As received from Matthew Scott, Director of Community Sector Coalition
"To Peter,
I wanted to give some quick feedback on your paper because it leads to some pretty reactionary conclusions
I'm not sure the tescoisation riff is helpful because it leads to a simplistic polarisation - the VCS is presented as shockingly corporate, then new research tells us we can breathe a sigh of relief because it isn't true - hence the third sector magazine garbled account from Matt Little which does no justice to the realities faced by most community groups who don't have any money, don't have a voice and are missed by the representative 2nd and 3rd tier bodies in the sector and by statutory agencies - as was picked up the below the radar research piece done by Jenny Phillimore, Angus McCabe at al #33 , which got media silence but surely the finding that 'the pressures to become formalised (not least to secure funding) and grow meant .. groups had risked losing a sense of their original purpose'. Surely these two findings are saying contradictory things, which whilst not surprising in itself deserves equal coverage and more examination.
I would be interested to see an approach that asked what are charities there to do? And take up the tensions that may lead to mission drift - there is rather deracinated feel to charities presented in the paper - no description of who they are and what they are there to do; if some or most about social justice why is this not a feature, and more tellingly why is there no reference about structural inequality in the VCS - i.e. if the sector is defined by caring and sharing, by social mission, does the concentration of money and power show signs of being pushed down or upwards - frankly it is the latter, and this is the point you are not dealing with
Likewise a focus on the size of the sector - charities relative to civil society organisations for example - "The majority of the third sector's relationships occur at the local level. This reflects the structure of the sector - nearly 90% of which are small neighbourhood based community organisations. These are often mutual aid or interest groups with no staff or physical assets, often with low levels of income and dependent on voluntary support. The best of such organisations have a strong connection to and understanding of local community interests." discussion paper, p10.
Reference to the findings of the recent third sector survey and the work of Gabriel Chanan - there is very illuminating empirical material that can be extrapolated here
Reference to the 2007 OTS findings 'Not every organisation has grown. NCVO 2007 UK Voluntary Sector Almanac highlights the rapid growth of many large charities and the decline in income of many small or medium sized charities'[1] - paragraph 1.1 But also note that this was at a time when the third sector grew by 25% !! To recap - if small and medium sized charities are getting smaller when the sector is growing, then if this isn't tescoisation I don't know what is
Another question to be asked - in whose interest is it to present findings that debunk the idea of monopolies / tescoisaiton? Possibly big / leading charities stand to benefit form the benign interpretation - and which big charities do you quote from? I can see two well known brands quoted - ncvo / acevo - which reinforces a status quo understanding of who matters in the sector but does not reference voices from below.
This is an area I am fascinated in and so I hope some of these reflections are useful.
Happy to follow up in the future
Best wishes
Matthew Scott
Director, Community Sector Coalition"