Charities, Cuts and the Big Society

It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog but this particular issue has been niggling away at me.

I’m not much of a runner, any twitter followers will know that I play for Sonning Hockey Club and the most weekends hit the badminton court with some older comrades from the Labour Party. Next month I’m running the 5k Pretty Muddy Race for Life, at which point (all being well) I will join a long line of distance running Labour Councillors such as John Ennis and Matt Rodda. Besides being a generally good thing to do, my interest in charity fundraising has been encouraged by the increasingly brutal cuts forced on to the third sector by this government.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations reported earlier this month that charities had lost over 1.3 billion pounds in the most recent spending cuts. At a local level charities will lose a significant 43% of their funding as a result of budget restrictions passed on by local councils. I am pleased to say however that in Reading at least, the Labour led council decided to protect the third sector budget.

Charities have a long history of supporting our public services and in many cases providing them. Direct cuts to the public and third sector are giving the green light to outsourcing and privatisation.

Over the holidays, Cameron claimed that Jesus invented big society and that he and his party were continuing that good work. Personally, I fail to see how cuts which disproportionately affect impoverished communities, disabled people and other vulnerable groups could possibly be a realisation of this.

The problem is that whether the cuts hit mental health, homeless provision or women’s charities, the end result is always the same. These cuts cost lives.

And naturally, here comes the fundraising plug:

http://www.justgiving.com/sophiajames

Stephen Sutton, a terminally ill young adult who raised £3 million for the Teenage Cancer Trust