Nonetheless, many critics do not believe that Labour delivered on the promises it set out in the ‘third way’ or for the voluntary sector as a whole. For example, the emphasis on contracting bought to the fore a focus on the relationship between government and the voluntary sector. The implementation of the Compact, which was set to provide a framework for the relations, appeared to lack impetus at points. Established in 1998, it took until 2002 for a senior civil servant to assume responsibility for the Compact, thus demonstrating its lack of political priority. It then took until 2003 for the completion of underpinning codes, until 2006 for the appointment of a commissioner and until 2007, a full nine years after the initial Compact was launched, for the Commission for the Compact to be established, a bespoke agency, which tried to meet a number of targets already missed (Zimmeck, 2010). It took a total of ten years from the launch of the Compact for the first Local Compact Annual Conference to be held and it was not until 2009 that the final local Compact was signed, which was a full five years later than the target date. In her examination of the history of the Compact, Zimmeck (2010) argues that the government failed to recognise the size of the task before them and provided insufficient financial investment, lacked meaningful engagement and failed to ‘establish the credibility of arrangements for evaluating and resolving problems’ (Zimmeck, 2010: 127). Carrington (2002) agrees, suggesting that the government did not show ‘visible and enthusiastic engagement’ (p 5) with the Compact and therefore undermined its credibility. Undermining credibility further internal governmental decisions such as the government terminating the ‘Campaigning Research Programme’, ‘without warning and without consultation, shortly after naming the grant winners’, (Zimmeck, 2010: 127) fundamentally went against the principles of the Compact. Secure funding agreements, which lasted for a minimum of three years in term and delivered full cost recovery, were central themes to the Compact. However, in 2007 the Commission for the Compact identified that only 54% of government contracts met this target (Diamond, 2007: 7) and 68% of charities reported having funding agreements of less than a year (Charity Commission, 2007a: 14). Alongside this in 2006, only 12% of charities reported achieving full cost recovery across all of their services, while 43% said that they had not achieved full cost recovery in any of their services (Charity Commission, 2007a: 10).
In summary, Labour’s commitment to the third sector, to the policy development of the ‘Third Way’ and to the promotion of the mixed welfare state as a way of achieving this brought the voluntary sector to the centre of public policy. However, underpinning this was an accountability driven discourse that focused on outputs and outcomes. The development of this focus on outcomes as a ‘what works’ approach gave charitable organisations the opportunity to start bidding and tendering for services previously delivered by the state (Alcock and Kendall, 2010) through commissioning processes (explored in further depth in Part III). Nonetheless, the policy for an increased involvement by the voluntary sector in service delivery coupled with a local governance agenda to evolve the role of the voluntary sector in promoting citizenship and civic engagement was firmly established (Alcock and Kendall, 2010). The significant financial investment in, and the infrastructure development of, the voluntary sector attempted to make a reality of Blair’s vision statement in 1998, when promoting support for the voluntary sector: ‘They [voluntary sector organisations] enable individuals to contribute to the development of their communities. By so doing they promote citizenship, help to re-establish a sense of community and make a crucial contribution to our aim of a just and inclusive society’ (Home Office, 1998: 1).
Despite the outlined issues and criticisms, throughout the 13 years in which Labour were in power, the voluntary sector and the state enjoyed an unprecedented close relationship. As argued, on election, Labour fought hard to present the ‘Third Way’ as new ideology which distanced it from previous Labour governments and the previous Conservative administration. However, though it is likely, as Alcock (2011) identifies, ‘history may judge the New Labour era to have been a high-water mark in partnership between the state and the sector’ (p 179) the distance between the ‘Third Way’ and the ‘Big Society’ is not as great as it would first appear. Therefore, in 2010, when Labour lost the general election and the Conservative-led Coalition came into power what really changed for relationship between the state and the voluntary sector? We explore this in depth in Chapter 2.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have outlined how policy and the governance of interdisciplinary discourse latterly emerged and became a particular configuration of Blair’s New Labour Modernisation agenda. The immediate background to this is illustrated by what was termed ‘the new children’s workforce’ (Barker, 2009) whereby policy named a wide variety of careers and jobs from both statutory and voluntary services. The consequence (or enactment) of these policies involved changes in emphasis in the way accountability, participation and inclusion were managed. In theory, the aim of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) was to provide an assessment tool that could be used by non-social work professional employees in education, children’s social care, health and allied professions. The introduction of the Common Assessment Framework and the Every Child Matters agenda marked an intent by government to ensure that agencies worked together in meeting the needs of all children. Its emphasis was corporate responsibility for all children with the intention of safeguarding children and early intervention when necessary, rather than reacting with too little too late after neglect had taken place.
As we have explored in this chapter, Labour’s initiatives, reforms, policies and services for children, young people and families centred on the concept of social exclusion (Artaraz et al, 2007). There were several influential factors, which underpinned this, one of which was the ongoing and recognised poor performance by the UK in terms of Child Poverty in comparison to European counterparts. In 2007, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) published the much-debated report, Child Poverty in Perspective. This report suggested that children in the UK were among the unhappiest, most materially impoverished and suffering the poorest relationships within Europe. Having pledged in 2000 to eradicate child poverty by 2020 this was a difficult political blow for the Labour government, who had dedicated a significant amount of political attention to tackling social exclusion as a means of eradicating poverty. However, this ranking used data collected in 2000. An updated version of this research based predominantly on data collected 2009 to 2010 indicated an improved position with UK rising from 21st out of 21 in 2000/2001 to a mid-table position of 16th out of 29 in 2009/2010 (UNICEF, 2013).
With the continued rising concerns about poverty and the long-term impacts of social exclusion, the national government and local authorities sought to provide preventative interventions for children considered to be socially excluded, and thus likely to experience negative outcomes as an adult, to divert them instead onto an inclusive trajectory. As part of the response to this problem, Labour launched two central programmes, Sure Start and the National Children’s Fund programme. The Sure Start programme was established in 1998 with the aim of ‘giving children the best possible start in life’ by increasing and improving childcare, early education and access to family support (Glass, 1999). Targeted at families with children aged 0 to 5 the programme particularly focused upon outreach and community development work. Initially planned as a ten-year programme of support through nationally-controlled