So Tracey Crouch is the new minister for civil society, adding that responsibility to her existing role as sports minister. A minor department gets an obscure minister in the rump of government. Who cares?
Politics is in freefall, wrestling with Brexit, social care and austerity. But this unremarkable inauguration tells us so much about why the whole charade is due a shake-up.
The Office for Civil Society (OCS) began life as the Office for the Third Sector under Tony Blair’s Labour government. It had national programmes, hundreds of millions of pounds in funding and worked from the centre of government in the Cabinet Office. But even then it was a bit of an anomaly, a hotch-potch of programmes and officials syphoned off from other departments, that no one else wanted.
Then came the coalition government and a Steve Hilton re-branding under the auspices of the Big Society; the OCS became either a stepping stone for ambitious novices or a final destination for weary civil service lifers. Under Theresa May it fell further. It was moved out of the Cabinet Office and parked in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, alongside archives and museums. Today it is a relic – an irrelevance.
The truth is that Whitehall never respected this department. The great offices of state – the Foreign Office, Home Office, Department for Education and so on – work in silos. Budgets are set secretively, plans are subject to political whim. Departments intended to cut across these faultlines, like the OCS, were supposed to exert some sort of positive influence. But this only seemed to make them a distraction.
Talk to people working in the OCS itself and you’ll hear assurances that they are “improving” and “making progress”. Yet in the decade since the OCS was first established, the problems are worse than ever.
Charities are shut out of contracts, funding has fallen through the floor, private sector contractors hold non-profits by the throat and gagging clauses proliferate. Senior government officials continue to believe that campaign groups, charities and social enterprises are nothing more than a minor irritant. And many – including those supposedly representing charities to government – have shamefully accepted this status quo.
Crouch is the latest MP to step into this vale of tears. It is hardly a sticky wicket, for the post carries no expectations. Nick Hurd did about as much as he sensibly could before political machinations forced him out. His successor, Brooks Newmark, was sacked for a saucy sext. Rob Wilson was so underwhelming that Number 10 kept him in position. You have to be blind not to see it: the office is in crisis.
The sad thing is that there are still people on the ground who believe the position means something. Many charities will accept this farce in return for a visit or a line in a press release.Surely it is time to acknowledge that such patronage is unworthy of our sector? The inescapable conclusion of all of this is that government holds the sector in contempt. It warms people up with wheedling words and does precisely nothing. And unless charities get angry about this – really angry – and demand change, they and the people they help will continue to be ignored by this and every other government that follows.
Charities understand the spirit of civic action better than any politician. Our lives are spent at the heart of brilliant, angry and motivated communities. Now, for the first time in a long time, we have the advantage.
It’s time to use it.
Stop tugging forelocks to Whitehall and demand proper representation at the heart of government. Demand that Crouch listens and explains her plan for the sector. Insist that she reports directly to the prime minister and has an adviser on call at the top table. Hold her to account and demand her removal if she goes nowhere. You want change? Good: so does everyone else. With government in chaos, we need to take back control.
Asheem Singh is the former deputy chief executive of Acevo and author of The Moral Marketplace (Policy)
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