[WiLT] Local charities are being neglected, say Lib Dems

[WiL Admin]

Local charities are being neglected, say Lib Dems

Voluntary sector organisations are being hampered in their efforts to
work with communities by the Government's funding regime and "bizarre"
reporting rules, according to the Liberal Democrats.

A new book, Communities Actually
http://www.libdemgroup.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/989180, published by the
Local Government Association Liberal Democrats Group
http://www.lga.gov.uk/libdemgroup, says that excessive bureaucracy is
restricting smaller charities in particular from helping local
communities.

"Centralised funding regimes and bizarre reporting requirements have
transformed the voluntary sector into two halves - the giant agencies
delivering government targets and a struggling mass of local activity,
constantly forced to prove their own innovation, hopelessly spending
their dwindling resources on collecting irrelevant statistics for
distant funders," the book says.

"It is harder for them to work alongside communities and, when the
voluntary sector starts to get in the way of communities taking power
for themselves, then we need new methods of sustainable funding - and
new ideas about spreading power - so that they do what they do best."

The book adds that burdensome government regulations are causing
smaller voluntary sector organisations to go out of business.

"Microcharities are disappearing, forced out by the hoops and
bureaucracies of centralised lottery programmes," it says.

It adds that the voluntary sector is dominated by a "handful of
massive agencies" that hoover up most of the available funding to
deliver government targets.

"The rest of the sector exists on a hand-to-mouth diet of grants,
desperately trying to prove that what they are doing is somehow
innovative, and whose prime purpose is often to keep their
professional team in salaries," the book says.

Councillor Richard Kemp, Liberal Democrat leader at the LGA, said
that, although political parties profess to be localist, in practice
they have a tendency to hold too much power in Whitehall.

He added: "Regrettably, not enough politicians are 'localist' when it
comes to changing warm words into hard actions."

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/846067/Local-charities-neglected-say-Lib-Dems/2092F6F2BE4B8F0D9CD27B793E9D815F/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin

See also:
The first book in the series, Power Actually, is now out of print but
can be found on-line at
http://www.poweractually.com/power-actually.pdf