Charity leaders have been left frustrated by a lack of overarching vision by the Labour government, which they warn is blighted by “contradictions and incoherence” and “regressive, damaging rhetoric”.

The findings have emerged in interviews carried out by Lucent Consultancy with nine charity leaders about their experiences of working with the government over its first year in office.

They warn that the government is typified by “contradictions across policies" as well as "incoherent or piecemeal action". They also cited concerns about a “lack of vision”.

They welcomed the government’s Civil Society Covenant to include charities in decision making and service delivery.

But charity leaders are concerned with the negative impact on their sector of the hike in National Insurance employers' contributions and policy impacting disabled people.

“Some noted that understanding of civil society varies considerably across departments and there is consequently no standardised approach to engagement, despite positive practices in their relationship with specific departments,” says Lucent.

One charity leader said the Treasury is “absolutely impenetrable” to charities adding this has worsened under Kier Starmer's Labour government.

Lucent adds that a “particularly troubling” challenge is that “language and rhetoric coming from the government were seen as damaging and regressive in areas such as migration and welfare”.

The mismatch between “genuine policy progress” and “contradictory and regressive media messaging” has placed charities in an “invidious position”, says Lucent.

“They want to put our supportive statements but doing so at a time when the government is also trading in regressive rhetoric would risk damaging the trust they have with their communities or members.”

One charity leader said: “It just feels like there a lot of contradictions – there’s real engagement and then they make decisions that are totally as if they’ve not engaged in any way.”

‘Managerial’ government

Another charity leader raised concerns that instead of promoting a vision it is “quite managerial, about the smaller changes and less about the big picture” adding “I think that has left the charity sector feeling a bit demoralised”.

Charity leaders have also been left “puzzled” as to why “particular policy agendas” are being pursued “while other ‘no brainer’ changes were not”.

Lucent said: “Significantly, this lack of vision resulted in more focus on debates about short term direction which, combined with the constraint on public spending was creating an adversarial relationship” for some charity leaders.

This also presents “lost opportunities for conversation about the longer term, transformative programmes” where charities “have most to add not just as policy advocates but also delivery partners”.

It concludes: “The lack of clear direction was leaving some struggling with the practical problem of not knowing how best to ‘dock into’ government thinking – whether to invest in building relationships and how to strategise given that neither future opportunities nor points of resistance were clear”.

A separate survey, published by accountancy firm Kreston Global in June, found that four in five charities believe the Labour government is having a negative impact on their sector.

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