Good stories from the Tories

Dave, the site's editor, told me today that I was becoming a 'charity nerd.' Having written the following blog entry, I'm afraid he was right. I will now buy thick spectacles and an anorak. [It was just a matter of time. And incidentally, that is David Cameron, right, not Adam - Ed.]

Yesterday, I went to a discussion hosted by the Conservative party's Social Justice Policy Group. It was about the role charities play in fighting poverty, and was designed to explore some of the issues arising from volume six (yes, six) of their report, Breakdown Britain.

Top of the Policy Group's list of complaints is the contention that government agencies micromanage the contracts they have with charities. This, so the report's authors say, means that charities can't function properly, and are treated as just another branch of the public services - something which ignores the sector's unique strengths.

On top of this, problems with "full-cost recovery" [getting payment for the full costs, not just core costs, of a project] mean that voluntary income is often used to make up for the shortfalls of contract payments. This undermines donors' trust in charities per se [except most donor's aren't aware of this - Ed].

Finally, the report argues that government needs to give more money to charities, but to do so more intelligently. Indeed. There needs to be less micromanagement, it argues, and there needs to be a new approach that places less emphasis on targets, and more on sustainable, long-term contracts.

The report looks impressive and reads well. Certainly, the authors have put a lot of time and effort into preparing it. Whether its conclusions are the correct ones is something I'll have to leave to others to judge, for now.

But the important thing - and something that filled me (and fellow attendees) with confidence - was the seriousness with which the Conservatives were taking the sector, and their realization that it plays a vital part in public life.

All we have to wait for now is for the Group's next report - in which they'll face the challenge of turning the report into hard policy.