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Politicians' promises

LOTS OF PROMISES HERE, and even some action. Sometimes. Place tongue deeper into cheek as the parties get smaller...

 Digging dog
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 Labour
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 Conservatives
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 Liberal Democrats
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 Scottish National Party
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 Plaid Cymru
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 Green Party
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 British National Party
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 Respect
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 Veritas
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 Monster Raving Loony
Labour
Charity has been big business in Blair's Britain. An enormous amount of government time and money has been lavished on the voluntary sector - but charities themselves are divided over whether this has been a good thing.

The reason for this is that the government is often seen as meddlesome. Its instinct to boss charities about hasn't always gone down well. And Whitehall's enthusiasm for charities to deliver public services has, according to sceptics, transformed some charities into little more than arms of the state.

But almost all charity workers are agreed that the government means well. Tony's commitment to wipe out child poverty and Gordon's much-trumpeted commitment to social justice have both needed the co-opertion of charities to ensure their success.

What's more, getting charities to deliver public services - often in pursuit of those goals - seems to be effective. According to New Labourites, charities are nimble operators, better able to respond to society's pressing needs than the lumbering apparatus of the state. Charities are better at understanding of the needs of the needy.

But there is a more sinister explanation for this enthusiasm. Trade-union leaders have been quick to point out that government services delivered through charities offer a nifty way of avoiding their occasionally bolshy members. Mark Serwotka, boss of the PCSU union, calls this "soft privitization". According to this analysis, the government gets charities to do its work simply because it's politically easier.

Whatever the truth, the charity world is now awash with government initiaties - more, in fact, than most charity workers can easily understand. Ask the average employee what the difference is between ChangeUp, Capacitybuilders, Futurebuilders and the Performance Hub, and they'll probably give you a blank stare.

We don't blame them.

Legislation, posh schools and the Charity Commission
The Charities Act 2006 has just become law. This is important. Especially if you run a public school.

This hefty piece of legislation introduces some important reforms. The most important of these is the so-called 'public-benefit test.' This will make it compulsory for all charities to demonstrate that they help a wide group of people. And it stipulates that poor people must not be excluded from that benefit either.

This won't be a problem for the vast majority of charities. But it's going to be a headache for public schools - charities all - which have traditionally specialized in educating the country's richest children.

At the moment, it's not clear how far these schools will have to go to demonstrate their benificence. The Charity Commission is mulling it over. But whatever its eventual conclusions, they're bound to stoke up a political fight.

We've written more about this on our Blog

International Development
It’s hard to disagree with what the government is doing in the field of international development. They’re spending a lot of money, and they appear to be spending it well. This is probably why neither of the other major parties would radically change current policies if they were in power.

Since 1997, the Department for International Development has seen its budget more than double, and in 2007-8 it will get £5.3bn to spend. This will rank Britain as the seventh most generous country in the world (calculated as a percentage of GDP spent on aid), and is apparently in the top five when it comes to spending that money wisely. Both Labour and the Conservatives are also committed to reaching the internationally-agreed target of spending 0.7% of GDP on aid by 2013.

Conservatives
Ever since the party came under new management in 2005, the Tories have had a lot to say about charity. In fact, charities now number amongst the Conservatives' favourite things.

There are two explanations why. The first - and the one that the party bigwigs would like you to believe - is that social justice is now central to the Conservatives' agenda. According to Dave Cameron, charities are best placed to deliver it. He argues that charities are much better at solving problems than government is - and so they should be left to get on with it, helped by big dollops of government cash. Unlike the control-freak Labourites, he says, the Tories would also let charities get on with the job, and not attach irritating strings to their funding.

The second explanation is more cynical (or realistic, depending on your point of view). This says that it's both cheaper and easier for government to get charities to do the state's work on its behalf. Getting charities to do social work, the cynics say, is cheap: services get delivered at a knock-down price. What's more, it's easier for government to end a contract with a charity than it is for it to sack a bunch of civil servants doing the same job.

Of course, we'd never want to suggest that base motives lie behind the Conservatives' agenda. But it's important to understand is that if the Tories get into power, charities will take centre stage. According to the party's recent Aims and Values document (PDF, 100k), they're a big part of the solution to the country's second-biggest problem, an unjust society.

Iain Duncan Smith, the charismatic chap asked to ponder matters charitable by Dave Cameron, recently published a report with details on how he thinks the Tories' charity policy should look. It's long. Very long.

> The Tories' 'Effective Giving' website
Liberal Democrats
 For a party that likes to think of itself as committed to social justice, the Lib Dems are remarkably quiet when it comes to talking about charities. Generally supportive of the Charities Act, they want to make sure that the Charity Commission doesn’t get too powerful and would like to see the Commission come up with a stringent definition of 'public benefit' that would force public schools to be more generous with their resources.

Unlike the other major parties, the Lib Dems are keen on devolution and strengthened local government, and this focus means that they’ve not paid the charitable sector as much attention as they could have: when talking about communities, for example, they talk up increasing local democracy rather than getting people to volunteer.

The only substantial reference the Lib Dems make to charities is buried deep in a policy document. Even then, it's hardly inspiring stuff. A commitment to encourage charities to grow, giving them more money and trying to get more people to volunteer, is hardly rocket science. There's even less in the way of hard policy from Ming Campbell than there is from Dave Cameron.
Scottish National Party
 The SNP thinks that charities play an important role in local communities, and is keen to encourage them. It's got a lot of positive things to say about volunteering, wants to dole out more cash to organizations that encourage it, and to spend less on centrally-dictated social-exclusion initiatives.

But when it comes to hard policy commitments, the SNP's approach looks a lot like Labour's. "We will work in partnership with the voluntary sector to support new ways of delivering services," it says - something which, when translated out of the language of spin, probably means that it wants more of the same. The bureaucrats at Fututrebuilders Scotland - and the other government-sponsored 'infrastructure bodies' - can rest easy in their beds.
Plaid Cymru
 Ever since we started this page back in September '06, we've been scratching our heads over Plaid's policy priorties. It's not so much that we disagree with what they've got to say, but rather that we have no idea how they decide what's important

In 2005, for example, they were excited at the prospect of starting up a 'milk regulator' - but had nothing to say about charities. This year, the milk regulator seems to have disappeared, and 'a laptop for every child' (PDF, 1.5M) emerges as a commitment in its place. But they've still got nothing to say about charities. Curious.
Green Party
 The Green Party isn’t just green, it’s also stridently anti-grey (pinstripe). This means that, when it advocates an increased role for charities, it wants this to come at the expense of big business – something the party very definitely isn’t in favour of (PDF, 30K). So, if you want your local charity to work against the “unaccountable exercise of economic power by large corporations,” then the Greens might be for you. In a society where money will “have a lesser role than at present,” it makes sense that charities will take on a vastly bigger role than they do now.
British National Party
 Think that poor foreign people deserve to be poor? That Africans are congenitally corrupt? If so, then the BNP wants your vote. For a ‘charity policy,’ theirs is remarkably uncharitable: they want to scrap overseas aid, and spend the money instead on repatriating ‘foreigners’ who’ve had the nerve to settle in Britain. For good measure, they also want to scrap government funding for modern art which is ‘degrading’. Remind you of anyone?
Respect – The Unity Coalition
 From the 17th floor of Intelligent Giving Towers – a building that dominates the skyline here in Bethnal Green – it’s possible to look out at the world below and feel disconnected from reality. Some days, the only contact we have with the locals is the nice man who polishes the cars in the basement. But, cocooned as we are, we’ve heard that a political revolution is taking shape on the ground below us. Because Bethnal Green and Bow has fast become the heartland of Respect – The Unity Coalition. Leader and local MP George Galloway is doing his best to put the party’s hard left agenda into action.

Mr Galloway is keen on bashing business, taxing the rich and encouraging trade-union activity. He’s a real-life socialist, part of a breed many thought dead. But in the socialist utopia, the state is large, and the role of voluntary organizations unclear. Who needs charities when the state does it all?
Veritas
 Veritas, the outfit founded but since deserted by Robert Kilroy-Silk (or 'RKS', as he's known to afficionados), has a peculiar habit of prefacing its policy commitments with the statement, ‘The British people are worried about...’ So on their website you can witness pronouncements like ‘The British people are worried about POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.’ No doubt about that, then. This does, however, beg the question of why, in that case, nobody votes for them.

But even if it would be more accurate to say that most of Britain is worried about CRACKPOT POLITICAL PARTIES, Veritas hasn’t got the message yet. This means that it’s got some reasonably funny – as in, laugh out loud – policies towards charitable activity. For example: do you think that third-world aid is being misspent? Then you might like to consider the Veritas scheme to distribute aid through British town-twinning associations, to help foreign communities directly. Stuttgart probably does need our help. You might instead prefer to get some idea of how international aid actually works. Super.
Monster Raving Loony Party
 See 'Veritas'.

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