlinked for the group. He highlighted the failure of attempts to ensure full cost recovery.
The RPA represents and opportunity for the sector, but uncertainty provides massive challenges
Mr. Leeson said that the Review of Public Administration was an opportunity for the sector, but warned that it tends currently to lead to massive uncertainty within organisations, as the pressure for contract security in a time of health trust and local government crossover leads to authorities unwilling to issue contracts beyond very short timescales.
After the main speeches, a table discussion teased out some of the more complex issues facing the sector as a result of the new agenda. This led to a brief plenary session with Questions and Answers from the three guest panelists.
A full conference report will be released in due course.
Research relevant to this conference (but not explicitly part of the conference) is available here
This page has been viewed 10493 times since it was published.
