Just to note that this is a massive underestimate of the overall scale of cuts for charities and community groups, responses from sector experts suggest:

http://twitter.com/#!/caulfieldr/status/98303446180036608

http://twitter.com/#!/karlwilding/status/98304435108855809

If a charity requires government funding, well, it’s not really a charity is it?

@2 – Willfull blindness to history, +1

Spot on Don (1). Great swathes of the country either haven’t reported or have only partially reported. I know this because there is no data in there for my neck of the woods.
Furthermore, the report only covers definite cuts implemented now: most of the vol/com orgs I know are in a hellish limbo, able to limp on until the end of the financial year, but preparing to wind up as of next year. This is naturally having an impact on services, as future planning is impossible, and nobody can embark on new work or pursue long-term projects.

Oh, and Dick the Prick,.
A lot of people say in response to the complaints of charities and voluntary organisations, why are you so dependent on State or Local Authority funding in the first place? As if charities should primarily get their funds from rattling tins.
The reason is that many, many projects, over the years have been contracted by public bodies like Councils to provide services for them.
The reason is twofold. On the one hand small local charities are seen, with good reason, as being better in touch with the needs of their local community than beaurocratic council or government departments.
And the other, less noble, reason is that councils have fewer obligations in terms of things like redundancy and pensions, even fewer legal obligations when it comes to things like the consultation process that they have to go through, if they subcontract the work off to other bodies.
So a whole industry has developed in which small, local voluntary organisations provide services that in the past would have been seen as the job of council or government.
And now crunch time has come, it turns out that they are much, much easier to cut off than making the “back room savings” that Eric Pickles keeps talking about. It is easier and it is quicker to simply not renew what are often annual contracts.
Please try to grasp this. It is not that charities have been lazy or feckless. They have been contracted to do the tough, difficult front line work for years. And now the reward is to take the brunt of the first wave of cuts.

@2 – spot on. “Government funded charity” sounds to me a lot like “government organized non-governmental organization”, the type of propaganda arm so prevalent in authoritarian countries. It’s not a healthy way to build things.

@5 – Really, I’d let them display their ignorance for a little longer before I cut them off at the feet. But oh well.

@6 – Ah yes, point, the Big Society’s aim was to see which groups had enough rich members with spare time to keep going after the government cut their funding, after all, and hence were worthy.

Ah, the Big Society, where are you now?

@ 5 AC

So, what you are saying is that hey aren’t really charities.

They are subcontractors to the councils, paid for by local government. In all but title they are effectively private companies.

I think you should get your terminology right. Whilst these “charities” do noble and good work, doing that work does not make them a charity if that donation (of time or money) is not freely given.

They are subcontractors wholly dependent on taxpayer funding, and the only difference between them and a private company performing the same role is that the “charity” doesn’t pay corporation tax and socialises its profits into employee paychecks (and yes, the great majority of these charities have paid employees doing the work, not volunteers).

AC @ 5:

“…why are you so dependent on State or Local Authority funding in the first place? As if charities should primarily get their funds from rattling tins.”

And why not exactly? Other sources of income are grant-making trusts, fund-raising events, legacies, subscriptions…

“The reason is that many, many projects, over the years have been contracted by public bodies like Councils to provide services for them.”

OK, yes. But let’s distinguish between services (stautory or non-statutory) that are contracted out to charities, and charities that are largely if not wholly funded by discretionary grants from public bodies. The former usually have other income streams, and the public body contracting out services to them should be satisfied that the charity is financially robust enough to take on the contractual responsibility. The latter are parasitic on the public sector and should be raising their own funds from the sources I mentioned above (like the charity I work for). If they can’t raise enough money to survive from ordinary people and non-government sources, they are most likely not competently run or are not providing a service that people actually want…

“The latter are parasitic on the public sector and should be raising their own funds from the sources I mentioned above (like the charity I work for).”

Jealous much?

“They are subcontractors to the councils, paid for by local government. In all but title they are effectively private companies.”

Except they’re nothing like private companies. It’s like saying that doing a paper round is, in all but title, co-ordinating an online newsletter.

“I think you should get your terminology right. Whilst these “charities” do noble and good work, doing that work does not make them a charity if that donation (of time or money) is not freely given.”

Given the terminology is set out under law, I think it is you that needs to not constrain the “terminology” to what you would like to believe a charity is and is not.

LG @ 11: “Jealous much?” Not at all, actually. Good luck to them! Now apart from that feeble ad hominem, do you have any substantive arguments against my point?

Every. Single. Time.
Charity is mentioned.
The usual trolls come along clutching page 94 of the right-wing troll handbook “You can’t be a charity if you take money from the state!!!11 omgz!” – despite the fact that the law of the land disagrees with them, as well as the tides of history etc etc.

Is it beyond the realms of these rightwing nutjobs to actually focus on the fact that people will suffer as a result of these cuts & not get so wound up in (ill-founded) semantic debates? Too much to ask?

And as others have mentioned, where’s the Big Society now? If charities are supposed to step in are we intended to go back to the 19th century where megarich philanthropists were the only ones who could offer charity, normally with strings attached (ie: Mr Richman will build a school, but it has to teach his beliefs etc) ?

I’ve said it before but the government has no mandate for such radical proposals. A minority Tory government should be cautious, not pulling the ladder away from people before they’ve even stepped on to it.

12: “OK, yes. But let’s distinguish between services (stautory or non-statutory) that are contracted out to charities, and charities that are largely if not wholly funded by discretionary grants from public bodies.”

There is no distinction, the thing the charity is offered is the same, be it a small local charity that spends it’s time and effort securing the funding from local government to provide services to the local community, or a larger national charity that speculatively makes the same kind of funding claim and gets the money to provide the same service.

For me, personally, I have more respect for the more nimble, smaller, local charity that is largely, if not wholly, funded by discretionary grants from public bodies. They’re usually much closer to the heart of the problems the money is released to help solve.

“The former usually have other income streams, and the public body contracting out services to them should be satisfied that the charity is financially robust enough to take on the contractual responsibility.”

Oxfam, Bernado’s, etc… charities much more comparable to the “private enterprise” model that Tyler despises, yet won’t be hurt by any of these kinds of cuts.

“The latter are parasitic on the public sector and should be raising their own funds from the sources I mentioned above (like the charity I work for).”

Parasitic is such an emotive word, and why I made that “feeble ad hominem”, because you’ve created a straw-man argument against what are very targeted and very committed local charities as if they are only existing to sieve off money from the state and to profit (despite all the various laws and economies of scale that make this impossible). Parasitic presumes there is no other benefit to anyone other than the charity, which is utter nonsense.

“If they can’t raise enough money to survive from ordinary people and non-government sources, they are most likely not competently run or are not providing a service that people actually want…”

There’s that business mentality again. “a service people actually want”. You know, most charities doing the best work are doing a service people very much want, but that isn’t necessarily popular, and that those who are being helped…those people that REALLY want the charity to exist…can’t afford to keep it running.

This is where state funding is perfect, where the private model of funding is not set up to function, the local or national governmental bodies in such an area can provide the funding to a necessary area of need where there is no commercial viability, public visibility and support, or both.

I think, given you supposedly work for a charity, that your attitude that a charity that can’t survive outside of public funding isn’t a charity that deserves anything, is astounding.

Except they’re nothing like private companies.

Most UK charities are private companies.

Only if you completely shift the goalposts of terminology.

London Councils, who have cut funding to 174 groups.

The links on False Economy’s website aren’t working for me. Is this a gross figure, or net of repatriated (and thereafter locally-funded) grants?

@1, 4 – sigh, I do think people should take this for what it is. We’re not saying this is the full picture of public funding cuts to charities across the entire public sector. This represents the data for local council funding cuts from those local authorities that responded – which was most of those in England, but not Manchester, Leeds, York, some counties, and Liverpool and Sunderland didn’t give us a list of charities they were cutting funding to. We know the true picture, even at local government level, is worse. We’ve said so. But this is the data that exists, and is confirmed.

And that cut that Richard Caulfield linked to was an in-year cut during 2010/11, and therefore not within the scope of our FOI request.

@17 – it’s gross, if I understand you correctly. Where repatriated funds have been used to increase or prop up voluntary funding at member councils, that will show up in the data for those councils – but as I understand it, much of the repatriated funding has not been used in this way.

16 – no shifting required in fact. Most UK charities will be private companies, listed at Companies House. It’s only the really teeny tiny ones (like village cricket teams, or am-dram societies) that will be unincorporated associations.

If you’re asserting that there is an enormous, virtually unbridgeable gulf between Private Companies Limited by Guarantee and Private Companies Limited by Share Capital I’d argue that you’re over-reaching.

Hi Chaminda,

Wasn’t a criticism of False Economy – which has done fantastically well to raise attention to this.

Indeed, I think it adds power to your argument when experts come along and say “the situation is even worse than anti-cuts campaigners are suggesting!”

“Most UK charities will be private companies, listed at Companies House. It’s only the really teeny tiny ones (like village cricket teams, or am-dram societies) that will be unincorporated associations.”

But n.b. that there are huge numbers of the latter – NCVO estimates around 170,000 registered charities and 600,000 unincorporated community groups etc.

http://www.3s4.org.uk/drivers/number-of-general-charities

22 – Oh absolutely – but they’re neither companies nor charities.

They are charities, they’re just not registered.

They are charities, they’re just not registered.

Some may be – unless they’ve applied for charitable status with HMRC (as opposed to the Charities Commission) the most they can properly be called is potential charities. It’s a step away from the sort of charities talked about here though – especially as any charity with an income of more than £5,000 p.a. is obliged to be registered.

@21 – I know you weren’t, but some of the NCVO comments were a bit sour, which is odd since we’re essentially arguing the same thing

At the end of the day charities, companies, governmental bodies…they’re all organisations. They all have a task to do, and a way to achieve it, using some form of income.

The reason why comparisons with the traditional private company is crass is that aside from the similarities in how they may operate, the aims and the strategies for the two differ immensely.

The attempt to paint charities as no better than companies in the profit making sense is nothing more than a cynical simplification, and one that looks to be to try and obfuscate the benefits that a charity will bring to the table with such funding compared to a real private company, or any other non-charitable organisation for that matter.

The point I was trying to make is this;

Under the last Labour government a large number of charities became very or totally dependent on public funding.

This was not some accident – it was a direct political move with a specific agenda.

Firstly, farming out public services to “charities” made local government spending look that much better, whilst at the same time reducing scrutiny. Private sector companies are accountable and easily scrutinized (just look at Southern Cross) if they are failing. If a “charity” is performing poorly or massively innefficiently, there is almost no comeback, bar the “charity” asking for more money…..which the last Labour government was always more than happy to provide.

Secondly, it put more people into the catagory of dependency on government for job/funding. These people tend to vote Labour, lets face it, in majority (as do most junior level civil servants). Were those jobs to be contracted out to private companies, political power would be somewhat dissipated.

Lastly, theses “charities” would be much harder to shift by any incoming government because of the emotive nature of cutting any funding to any charity or good cause. Clearly there are some “charities” out there that aren’t truly needed in times of economic hardship like these, and more commonly many that are hopelessly inefficient or providing services better provided by private taxpaying companies, reducing the burden on the taxpayer. Effectively it was Labour’s way of entrenching their model of service provision and leaving a trap for others following, regardless of how best those services were provided. Concurrently to that, and as we can see by the reaction from the author of the article and various union leaders, it is a form of backdoor unionisation….which of course Labour relies upon for most of it’s funding.

“If a “charity” is performing poorly or massively innefficiently, there is almost no comeback, bar the “charity” asking for more money”

Charities are audited on an annual basis, and have to reapply for funding after each contract is completed. Again, I’m amazed by the ascertain that it’s Charities that have this problem, and not companies. Companies get longer term contracts from government, taking away public service autonomy from local authorities, and in doing so easily force the government to provide more cash when they have their own local monopoly on services.

I’m not going to deny it’s impossible for Charities to do the same, but it is significantly harder.

“These people tend to vote Labour”

Do you have *any* evidence for this claim? I only have circumstantial and anecdotal evidence, and I would say the opposite is true.

I really don’t think you understand even remotely how the charitable sector operates, there are so many fallacies and incorrect assumptions in your comments about it.

@Chaminda #19:

Where repatriated funds have been used to increase or prop up voluntary funding at member councils, that will show up in the data for those councils – but as I understand it, much of the repatriated funding has not been used in this way.

How many of the member Councils have provided data?

@ 29 Lee

Charities have their *accounts* audited – correct. They don’t have to prove value for money in the way a private company has to though.

Yes, some contracts handed to private companies have been a disaster, but are you really saying that if a private company could offer to do the work cheaper, the contract should still go to a fully government funded “charity”?

I’m not sure where monopolies come in, as private companies are legally prevented from doing so….charities are not. Whilst I doubt charities ever seek a monopoly, they do aggressively lobby for government funding – not least because sucking on the government teat is often an easier place to get cash than actually going and raising it from the public. That need to retain funding I’m sure means fights with other services/”charities” over the pie, as it were.

As I said as well, the emotive nature of these “charities” and what they do also heavily entrenches their positions. Not a monopoly, but certainly benefits them. I somehow doubt you’d be defending the cuts in spending as vigourously if it were a private company doing the job.

Seriously, let’s face it, statistically (and I think it was the Labour party themselves who did the stats for their electioneering campaigns) unionists, civil servants and charity workers are all more likely to vote Labour, amongst other groupings. Is it really that hard to believe? You wouldn’t be argunig if I said public school boys are more likely to vote Tory would you?