Barbara Keeley was appointed as Labour’s shadow minister for arts and civil society in March, when charities were starting to recover from nearly two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the time, Keeley said that she was committed to working with the sector to ensure it can support people whom statutory bodies find hard to reach.
Keeley’s biggest concern now is the impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on the charity sector as well as her constituents in Worsley and Eccles South, which has a high prevalence of deprivation.
She recently argued that charities should be “key influencers” in government decisions on policy and legislation as they have incredibly valuable “insights and experience” of the communities and people they work with and advocate for.
“I do believe that a strong relationship between civil society and politicians is more critical now than ever before,” she says.
Politicians need to recognise civil society’s expertise
Over the last decade, central funding to local government has been slashed, leaving many charities to pick up the pieces.
As Peter Foster, public policy editor at the Financial Times, recently put it, “charities now are baked into the social safety net”.
In its 2019 manifesto, the Labour party pledged to review the roles of ministers across government to ensure that the needs of civil society are always taken into account.
Keeley criticises a lack of government engagement with the sector. Recent research from the Law Family Commission on Civil Society found that charities were well represented on advisory groups to the departments for levelling up and culture, but less so on those with responsibility for economic issues.
“It’s up to us politicians to listen, we’ve got to recognise the expertise within civil society, and see charities as holding the solution to many of the problems that we see every day,” says Keeley.
‘Public procurement rules need changing’
Keeley argues that public procurement should be reformed as it currently does not incentivise charities to bid for contracts.
“Procurement is actually a key step to building up community wealth and wellbeing. […] It’s quite clear that there’s an awful lot wrong with the way it happens. In some cases, procurement happens just with not-for-profits.
“Contracts for social care have really gone over to the private sector. We now have an awful lot of hedge funds and private equity companies owning chains of care homes and so on. That has totally changed what is a publicly funded good. There’s a lot of concern about children’s services, for instance, being in the private sector.
“One of the levers you have in government is that you can change the way public procurement happens. The role of not-for profits would actually change very substantially with a Labour government.”
The role of charities in social care provision
The issue of social care is close to Keeley’s heart. She has spent more than 20 years trying to improve social care delivery and look for solutions to tackle the crisis.
She acknowledges that there is an opportunity for charities to be more involved in social care provision.
“It ties in with their charitable aims and they want to do that,” she says. “It’s my experience that some of the very best outcomes I’ve seen are in [the charity sector]. For instance, Methodist Homes, a provider of care, have done a remarkable job in the way they provide care. We’ve got some very poor, substandard quality care homes which are run by private enterprises.”
Keeley points out that not all care homes run by the private firms have poor outcomes, but reckons that there should be a more diverse pool of providers. “I don’t think it would all be charities. There may be some going back to local government running its own services.”
Disappointment at mini budget
Last week, the chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng delivered a mini-budget, announcing that Gift Aid will be maintained at its current level until April 2027.
He also announced the creation of 38 tax-cutting investment zones, which aim to accelerate development by releasing more land for housing and commercial development, and that the government will “review, replace or repeal retained EU law” by December 2023.
Keeley is appalled at the impact the plans could have on the environment, a concern shared by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In a Twitter thread, the environment charity warned that the moves could tear up “the most fundamental legal protections” of the country’s wildlife.
“So much was left out of the growth plan. We also have to think that parts of the charity sector are environmental charities, who are absolutely and utterly livid. Environmental charities are very important in this country. They have very substantial followers [who are] absolutely livid and up in arms about the government’s plans. The government is trying to create areas in which planning regulations wouldn’t be the same, they’d be a kind of free-for-all in the use of land,” she says.
“It’s quite clear that there was no consultation. The government’s going to find that some charities are going to be mobilising, they’ve very substantial membership resources against the plans.”
“Having got rid of the social care levy, [it is not clear] where the money for social care is going to come. That’s a real worry. Besides the growth plan, there was also the Retained EU Law bill, where protections have built up over the years. Certainly, for wildlife and the environment it would just be thrown away. When that bill goes through, we’ll be losing the vast amounts of protection. There’s a lot to disagree with in terms of the approach and the growth plan, but they have very specific impacts on those parts of the charity sector.”
‘Charities need to step up their lobbying and advocacy efforts’
In recent months, some charities have expressed concerns over the public order bill and the Elections Act, warning they could limit their ability to campaign.
Keeley says that charities “must be empowered to campaign” in these challenging times.
“What we need is a civil society and a charity sector that challenge government on the policy decisions because they’re the voice of the people who are their beneficiaries. They understand and have expertise, which is lost if they don’t lobby and advocate.
“So we can hope that despite the chilling effect of what the government has done in legislation to try and stop charities campaigning [charities will continue to do so].
“A Labour government would empower community organisations and civil society to advocate and to lobby and to provide challenge on policy issues.”
‘Our focus would be on listening and empowering’
For Keeley, it is crucial that politicians like herself continue to listen to the sector’s ideas and problems in order to make political decisions that allow charities to thrive.
“The hardest thing is that it’s very difficult for people to think past the last 12 years, with the conservative-led government, back to a time when a Labour government had a totally different relationship with civil society and the charity sector.
“It would be a totally different relationship. Our focus would be on listening and empowering. That would change so much. [We would] look at what funding is available, wherever funding is available, and make sure that it’s supporting the sector in the way that it should and that it’s not unfair, that certain parts of the country have better social safety networks than others.
“I think civil society organisations will see that the approach of a Labour government would be very different. We need to spend the next 18 months to two years working out exactly how that difference is going to happen.”
Related articles
