Voluntary sector's vital role should be powerfully extended

OVER the past two years, Reform Scotland has published a series of reports outlining the policies needed to deliver more effective public services. A recurring theme in all of them has been devolution of power.

The key to creating a better, fairer society, we argue, is to ensure that power is exercised by people, or as close to them as possible, so that they and local communities assume greater responsibility for their own development. This enables them to choose their own goals and how they might be achieved rather than have government choose for them.

The voluntary, or third, sector is vital to this transformation because its independence allows it to adopt innovative and imaginative solutions to social problems, unfettered by governmental or political pressures.

The diversity of the third sector and approaches open to it are its great strengths. It often finds new and better ways of doing things, bringing enormous benefits to society and offering users of public services a wider range of choice. Voluntary provision is frequently more compassionate because it is administered more personally and, because it is often rooted in communities, it helps them to take greater control.

This in turn strengthens the social fabric by fostering communities within which people come together to meet the needs of neighbours. It not only benefits those who use its services, but also those who provide them by giving people the opportunity to be of service to others.

Already, third-sector organisations play a hugely important role in Scottish life, with more than 45,000 voluntary bodies operating with an annual turnover of 4.1 billion and employing five per cent of Scotland's paid workforce. Some 1.3 million also give their time freely as volunteers.

The sector is diverse, including national charities, community groups and social enterprises. While it is most often associated with the provision of welfare services, it also plays a vital role in many other areas including the arts, sport, heritage, healthcare and the environment.

By ending public-sector monopolies in public services and creating a level playing field, the third sector would have the opportunity to play a much greater role in delivering public services in Scotland.

Individuals will look to third-sector providers because they frequently offer more personalised, compassionate and innovative approaches. Reform Scotland's proposals to reform education would enable third-sector organisations to set up new independent, publicly-funded schools for parents seeking an alternative to local authority provision.

And in healthcare, Reform Scotland has advocated that all hospitals and community healthcare providers become independent, not-for-profit trusts. Such bodies would become part of the third sector and third- sector organisations would also be able to set up new bodies providing healthcare.

All this would expand greatly the role of the third sector in Scotland and create a genuine, publicly-funded alternative to public-sector provision.

Today Reform Scotland suggests that one way to enhance this role would be to extend the provision of self-directed help. This is a type of personal budget or voucher currently available from local authorities to a wide range of disabled people and the elderly, enabling them to purchase the community care which they have been assessed as needing.

Self-directed help gives individuals the power to choose the best social care for their needs, regardless of whether that treatment is provided by the public, private or voluntary sectors.

• Alison Payne is research director of Reform Scotland.