knowledge); capacity builder (providing education and training); incubator (developing solutions that may materialise in the long term); representative (empowering the marginalised or under-represented); champion of active citizenship (motivating civic engagement and supporting citizen rights); solidarity supporter (promoting fundamental values); and definer of standards (creating norms that shape market and state activity).
Many of these roles assume more organised forms of civil society, known as ‘civil society organisations’, ‘non-governmental organisations’ or, in England and Wales, the ‘voluntary, community and charitable sector’. Perhaps arising from the conflations that Edwards (2014) identifies, the UK National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO, 2019) highlights the disputed nature of the term ‘civil society’, suggesting that it encompasses a breadth of organisations extending beyond legally registered charities to include, for example, trade unions, universities and housing associations. The contention about the scope and definition of civil society makes it hard to quantify the total number of organisations. For example, the NCVO’s scope is narrower than the Charities Commission as their count of ‘general charities’ excludes independent schools, housing associations and sacramental religious bodies, and instead bases its definition of general charities on the fulfilment of criteria such as independence from government, being non-profit and working for public benefit. According to this definition, in 2016/17, there were 166,854 general charities in the UK, of which 4,450 were in the North East of England, amounting to 1.7 organisations per 1,000 population – the lowest rate in England (NCVO, 2019).
Focusing on what they do rather than who they are does not reduce the diversity either; yet, in broad terms, much of their activities are directed at improving the well-being of citizens (Clifford, 2017). Despite some serious controversies around the aggressive marketing tactics of some charities and their accountability with regard to salaries, staff conduct and disciplinary policies, charities generally attract higher public regard than many other organisations, even though confidence in them may have fallen in recent years (Charity Commission for England and Wales, 2018). Keen and Audickas (2017) suggest that the sector is predominantly focused on the delivery of social services (18.2 per cent), followed by culture and recreation (8.7 per cent), which are activities that focus on well-being.
The impact of austerity on civil society organisations
The long-term contraction of the state’s social role and its capacity to deliver social services, compounded by neoliberal austerity, has significantly reduced civil society organisations’ capacity to respond to rising demands (Jones et al, 2016). This has generated feelings of disempowerment and ineffectiveness, as shown in the following statement by a welfare adviser in Hull with 15 years’ experience: ‘A few years ago, we used to be able to help people with an answer, direct them somewhere for help, but increasingly there’s not much we can do. The safety nets to which we used to direct them, which they may not have known about, aren’t there anymore’ (HRW, 2019: 15). In the North East, nearly half (46 per cent) of the organisations completing the Voluntary Organisations’ Network North East’s survey reported an 85 per cent increase in demand for their services, a decrease in their grant income from local authorities (Meegan et al, 2014; VONNE, 2016; Clifford, 2017) and staff redundancies. The effects are variable depending on their size, activity and location, with those more reliant on state funding and operating in disadvantaged areas experiencing a larger fall in their income (Jones et al, 2016), as is the case in the North East (Chapman and Hunter, 2017). Here, smaller charities in poorer areas also lack confidence, resources and skills to apply for grants from national bodies (Pharoah et al, 2014). While the COVID-19 lockdown has further increased demand and reduced their resources, the majority of the sector have continued their support. Some of the increased pressures have been driven from the government’s attempts to redirect demand away from the public sector towards them, as is the case in the referral of patients to an already-stretched voluntary sector (NCVO, 2019).
The problem of the government offloading its responsibility onto civil society organisations’ shoulders and overburdening them with what ought to be the responsibility of the public sector came to the surface during the outbreak of COVID-19, as reported by a volunteer in an independent food bank:
The majority of our volunteers are retired. Some are not in good health because it’s hard to be when you’re over 70 ... We’ve given them the option of dropping out and obeying the government guidelines. But it does leave a hole. Now, if a family member coughs, people are gone at the drop of a hat. (Quoted in McGee, 2020)
Added to the reduced supply of volunteers was the limited amount of donated food as for the ‘people who use the food bank, it’s quite a hand-to-mouth existence. And now that food just isn’t there’ (quoted in McGee, 2020).
In response to neoliberal austerity measures, civil society organisations have stepped in to compensate for the loss of a safety net, creating a juxtaposition between the expression of solidarity (‘the best of times’) and the state’s abdication of responsibility (‘the worst of times’). Nowhere is this more apparent than in the growth of food banks in response to growing food poverty (HRW, 2019), as articulated by the Chief Executive of the Trussell Trust:
Food banks have tried to stem the tide, but no charity can replace the dignity of people having enough money to afford a decent standard of living. The failure to tackle the structural problems at both a national and local level has left people with nowhere else to turn. We have the power to tackle these structural problems as a nation. (Quoted in HRW, 2019: 9)
These accounts highlight the limit to the perceived adaptability of civil society – compared with the state and the market – and its ability to align its core activities and values to maintain integrity and mission (Corner, 2014).
Transferring what were previously government services and assets to the charitable sector undermines democratic accountability. Instead of these organisations complementing state provision, they are increasingly operating ‘as substitute for the provision of services by public sector professionals’ (Lyall and Bua, 2015: 33, original emphasis). This risks undermining the relationship between citizens and the state, and between citizens and voluntary sector organisations, increasing the stigma and shame that many people feel. The sector is also changing through undertaking target-driven, performance-managed services where the government has set the agenda. The encroachment of ‘new public management’ approaches in the voluntary sector may bring with it the neoliberal discourses of responsibilisation (Powell et al, 2017),
