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Third Sector Review

Absolutely—multi-partisanship, not bi-partisanship. However, that is not surprising, because the Minister is a genial man, as we know. He has a sympathetic ear and a reassuring tongue, but we sometimes wonder whether his elbows are quite sharp enough in engaging in his job. It almost seems impolite to mention the performance of the office of the third sector, but I am not sure that it quite lives up to the billing and reputation that he enjoys personally. The office of the third sector, which was a Conservative idea, was set up to be a strong voice and an advocate of the third sector right across government. Now that it exists, however, it is a meek organisation that is too often ignored. In June this year, the National Audit Office condemned the ““baroque complexity”” of the present funding arrangements for the public sector. The office of the third sector agreed that that description was a fair assessment of the regime over which it presides. If we look at the compact—the key bulwark that exists to protect the sector and provide a Government guarantee of fair treatment—we see that it is in meltdown, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) said. The chief executive resigned in June, and the commissioner resigned in September. The further one goes from the Minister's office, the more widely the compact is ignored. One chief executive of a charity told me that a major public service commissioner had physically torn up the Compact in front of her to illustrate the degree of respect that he had for it. The compact is toothless, spineless and, as we have heard, increasingly useless when it comes to protecting local charities on the ground. What is the Minister doing about that? The purpose of the office of the third sector is to be strong, to bully people and to bang heads together. It has some way to go before it achieves that. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) complained about a three-year funding contract that was taken away after a single year. That is precisely the kind of situation that the office of the third sector was designed to act on. Let us consider the components involved. Full cost recovery is not a new idea. It was a binding commitment in the 2002 Treasury review, on which I assume the Minister was an adviser before he came into the House. We were promised that all Government contracts would be let on the basis of full cost recovery by 2006. According to the Charity Commission, however, last year only 12 per cent. of charities reported achieving full cost recovery all the time, and 43 per cent. said that they never achieved it. Another key component is long-term contracts. The 2002 Treasury review again promised stable funding, but the Charity Commission says that two thirds of funding contracts are for one year or less. The office of the third sector is punching below its weight in seeking to make a difference to the culture around the country. It has no clout with its neighbours. Community Service Volunteers was owed £3.7 million by the Department of Health for a contract. It complained to the Minister, but that had no effect; it had to go to the newspapers to make a difference. My right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham also mentioned the Department for Work and Pensions' pathways to work programme. The office of the third sector exists to protect the interests of the voluntary sector, but only this year we have seen aborted contracting processes costing charities tens of thousands of pounds. Stephen Bubb, who is a self-confessed mate of the Minister, says that the voluntary sector has been ““comprehensively stuffed””. If even the Minister's mates are telling him that he is not standing up for them, what hope have we? I was concerned that a number of Labour Members wanted the Minister to visit their constituencies—as if that would make a difference. I have been looking at the written evidence submitted to the Public Administration Committee's hearing on this matter, and I think that those Members should think twice before issuing such an invitation. The memorandum submitted by Women's Health in South Tyneside states:"““We have entered into contracts through the LSC for the training aspects of our work and we are buckling with the bureaucratic demands this places upon us…I would like to add that this organisation which was visited recently by the Minister for the Third sector…has recently had 2 substantial funding streams removed at short notice.””" So much for his attention to the interests of the sector! We need to see a more robust performance from the office of the third sector. Warm words are not enough. One would think that the Minister, of all people, would have the ear of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, now the Prime Minister, yet we know that £70 million was lost to the third sector at a stroke in the Budget, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham pointed out earlier. There was no mention of it in the Budget statement or in any press release. The Budget was carefully constructed to protect all, or most, of the losers from the consequences, but the one group of people that got no protection at all was the third sector, which the office is supposed to represent. The office of the third sector has influence without achievement, and we need to improve on that. We had the first Olympic raid, totalling £213 million, in June 2006. The second raid involved the loss of £675 million, £100 million of which was from the charities that the Minister has pledged to protect. The Minister says that grants are important, but as a proportion of the sector's funding, they have fallen from 52 per cent. to 38 per cent. When it comes to campaigning, the Minister for the Cabinet Office is keen to align himself with the advisory group. I would like further clarification, but he seems to have engaged in something of a climbdown this afternoon.