Dear members
Thanks to Greg for starting this one off and thanks to Linda for replying
with something I can get my teeth into. Before I start getting hate mail I
should just say my reply is contains more than a little devils advocacy
because no one likes a boring debate and I'm not a professional- just a 26
year old, white, working class student annual income about £6000.
Ok lets get down to it then. Firstly let me say my gripe with the
voluntary sector (VS) is that they exacerbate the culture of victimisation
and compensation, they erode the fabric of civil society, they are loose
cannons, they are single issue gimme-gimmies, provide an inefficient
service and then try to make the rest of us 'normals feel guilty about it
all- and that's just to start with.
I'm sorry Greg and Linda but both your mails had that whining quality about
them that defined the VS as a victim of society, neglected and unloved.
Worse though is the feeling you give that somehow society should compensate
you both financially and socially for all the trouble you go to. Well I'm
sorry to disagree but you are not victims in all of this simply because
volunteers CHOOSE to do so- like I said before nobody forces a volunteer to
donate their time, money and energy. If, as a volunteer, you are finding
it too much then QUIT- that's right stop doing it or scale down your
activities. This really is the key point and the reason I get so irritated
no one asked them to help so that means no one is obliged to do anything.
This brings me onto the next points;
The reason why they erode civil society is that there are services that
people have asked for and which people are obliged to- ie. the public
services. Now we don't need to rehearse what VS groups can do that public
ones can't but the point here is legitimacy. One group is fully
accountable and one group is not- and lets not here any of that user led
accountability rubbish. If VS groups spent users money then that would be
fine but they are often spending everybody else's money. I say loose
cannons because rather than volunteer to work inside govt. itself most VS
groups are happier to carve out their own fiefdoms where they can gather
and exercise their own power. Face it the VS are probably worse than govt.
departments for territorial disputes and petty bickering. Instead of
helping the legitimate mechanism of government achieve a better service
incorporating the benefits of voluntary organisation and practice they seem
more happy applying for large chunks of public cash and justifying their
own expansion. In essence I see many voluntary groups as a
second 'unofficial' civil service who behave as deplorably in seeking to
justify the money they receive.
The gimme-gimme aspect annoys me to. They appears to be a never ending
stream of groups asking for something- hell we all know many of them
even 'deserve' what they ask for. My concern is rather basic but concerns
where it all comes from. Linda says she doesn't expect Govt. to pay but
finishes asking for financial support. Well if not the Govt. then where-
don't say donations because that is exactly the same place the Govt. gets
its money- from the people. Here we come back to legitimacy again VS
groups would take all the cash we could throw at them and for what- its
certainly not clear what achievements the VS has given, while it certainly
is clear the achievements they prevent by not working together and
arrogantly defending their little territories.
ineffective service applies more to some than others and this also applies
equally to the public sector but, once again, its all about legitimacy.
The difference is that one group is independently audited for value for
money and proper practice and the other is self regulated with all the
scope for abuse that's implied. We don't like industry self regulation
because they have a habit of being self serving- is the VS by some cosmic
law any different?
I will be the first to congratulate volunteers on the countless hours they
put in and, however inefficient, the real benefits people take from them.
What I won't do is A) feel obliged to pay for it or B) give them anymore
respect than say a teacher (also a group who get little respect these days)
or a parent (another long suffering group) or indeed any of the rest of
society who make sure the world keeps turning.
My proposals would be to have people volunteering for Govt. instead of
working with Govt. so that we could start to dismantle the oppositional or
sycophantic nature of current relationships. This would give both sides an
insight into the difficulties and benefits of each other, bringing people
back to Govt. and Govt. back to the people, reinvigorating a sense of stake-
holding in democracy so lacking at present. In short to get some real
joined-up government on the ground.
One final word about the style of this message. I have deliberatly kept
the language confrontational to try and get people's juices flowing, so
please no one take this personally.
The one thing I'm sure about is that my arguements are there to be
challenged so lets keep the replies interesting eh.
Thanks for everyones time again.
Tim
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