The Bishop's Manifesto

It’s been striking, in recent years, how often religious groups have led the response to the hardships of austerity. Even in the days of declining church attendance in Britain, groups like the Trussell Trust have galvanised society and led the third sector’s efforts to prevent and alleviate the worst effects of financial crisis.

So how appropriate it is to see my old friend the Rt Rev Dr Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, writing in today’s Times about the new campaign he launches this evening with Tearfund.

Tearfund is a Christian charity - in their words, “Christians passionate about ending poverty”. The Bishop writes:

“Many of today’s global challenges have been brewing for many years and we should have seen them coming. Yet we have made the mistake of concentrating only on short-term issues.

We can reasonably predict that the floods, droughts and storms already ravaging countries and wiping out families will only get worse. For many of the world’s poorest people, those threats are already a daily reality.

We must respond to natural resource constraints by living within our fair share of the world’s environmental limits. We must meet poverty with radical generosity and use our power as citizens and consumers to demand that all people are treated with dignity, wherever they are.

Often, only crises produce real change. But actions taken at moments of crisis depend on the ideas to hand.

We need bigger ideas: a passionate concern for the common good and a fuller life for everyone, whoever they are and wherever they live — both now and in future generations.”

Tonight the Bishop will launch a campaign for a ‘restorative economy’ - ‘based on a movement of people willing to change their own lives so that everyone can share in an equitable global prosperity’.

The campaign is based around the work of ‘ordinary heroes’, people who change their own lives in ‘small but significant’ ways like flying less or consuming fairtrade products. It draws on the Biblical concept of Jubilee - to work to build a rhythm of productivity, rest and community to counter debt and exploitation.

‘Ordinary heroes’ are encouraged to use their own power and to set an example to the community around them. Their actions will combine lay the building blocks for a wider movement, that changes how we think about wealth, prosperity and consumption. 

In times of deep pessimism about the role of religion in society, and when we’re getting almost immune to concerns about religious extremism and its links to terrorists, this sort of campaign is worth everyone’s support. Do read more about it, and join up, here!

Give charities a seat in the boardroom!

A startling intervention on the shallow approach of big companies to the charity world came as a welcome surprise this weekend. Britain’s biggest companies have a superficial relationship with charities and volunteering, the Bank of England’s new chief economist said, as reported in The Times and The Economist.

Speaking at the Pro Bono Economics lecture, at the charity he helped to found, he made a strong plea for greater interaction between the non-profit and for-profit sectors. The Times reported that:

Andy Haldane used his first speech since taking up the job to criticise companies for failing to recognise the full value of charities, which he believes contribute as much to the economy as the entire energy sector.

He singled out in particular the dearth of boardroom members drawn from charities. The presence of only one non-executive director from a charity in the entire FTSE 100 ‘is not consistent with volunteering having entered the corporate bloodstream’. There was also no excuse for one-third of FTSE 100 members having no volunteering programme for their staff, he said.

The only FTSE 100 board member from a charity is Jasmine Whitbread, the international chief executive of Save the Children, who is a non-executive director at BT. However, she spent much of her career in the corporate world before joining the charity sector.

Charity chief executives often preside over huge budgets, have to motivate people willing to work for nothing or very little, manage services all over the country or abroad, and have to build and protect their brand.

In the Pro Bono Economics lecture, Mr Haldane said that volunteering in the UK might amount to as much as 4.4 billion hours per year, not far off 10 per cent of the total hours put in by the paid workforce. In terms of value to the economy, it could be £50 billion per year, or about 3.5 per cent of GDP — similar to the size of the UK energy sector. However, too many companies failed to appreciate its value, he said.

‘My suspicion is that many companies are still not close to recognising fully the benefits from volunteering,’ Mr Haldane added.’And let me illustrate that with one startling fact. Among those FTSE 100 companies, how many board members are drawn explicitly from the voluntary sector? Precisely one. That is not consistent with volunteering having entered the corporate bloodstream.’

He predicted that companies would wake up to the value of charities and have far closer relationships with them, largely to recruit and retain the best staff.

Younger people have shown that it is a pre-requisite that the company they work for does more than just make money, he said. ‘Generation Y, born from the 1980s onwards, place a much greater weight on a diverse career experience, with a strong social dimension, than their predecessors. And generation Z, the millennials, are unlikely to buck that trend. Where they lead, companies will surely need to follow.’

Mr Haldane was formerly the Bank’s head of financial stability, a position he held during the banking crisis. The lack of diversity on banks’ boards was said to be a factor in the crisis. Critics said that it led to ‘group think’, a culture where no one challenged anyone else’s view.

An excellent way to start to tackle this problem of groupthink would be to bring in the talents of charity CEOs. 

Most big British companies have corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes, which make donations to charities and encourage staff to volunteer their skills. Many now have special days where staff can take time off to do voluntary work. But this is generally superficial and may even just be patronising to the people whom staff go to work with. It makes board directors feel good but it neither helps them really understand the sector nor care for its future. I have met too many of them who think running voluntary organisations is ‘just a bit of charity work’.

Yet many of ACEVO Chief Executives run complex voluntary organisations,  where thousands of people operate in highly ethically-conscious environments. Their ‘bottom line’ is far more complicated than a mere profit/loss and investment calculation. They have learnt also to earn and keep the public’s trust, while managing some of the biggest brands in the world. As an aside, I’m pleased to see this theme is on parliamentarians’ radar at least; it crops up several times in our Red, Blue and Yellow Books of the Voluntary Sector, the first of which is launched at Labour Conference this Sunday.

It is time these good people were sitting on the boards of our top companies. Years ago I was asked to sit on the ‘Tyson Task Force’ which looked at board room diversity. A good report emerged but the recommendations were weak and amounted to little more than exhortations. That was a decade ago. Little has changed. Now it’s time more was done to reform boardroom governance in the City. And this won’t happen without legislative change. So I’m pleased that our party conference programme will start off one part of this debate; promoting greater dialogue between charity CEOs and politicians. Next it’s the turn of the boardrooms themselves…

Winterbourne update

A number of key meetings last week and this. First, with Norman Lamb MP, the Care and Support Minister (who will, incidentally, be speaking at our Lib Dem Conference event). He was the politician who made the brave pledge to move people with learning disabilities into the community and away from institutions like Winterbourne. The pledge has not been honoured, and I know he feels deeply about that, but he was right to make the pledge and right to be holding NHS England's feet to the fire (and indeed mine) on achieving it now. I was able to outline the key planks of the work we are doing in the steering group. We discussed the issue of closing facilites: clearly some are not for the NHS to close, but I argued there is a duty to spell out the journey that means we will close institutional care - so that care and support in the community is the norm not the exception. Of course this means we have to develop community facilities, and the third sector's role here is crucial. We also need proper crisis support. But clarity on the objective is crucial. 

And I saw Norman again at a summit organised by him and the third sector organisation ‘Change’, which I have blogged about before. Philippa Brangan was able to demonstrate what work they do in promoting and supporting professional work for people with learning disabilities. What came across to me is the crucial importance of securing a transfer of power from the state to the citizen in the work we do on a commissioning framework. Norman raised the question of giving people ‘the right to challenge’. Music to my ears. In fact when I presented my report on ‘Choice and Competition’ to the Cabinet during the Health and Social Care Act Listening Exercise, the right to challenge for citizens in their health service was a key recommendation. The NHS Constitution  states that ‘the NHS belongs to the people’ yet this is hardly evidenced! So we will look at the potential for empowerment, challenge and personal budgets. However personal budgets require choice. That requires a bigger provider market and so the role of the third sector - as advocates and campaigners as well as providers of citizen focused services becomes even more crucial.

The clock is now ticking as we aim for our last meeting on the 27th October and all of the discussions with PLD and families to support that. I was able to report to the Department of Health assurance group (chaired by Norman and Gavin Harding, who has been an invaluable member of my steering group) on Monday about what we are up to. Frankly we need to focus on outcomes as what I'm told is people with learning disabilities want progress and action, not more discussion. Exactly what Gavin emphasised on Monday. And what we will try to do at our meeting later today. 

Adam Boulton looks at the charity sky, and a visit to Manchester

Adam Boulton, the ace political commentator for Sky TV, came to speak at one of our ACEVO leadership lunches. These are one of the secret treasures of ACEVO: a good lunch, top class speakers and splendid food and wine to aid mental digestion. And Adam did not disappoint. 

We were lunching in the aftermath of ‘Brooksgate' - where our Minister has quickly learnt how strongly our sector defends its independence. Adam had some wise words about our positioning as charities. He said that what the media want from charities is an independent voice and to hear our expertise. They are keen for facts to back up or to make a story. For the media it is our independence that matters, and so being seen to be aligned with a party, or what may appear as 'too party political,’ will be a problem. 

Of course the boundaries here are blurred. If you campaign on poverty is that seen as aligning yourself too much with the left? And if we point to the injustice created by the bedroom tax is that seen as party political? It can be difficult for charity leaders who want to put across hard and often blunt messages. Increasingly, some seem to assume that being ‘political’ means you’re necessarily taking partisan sides - something which is never the case. Charities speak for our beneficiaries and our missions - never for political parties.

Campaigning is part and parcel of our ‘knitting'. Though I have to say this is a very odd analogy, and for that we do not have Brooks to blame - but rather one of the Charity Commissioners who clearly, unlike Brooks, does not like campaigning and gave a very unwise interview in Third Sector making this silly analogy. My mother, who is a great knitter (her knitted swimming trunks for me when I was a boy were a marvel), would thoroughly object to the analogy as she is a great believer in charity campaigning.  

I had to miss the farewell party for Hurd in Waterloo as I was speaking on the ‘Prometheus’ course for third sector leaders at the Manchester Business School. It was a great session. I talked about the complexities of leadership in challenging times, and the dilemmas we face when we want to grow our delivery role but maintain our independence  and our voice. There is much more public scrutiny of charities and we need to do better in talking about our impact. And we need to balance the need to be professional and passionate about our cause. 

I encouraged the good folk of the sector to take heart; we represent a truly great sector that historically has bound together our democracy and provided social cohesion as well as delivering services that citizens and communities need. The voice of civil society remains crucial to strong public debate and to better law making and policy development. We should not be afraid of the need to campaign hard and to be heard, but there is a skill in doing this, in knowing the balance between speaking out and talking behind closed doors. Courage, mon brave, as someone once said. 

Winterbourne

One thing I learnt from my time in the big move from institutional to community care in mental health in Lambeth (Tooting Bec) in the 80s was the need to ensure the voice of the client, carers and families are heard.

I know that my recent blog post caused concern because it implied only the providers have the answers and that we already had the worked up plan.  I know that the issues raised from Winterbourne View, and what has happened since, are of deep concern, and I'm sorry that my blog caused upset. It was certainly not my intention. A sin of omission not commission.

None of the providers have all the answers.  But along with others they are clearly part of the answer and we now have an opportunity to work together to develop solutions that meet the needs of people with learning disability, their families and carers.

We have our first meeting of the Steering Group on developing a new national framework for learning disability care on Monday. We have a tight timetable. And as with any group we will need a strong focus on outcomes and a relentless drive that ensures the plans deliver better outcomes for people with learning difficulties.

Speaking to Philipa Bragman of Change (http://www.changepeople.org/) yesterday she stressed the culture change needed in the way services and support are delivered to people with learning disability.  Change is a leading national human rights organisation led by disabled people. Based in Leeds they have employed people with learning disabilities. She told me about their experience of a co-working model of employment which means people with learning disabilities co lead on projects with non learning disability people on equal terms and pay.

I contacted Vivien Cooper of the Challenging Behaviour Foundation (www.challengingbehaviour.org.uk) as a number of people suggested she could connect me to people I need to engage with.

As Vivien wrote on her website,

"I hope that this group will be an opportunity to address the lack of progress so far and to overcome the significant barriers. We know what needs to be done, and we get it right for some people – it cannot be beyond us to all to work together to deliver the outcomes we want to see.”

I wrote last week to members of the national Forum and had a lively discussion with Gavin Harding (Voices for People - gavinvoicesforpeople@gmail.com) who will Co-Chair a new DH assurance group with Norman Lamb MP.  He was keen to work with us to get positive change. Alongside that I have written to the families of people who were at Winterbourne View

One of the ideas put forward is a forum, where we can bring together all the stakeholders in a Summit so we can discuss the steering group's ideas and plans as they develop. There has been support from many people for this approach.  Gavin made the point we must do this so we can practically discuss how we can work together on the task.

The whole country was shocked by the serious abuse and appalling standards of care at Winterbourne View.  Without a detailed plan and collective action, progress on putting this right has slipped. Three years on, there has been hardly any movement towards helping vulnerable people with learning disabilities move into local communities.

It’s a scandal that only a third of the people who were in the so called Assessment and Treatment Centres last April have been transferred out and that even today, more people are being sent into them than are being discharged.

So, our focus as a steering group over these next 3 months must be how we can provide a national framework for local delivery which will ensure the pledge that was made is honoured.

I hope that people will want to work together – and will share their knowledge, expertise and experience to shape what we do and how we do it. I know that if we don’t do this, we will have wasted an opportunity.

Nick Hurd’s legacy

Well it’s been a busy week at ACEVO and in Downing Street. I had a good conversation with our new Minister for Civil Society on Wednesday. He has a strong record on finance and in charity – having founded his own charity in 2010. He is particularly interested in the power of social finance, and he will be speaking at an ACEVO fringe event on this topic at the Conservative Party Conference. At ACEVO we are keen to see progress on the role of civil society in public service delivery and I look forward to working with him on this in future.

But that said, it is sad to see Nick Hurd leave the post. He leaves OCS as the longest-serving Minister for Civil Society, and with an excellent record behind him on National Citizen Service, the Community First Fund and much more. He was widely respected on all sides of the sector as you can see from the plaudits that have come in this week.

I was interested to read Nick’s full resignation letter to the Prime Minister which conveys the range of his achievements and of his continued interest in the power of Britain’s civil society.

The comprehensive letter – which reads more like a handover note – points particularly to the importance in the next few years of making it easier for charities and social enterprises to properly participate in public service delivery. Nick recognises the crucial importance of access to social finance – which government still must improve on. He also points to the massive untapped potential of social value-based commissioning:

“There is of course much more that can be done to make it easier for social entrepreneurs and socially responsible businesses to create social value. The Social Value Act was a useful start but cannot be the end of our efforts to encourage intelligent  commissioning from a diverse market of suppliers, including charities, public sector mutuals and social enterprises. We have yet to unlock the full value that they can add in helping us tackle some of the most stubborn social challenges that undermine the  country. It is hard to see us meeting the challenge of delivering ‘better with less’ without our social economy fully engaged.”

So here is some useful advice for our sector and for Brooks as he steps in to post. Lots to develop on social value and on financing our sector’s social ambitions. And let’s not forget the importance too of protecting our right to speak out. We have just two months now before the Lobbying Act kicks in. The chilling effect is already being felt. A good letter in the Times this week by our friends at Bond put the urgency of the matter in clear terms. Its words should speak for us all.

“We and many others call for the act to be replaced by one which regulates party-political lobbying while safeguarding civil society’s right to speak out.  As it is, the Lobbying Act is a threat to a healthy democracy.”

The Winterbourne View Concordat and Bubb's challenge

I was surprised. I had gone for a meeting with Simon Stevens, the new NHS England Chief. As with all such meetings, I had my requests. But instead he got there first. "I have three asks", he announced.

The first was what the third sector could do to support the implementation of the Government's pledge on Winterbourne.  Following the Winterbourne View scandal, the Government promised to move all learning disability clients out of inappropriate in-patient facilities into the community. The appalling abuse of people with learning disabilities exposed by the Panorama programme in Winterbourne View, an institution meant to care for them had shocked a nation. Norman Lamb MP, the Health Minister rightly said that not only must there be serious consequences for the Winterbourne View abusers, but that there were also wider issues in the care system that needed to be addressed. In particular, he insisted that all clients in inappropriate in-patient settings should be cared for near their families and in community settings. It was a courageous move.

Sadly, the pledge that those people would be moved by 1st June this year was not met. Not only has that not happened but there are now more people in such placements.  Simon Stevens was clear that only the third sector could deliver the promise and he wanted me to look at a plan for "co-commissioning" between the NHS and my members.

A challenge, clearly, but one I was  up for. I gathered together my top provider members in learning disability for a breakfast to discuss our options . They were enthusiastic for the task; people like Jan Tregelles of Mencap, Steve James of Avenues Group, Robert Longley-Cook of HFT, Mark Lever of NAS, the indomitable Su Sayer of United Response and Ben Rick of the Social Investment Business.

Turning words and talk into a plan requires some skill. Fortunately I have the team at ACEVO that can do this. Mark Winter, my multi-talented Head of Health Commissioning wrote up our Plan on the back of that breakfast, which we characterised as a "national framework, locally delivered".

In essence this envisages the closure of most or all of the current inpatient facilities and the transfer of clients to appropriate community placements near their families . This will require investment in buildings,  converting houses or building new. However social finance can cover this on the back of sensible commissioning i.e. 10 year contracts.  With will,  it is entirely  doable. And if we all share the interests of the 3,250 clients we need to move into better community settings we will do it. Of course with any such task there will be a multitude of views and interests but I've been pleased so far that we all seem to be on the side of sorting it out : and that means being client focused.

We submitted The Plan and it was accepted. And I have now been asked to Chair the Steering Group that will guide the development of that, "national plan, locally delivered". The deadline is October. I report to Simon Stevens.  The group first meets on the 28th but already we are working on outlines and challenges.

I'm both pleased and daunted by this task. So far the system has been unable to implement the Government pledge - so what makes me think I and my third sector colleagues can? I guess it's my strong belief in the power of the third sector and our ability to deliver against the odds, as well as our passion to succeed for our people.

The task is in fact not  dissimilar, if  smaller, than that faced in the 80s when it was determined that all mental health asylums be closed and people cared for in the community. A patchy programme but one everyone now knows was exactly right. I chaired Tooting Bec Hospital (a large asylum in South London) then and I worked to ensure its closure but with a proper community provision in and around Lambeth. We know that institutional care is not the answer and if we put the needs of the citizen first we will work to support them in the community whatever their challenges.

If we do succeed we show the NHS what our sector can achieve.  This is the first time the NHS has undertaken "co- commissioning" with the voluntary sector so it's a challenge for us and for them. Many of the challenges faced by the NHS require the fuller involvement and commissioning of the third sector. This may prove a model for wider use. Central to delivery not peripheral to it.

Jan Tregelles, the determined CEO of Mencap, organised a visit for me and my ACEVO colleague Mark to the home of five people in London where Mencap provide support. What I saw was incredibly positive and made me determined that we will succeed because this is ultimately about better lives for people who have not had the life chances many of us enjoy and who are to open to abuse or neglect. Our sector has the skill to give them a better life and the stronger outcomes that hospitals and places like Winterbourne View have not always given them.

So just as well I haven't got any holidays booked over the next few months!

UPDATE

Well I see that my blog has attracted some attention! Good. This issue needs as much energy behind it as possible. However, just to be very clear, we are at the early stages of scoping the remit of the steering group. We have already contacted user led organisations and will be contacting families and people with learning disabilities today, as we had planned to do all along. It would be quite unthinkable to do otherwise.

Remembering Srebrenica

Today is set aside to remember the genocide of the 8000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica. I went to a special commemorative event at Lancaster House this week that our Government laid on to mark this day.  There is a wonderful charity established to ensure we never forget the atrocities that took place this day 19 years ago.

Not a comfortable event at all; with 3 of the mothers of those tortured and killed there and speaking of their experience and their loss. One mother told how she lost 44 male members of her family; from brothers, sons and husband to all her cousins and uncles.

The President of Bosnia also spoke about how we must never forget how such events can happen unless we are vigilant.

The President of Bosnia

Eric Pickles MP and Baroness Warsi gave good and indeed moving speeches. They both made the point that these were European citizens, living cheek by jowl with their Serbian neighbours; not dressing differently, going to the same schools, working together, but one day the neighbour became a torturer, the school teacher a jailer.

 Of course we believe we have a more tolerant attitude to our Muslim communities. But social cohesion can never be taken for granted. It requires work to foster that cohesion. Exactly what our third sector does; whether the great Muslim charities or the local community groups. A sobering occasion indeed. 

Dolly Parton and the English countryside.

Driving up to Charlbury on Friday we had the latest Dolly Parton CD "Blue Water" on. Did you see her at Glastonbury?  I did - or at least virtually via the dear old BBC (too old to actually go to these things now!). She is not just a good singer but a source of wisdom. I remember wanting to use one of her homely homilies in a lecture I was writing but my then Director, one Ralph Michell, was disapproving. He's now at the Cabinet Office where I'm sure they don't do Dolly.

Here are some of my favourites.

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain".

"Storms make trees take deeper roots".

"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails".

It was a pretty glorious weekend in Charlbury. It's such a delight to move from the pollution of London  to the purer air of the Cotswolds. Walking the Hound down the Mill Stream I was reminded of just how beautiful our English countryside is; the bird song was joined by the bells of Spelsbury Parish Church  and the sounds of the cricket over the fields. Of course we must never take this great inheritance for granted and so the work of bodies like the National Trust, the CPRE or the many environmental campaigning charities is crucial in stopping the depredations of over development. It's another reason why we must resist any attempt to curtail or silence our independent voice or any move by the Charity Commission to make us delineate our so called "campaigning" spend. After all, what are the "Campaign to Protect Rural England" to do in their accounts but say they spend 100% of their income on campaigning. Their official objective is to "campaign for a sustainable future for the English countryside [and to] highlight threats and promote positive solutions". It's what they do William!

And last week we had our annual Charlbury Beer Festival, quite an event these days with a vast array of boutique beers from around the Cotswolds. The proceeds go to international development charities - and no nonsense about  "every penny" as Charlburians are a sophisticated lot and understand the need for "overheads" in charities. You get an idea of the size from this photo. 

Progress is often good but sometimes bad. Our vicar in Charlbury has recently departed for the Archdeaconry of Dorchester. We have been told we are not to have a new vicar but a "priest in charge"; the Bishop of Oxford seems to be into control-freakery. The succession of Vicars and Rectors of Charlbury dates back to the 11th century. Unbroken till now. There have been some distinguished Vicars; notably one of the translators of the King James Bible. I'm afraid in such matters I'm a decided reactionary. When they do appoint a "priest in charge" I shall continue to call them Vicar. This is probably just part of a future plan to amalgamate us or turn the Church over to Carphone Warehouse.

Anyway, enough rant. I'm off to Cardiff.