Government cuts will help set good charities free

A trade union front-group has inadvertently thrust a problem at the heart of our charitable sector into August's media vacuum . Though they want a debate about the government's cuts, the TUC's new toy False Economy and their latest report, How Charity Cuts Have Choked the Big Society has demonstrated the extent to which British charities rely on state funding.

The truth is that many of the groups mentioned by the False Economy report are little more than unaccountable and unelected arms of the state. These groups are reliant on public funds, and in the grand scale of our much-needed deficit reduction, the figure of £110m seems like a fair burden for this area of public spending to take. With the influence of government comes the burden of bureaucracy and waste. Attempts are being made to reduce both of those across Whitehall, so why not here as well?

These are not central government cuts, as the spin would lead you to believe. These small reductions in spending are the work of local councils who could just as easily cut their rather cosy top-end salaries, or set free a dozen of their press officers, or dip into those sacred reserves, or sell some assets.

The state is dragging down our domestic charitable sector, killing charity with kindness. If a group can depend on the constant supply of gold from upstairs, then they don't need to bother putting their full efforts into fundraising and therefore lose out on the accountability and trust that comes from loyal donors, willing to withdraw their support if unhappy with results.

Others have explained the concept of a fake charity in far more detail than I can here, but essentially any charity that claims more in government handouts than it does makes through its own fundraising efforts is not a charity. It is part of the state and should be subject to the same attempts to reduce the rate of state growth as any other part of government. Thousands of charities do just fine on their own.

So what is to be done? To be blunt, those charities that are unable to survive a reduction this modest are clearly unsustainable anyway. Its up to them to get back to basics and fundraise. Admittedly some may go under and while sad, with a heavy bureaucracy and back-end it's often inevitable. The good ones will prove to their donors that they are getting results, and will be rewarded.

The successful charities will survive and the doomed ones will die, but the causes need not die with them. More efficient, more effective successors will find their way through if the state isn't propping up a bad monopoly in a particular area. The competitors can always win over support by improving their results.

The British public are very good at giving when they want to give, but the rate at which they are doing so is falling.Trust is falling because many charity's are becoming dependent on, and therefore answerable to, the taxman rather than the taxpayer. Organisations that are true to the spirit of charitable giving will adapt and survive.

Funding measures should be based on results. Donors should be offered opportunities to give based on performance. Only when clear results are demonstrated, should promises of further funding be cashed in. As so often when its presence in a market is this powerful, the state chokes the little guy, smothering competition. The loosening of the state's strings are a liberation, not a declaration of war.

Harry Cole is the news editor of the Guido Fawkes' Blog and UK political editor of The Commentator. He tweets at @MrHarryCole

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the voluntary sector network, click here.