To say that some charities shouldn’t exist?

[YourJadeSeal]

Shouldn’t governments take responsibility for things like homelessness and food banks instead of relying on charity?

This.

I don’t think anyone on here is saying that anything worth doing by a charity should be done by a government. That’s a rather extreme position that no one is taking.

But government should be covering the basics, as they used to. One of the many problems that austerity has created ia a spiral of decline, where businesses don’t invest:

"We don't do charity in Germany. We pay taxes"

And various other posts.

It’s a quote by someone else making the point that charity should not be compensating for failures of the state to provide services that should be funded by taxation.

Here's two more:

"Until we have the perfect government we need the charities"

"When I grew up, in a northern European country, charity was almost a dirty word, and a concept which was broadly agreed to be synonymous with a government's dereliction of duty."

Whenever people say “the government should take responsibility for/pay for/provide…”, substitute “the taxpayer” for “the government” and ask yourself how much more tax you are prepared to pay/can afford. And don’t be fooled by the “make business pay more tax” nonsense. The only way they will pay more is by taking more from the customers and employees.

Many British people want five star facilities on a two star budget.

I would pay more tax for decent facilities and a functional NHS. Imagine a country where stuff just works. I’m not happy with living in a backward hellhole,

So. What’s your point?

This is tiresome. Go and read your first post after mine.

If I think about charities not being "needed", in the context of the charity I volunteer for, I'd say that it's too simplistic to expect Government (ie. the taxpayer with the government as the administrator of tax) to solely be responsible for all the problems of the country.

I agree government should be tackling the root causes of societal scourges such as poverty, homelessness, crime (all of which are strongly linked), so that more people are pulled out of poverty and don't need to go to food banks. Eliminating all these problems is never going to happen, so charities have to work with government.

what I see is a blame-game, people blaming government for not "fixing" everything instead of seeking to understand the role of charities in society. For example, we do a lot of signposting towards government aid and available funding based on eligibility, because our clients are often inaware of what they're entitled to, don't want to go on benefits (too proud, things they're not worthy, think others have greater problems that themselves), and need support to set them on the right track. We encourage them to use the ringfenced funding available in the NHS for counselling, we give them the dignity to help themselves and in a lot of cases, all they need is to be pointed in the right direction and given encouragement, to get their life back on track.

good charities like the one I volunteer for, need to be recognised for the benefits they bring, rather than being seen as a negative.

@daisychain01 charities such as yours are invaluable IMO. Any organisation that encourages some self help and personal responsibility would get my support.

People like you aren’t interested in a nuanced debate - you just jump on here to polarise and sidetrack. I’m interested in solutions so I’m not going to respond to you any more.

All very well, but all this signposting wasn’t needed before 2010 ish, so is it not reasonable to question why? Have the systems the public are supposed to engage with if they get into difficulty become too complex, or difficult to find?

Charities delivering this kind of help absolutely should be feeding back to government on how they can improve their systems. It’s a problem when charities are funded by government because we then get into gagging clauses that prevent them being open about the system flaws.

I think that the right wing press have fanned the flames of stigma around claiming benefits too, which have made things worse. I don’t claim benefits but if people need them, it needs to be as straightforward as possible.

@user1467300911 actually it was. I worked in local government from the 1990s through to mid 2000s, and a lot of signposting was necessary. The CAB, Shelter, Age Concern (now Age UK), charities that provided cheap, sometimes free, furnishings, and even the odd foodbank or organisations providing free or cheap meals.

Before I worked in local government, I had no knowledge of benefits or the welfare system. When DH was seriously ill in the early 1990s, and getting basic sickness benefit, he was advised by the DSS that was all he was entitled to because I was working. We took that at face value. A year later, after major surgery, a hospital social worker told him he’d have to stop claiming the then equivalent of DLA/PIP. He wasn’t aware he was entitled, and should have claimed. With the right sign posting, he’d have had what he was entitled to.

Me too, but a lot of people don't think that way. I'd vote for a party that said they would raise income tax, but I don't think I'm in the majority.

Yes this happened to me when I went through cancer treatment including 6 months of chemo. Like you I’d never had any contact with the benefits system. I have since discovered that I could probably have claimed and received contribution based ESA but wasn’t aware. Now CAB workers are working/available in my local Macmillan centre and if patients wish they can see someone for a benefits check there. At least they are made aware now.

What's muddied the waters is that government has been funding charities to get them to carry out government initiatives (and indirectly control the charity).

There's various reasons why it makes a lot of sense for governments to funded charities to deliver services.

In some cases the charities can just do a better job of helping the right people - they're better connected to the communities in need and understand what the support is going to help

Sometimes charities can be more nimble so can respond to need faster than the government trying to do it themselves.

Sometimes charities will gain trust from people that a government service would struggle to achieve.

Sometimes there's a benefit to a service being delivered independently of government - e.g. advice services and legal aid that can be involved in directly challenging government decisions - basically the government is paying the charities to help hold it to account.

There are definitely issues with charities feeling that government funding inhibits what else they can do (particularly when it comes to being critical of the government) - this needs to be looked at, as does the Lobbying Act which has a chilling effect on charities speaking out. But it shouldn't mean that charities don't get government funds.

For example: Citizens Advice Bureaux get about 2/3rds of their funding from central and local government - but it absolutely makes sense that CABs are independent of, not part of, the apparatus of government.

I work for a charity that provides advice services and I sometimes sit next to our advice caseworkers in the office. I overheard a call the other day where the person being supported was basically destitute because he didn't know he was eligible for benefits - he wasn't a complex case in terms of eligibility he just had zero understanding of the system and mental health issues that made it difficult for him to navigate it - he really just needed someone with the time and patience to hand-hold him through the process and that call completely changed his life.

Nonsense that signposting wasn't needed pre-2010.

We've had signposting services as long as we've had a welfare state. Citizens Advice was established in the 1930s precisely to do this, facilitated by the government who recognised the need for this kind of support, and has been supported by government funding (mostly) since then.

Our history - Citizens Advice

I admire what you do, but even good work should be looked at critically.

My local Citizens Advice gets one third of its funding from council tax payers, and has grown massively since 2010. More staff, more funding, more contact hours, more specialists, office space.

…so it feels reasonable to question whether some of this need for advice could be designed out, maybe by simplifying the benefits system. .

The charity I volunteer for (SSAFA)has been around a lot longer than 2010 - 1885 to be exact)! It's the oldest tri-service military charity, founded by James Gildea who recognised that Service Personnel ( primarily males ) would go off on Ops leaving behind their wife and children with absolutely no financial support. Over the decades it has evolves to become the focal point for all military charities, giving financial, emotional and practical mentoring support.

It's far too simplistic to place a blanket criticism onto government.

Surely the Universal credit system is a simplified approach, harmonising numerous benefits into one process. It isn't that complex. One of my clients received their assessment and was on the UC benefit within 3 weeks. I supported and encouraged them to do what they deserved. Arguably I got them onto the benefit by giving them greater bespoke mentoring than the Govt offers but that's why we exist. I would not want our charity to cease the work we do. We operate in an imperfect and complex world, because our clients have complex needs that we support by making ourselves their single point of entry so theyre not bounced from pillar to post.

Throwing money at charities isn't an alternative to making the benefit system easier to navigate. We need a system that works smoothly for most people, most of the time.

But even when things are working well, some people will need someone to advocate for them when the government gets it wrong.

Some people are just so overwhelmed by it all they'll turn up with a mountain of letters and forms and they just need someone who they trust to sit with them and go through it one step at a time.

Often people are scared that if they speak to someone official they will take money away from them or penalise them in some way (and they're often not wrong to feel that way) - they just need someone who they feel is on their side that can guide them through it all.

It's work that often the government can't do or at least can't do well - and they're often happy to pay someone else to do it either because it's just the right thing to do to ensure people are getting the help they are entitled to, or because it makes economic sense because people will otherwise find their situation getting worse which costs the government more in the long term in terms of homelessness, health, social care, criminal justice, etc.