Conservative leader David Cameron must have had a relaxing winter break. After just one year at the helm of his party he could tuck in to his turkey and stuffing safe in the knowledge that the Tories were in their strongest position for 14 years, with a 40 per cent approval rating and an eight point lead over Labour.

In the week before Parliament broke for the holiday, Cameron gathered together a host of the third sector’s leaders at the NCVO’s head office. His address was an attempt to flesh out some of his party’s policies for the charity sector, and to indicate just how important the third sector and its workforce would be for a future Conservative government.

The speech came hard on the publication of the Social Justice Policy Unit’s report Breakdown Britain. The report was the result of a year’s work examining the real social problems facing British communities, engaging with the voluntary sector and public services to establish what is working well and what is failing in the attempt to improve life chances for the most deprived.

The unit, headed up by the party’s former leader Iain Duncan Smith, certainly went on a comprehensive fact-finding mission. The report tackles pressing issues with which the voluntary sector is closely involved – such as debt, addiction and family breakdown – and with a depth and clarity that has not been seen from the party in recent years.

Speaking to charity leaders, Cameron began to make it clear that the third sector would be a critical partner of a Conservative government – he positioned himself as a new and forward thinking leader for those working in social welfare, moving away from Thatcher’s emphasis on individualism.

“Labour think that social justice principally means equality, achieved and guaranteed by government,” Cameron said. “We think it means community, built and maintained by people themselves. To me those 700,000 organisations prove that there is such a thing as society – it’s just not the same as the state.”

Cameron hinted that the third sector would play a valuable role in public service delivery under the Conservatives. “Merely relying on state welfare, with its centralised control, that’s the old way of doing things and its not working well enough,” he said. “The voluntary sector should be neither a poor relation nor a cut price alternative to government. It’s absolutely central to the life of the nation, but of course with a character and contribution all of its own.”

Cameron told those gathered that the voluntary sector means more to him than charity in its old-fashioned sense, and that Conservative principles of the free market are not incompatible with the principles of voluntarism and social action.

And he was ready to pre-empt his critics. Concerns that delivering public services through the voluntary sector simply offered a route to cut price welfare and reduced taxation were rebuffed. “All I can do is just reject this directly,” he said. “It is not true. With a Conservative government spending on public services will rise. We have said very clearly we will share the proceeds of growth between the lower taxes our economy needs, and that society rightly demands, and public spending.”

Iain Duncan Smith’s policy team had comprehensively briefed the leader before he wrote his first speech aimed directly at charity chief executives – worries about the lack of capacity in the sector to meet the challenges a Conservative government would set them, and about the dual burdens of accountability and regulation are also addressed.

Cameron indicated he has some sympathy with those who find their organisations stymied by the suffocating bind of red tape. “It is freedom and diversity which will often deliver more consistent standards across the country,” he said. “I think we need to relax the stringent reporting restrictions that small organisations, especially, have to comply with.”

As for capacity, Cameron said the Conservatives are already looking into the possibility of providing match funding to those organisations that need to expand to fulfil their growing role in public service delivery.

In total, Cameron’s speech provides a comprehensive round-up of the barriers preventing progress in the sector today, and more than a hint at just how useful the Tories are now hoping the charitable movement could be to them.

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Well received?

So far so good, but how are these new policies being received by the third sector? Surely this group of voters are the toughest nut for Cameron to crack; politically liberal minds tend to flock to the sector in search of a career that is both challenging and socially rewarding.

Paul Ross, chief executive of The Odyssey Trust, is impressed. “I thought it was a particularly good performance,” he says. “He had a good understanding of the issues. He had a very good analysis of the issues facing the sector and the particular problems that the sector would face if it was able to do more of the country’s social agenda.”

But familiar concerns about style over substance are quick to rear their head. “He was not so strong on any solutions or any clear policy going forward,” Ross says. “There were no answers. It may be that the solutions and the policies are going to come later.” He accepts that it could take another 12 months before Cameron’s policies for the third sector are fully developed, but wants to see something concrete.

“There is just too much regulation from too many bodies,” Ross says. “[Cameron] seemed to be agreeing with that but there was no commitment to pull back regulation. What he said was something along the lines of ‘we’re all too risk averse’. I don’t think that was a sufficient response.”

But while the specifics are still being thrashed out at Tory HQ, praise is also being given for the strength to admit that some political hot potatoes could be cooled by collaboration with the third sector.

“He did highlight one issue which is the huge difference in pension provision between workers in the state sector and workers in the charity sector,” Ross adds. “I happen to believe that one of the reasons why government is rather keen to get more work done [by the voluntary sector] is precisely for that reason; because it doesn’t carry a
long-term pension liability. Cameron acknowledges that.”

Tony Breslin, chief executive of the Citizenship Council, is also reassured by the thorough analysis of the sector’s situation provided by the Conservatives at this early stage. But he warns Cameron that he will have to do more to convince the sector’s leaders that the emphasis on public service delivery is not just a tactic to ensure spending on services while cutting taxes.

“The Conservatives are going to have to allay some of those concerns if they’re going to consolidate a positive relationship with the sector,” Breslin says. “The way to allay those concerns is with positive proposals to address these issues. If, for instance, there was a commitment to promote sustainable funding relationships with the third sector across the statutory bodies, that would be a very good start; if there was a real commitment to deliver on the principle of full cost recovery that would be a very good start.”

One new policy already floated is the promotion of corporate social responsibility among big business, and Breslin welcomes this as another possible ‘good start’ (“I think sometimes we feel frustrated that the sector is not as well understood as it might be,” he says), but Cameron’s commitment to public service delivery is already ringing alarm bells. The third sector has innovation and talent, courage and creativity on its side, Breslin says. It should supplement public services, not become the vehicle de jour for providing them.

“Our talents are wasted if we’re seen as deliverers of services that any other organisation can provide. If you focus on service delivery you tend to favour, albeit by the back door, the larger charities. You tend to encourage the corporatisation of the sector. Where that may be very positive for a smaller number of large charities, it doesn’t necessarily serve the sector as a whole.”

Perhaps an extension of his emphasis on corporate involvement and business attitudes within the charity sector, David Cameron has also spoken openly about the need to attract the best graduates to the sector. Breslin says attracting graduates is not the sector’s problem, it is graduate retention.

“At the moment we are attracting the brightest young graduates. We’re then hitting a crunch point after about four or five years of growing these graduates. It’s a real pressure. No matter what your commitment to your career and your commitment to the cause, that doesn’t always pay the mortgage, or even get the mortgage,” he says. Firm policies which allow for improved staff retention could be a major vote winner among the voluntary sector electorate.

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Building capacity

Cameron tells the charity world that under a Conservative government and his careful leadership, funding would be provided to help build capacity for public service delivery. But is this enough? Candy Smith, joint chief executive of the Shared Care Network, worries funding alone would not be enough and the Tories’ public service delivery project would rapidly hit the rocks.

“I think it’s the speed with which the voluntary sector is expected to take everything up that can be a problem,” she says. Smith does believe the young leader will put charity at the forefront of his social policy. “I think his personal experience of being a father of a disabled child gives him that understanding [of the sector],” she adds – demonstrating that Cameron’s PR team is doing its job effectively.

While some fear the focus on public services will neglect the rest of the sector, those working in voluntary service delivery are also unconvinced. Cameron’s model is based on the experiences of charities dealing with drug and alcohol addiction, according to Help the Aged’s senior policy manager Kate Jopling. The voluntary sector is naturally better at addressing these issues, she says, but this approach will not work across the board and will not be cheaper. In fact, the voluntary sector should be tasked with joining up existing services, rather than just taking over their provision.

“What the voluntary sector is very good at doing is getting the sectors to work together. The voluntary sector can’t deliver everything. It’s not necessarily about entirely new solutions,” she says. “Sometimes it’s about the voluntary sector coming in and just being a bit more involved at getting everybody to work together.”

Jopling says there is a real appetite within charities to work with the Conservatives as it is “refreshing” for the organisations to find their issues are being picked up by Cameron’s Tories.

But is it enough for the party to just show awareness of these issues? Beverly Searle, chief executive of small charity Unique, which supports and campaigns on behalf of families whose children suffer from rare genetic disorders, says not. She was disappointed by the lack of depth in the Breakdown Britain report about alternative causes of poverty, including disability.

The associated costs of caring for a disabled friend or relative – lost earnings, the price of overnight stays near a hospital, stress leading to family breakdown, and so on – can all contribute to levels of entrenched poverty. Are Cameron’s policy thinkers tackling these complex side issues or just focusing on the big hitters such as education and health provision? “I want to hear what he has to say about our area of the third sector,” Searle demands.

The Social Justice Policy Group’s report may not have been as comprehensive as some charity executives may have hoped, but it did highlight one very interesting and poignant statistic: the richest 20 per cent of the British population give only 0.7 per cent of their income to charity, while the poorest give an average of three per cent. According to the profile of their traditional electorate, this is something the Conservatives can change, and it is something the NCVO wants to see Cameron act on; and act fast.

“David Cameron has talked a great deal about the concept of ‘social responsibility’ and that we will only build the good society if every participant plays their part,” says Stuart Etherington, NCVO’s chief executive. “It is therefore vital that the Conservatives do more to encourage those who can afford it most to do their bit.”

The post-Thatcher, newly-unified Conservative party (as Cameron would have us believe) has shown that it is dedicated to the needs of the UK’s charity sector. Charity leaders are sitting up and listening with renewed interest, so what happens next is of the utmost importance. If Cameron plays his hand correctly he could ingratiate himself and his party, perhaps for the first time, to a new swathe of Britain’s politically active, voting professionals.

What should happen next, NCH’s influential chief executive Claire Tickell tells Cameron, is that the party should widen its field of vision to include social enterprise and the corporate world. “I think that the Conservative Party had always had a responsible relationship with the voluntary sector. The question going forward for the Party is whether or not they can work with others in what is now essentially a mixed economy.”

What do the Conservative’s policies mean to you? Charity Times poll

• Over a third were aware of the Conservative policies for the third secto
• 39% said they did not believe there to be any major difference between the policies of the main three parties towards the third sector
• 58% said Tory proposals to extend the voluntary sector’s role in public service delivery is simply a way of cutting public spending in order to cut taxes. Only 28% said they felt Labour was using the sector as a means of cheap outsourcing
• 21% said Labour was too intrusive and the Conservatives would be less so; 16% said the Conservatives would be more generous and understanding
• 35% said it would not make a difference whether they were working under a Labour or a Conservative administration; 28% said their charity would be better off under the Conservatives, but 36% said they would be better off under Labour
• Based on the two main parties’ third sector policies, the vote was split. If a general election was called tomorrow 25% would vote Conservatives, 26% would vote Labour, but 30% would vote for neither of them

(Based on responses from 300 Charity Times readers responding to an online survey running between the 1st and 9th of January 2007)

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