Table Of ContentVoluntary Organisations and Social Policy
in Britain
Voluntary Organisations
and Social Policy
in Britain
Perspectives on Change and Choice
Edited by
Margaret Harris
and
Colin Rochester
Selection and editorial matter © Margaret Harris and Colin
Rochester 2001. Individual chapters (in order) © Margaret Harris,
Colin Rochester and Peter Halfpenny; Nicholas Deakin; David
Billis; Duncan W. Scott and Lynne Russell; Colin Rochester;
Stephen P. Osborne and Kathleen Ross; Marilyn Taylor; Jeremy
Kendall and Martin Knapp; Diana Leat; David Lewis; David
Mullins and Moyra Riseborough; Margaret Harris; Justin Davis
Smith; Michael Locke, Paul Robson and Steven Howlett; Margaret
Harris 2001
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Voluntary organisations and social policy in Britain: perspectives on
change and choice
/edited by Margaret Harris and Colin Rochester.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-333-79314-5 (cloth)
1. Volunteers—Great Britain. 2. Associations, institutions, etc.—
Great Britain. 3.Great Britain—Social policy. I. Harris, Margaret,
1945– II. Rochester, Colin,
HN400.V64. V63 2000
361.3(cid:2)7(cid:2)0941—dc21 00–033360
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on the Contributors viii
List of Abbreviations xiv
1 Voluntary Organisations and Social Policy:
Twenty Years of Change 1
Margaret Harris, Colin Rochester and
Peter Halfpenny
2 Public Policy, Social Policy and Voluntary
Organisations 21
Nicholas Deakin
3 Tackling Social Exclusion: The Contribution of
Voluntary Organisations 37
David Billis
4 Contracting: The Experience of Service Delivery
Agencies 49
Duncan W. Scott and Lynne Russell
5 Regulation: The Impact on Local Voluntary
Action 64
Colin Rochester
6 Regeneration: The Role and Impact of Local
Development Agencies 81
Stephen P. Osborne and Kathleen Ross
v
vi Contents
7 Partnership: Insiders and Outsiders 94
Marilyn Taylor
8 Providers of Care for Older People: The Experience
of Community Care 108
Jeremy Kendall and Martin Knapp
9 Grant-Making Foundations: Policy Shapers or
Policy Takers? 124
Diana Leat
10 International Development NGOs: Policy Conflict
and Convergence 141
David Lewis
11 Non-Profit Housing Agencies: ‘Reading’ and
Shaping the Policy Agenda 154
David Mullins and Moyra Riseborough
12 Boards: Just Subsidiaries of the State? 171
Margaret Harris
13 Volunteers: Making a Difference? 185
Justin Davis Smith
14 Users: At the Centre or the Sidelines? 199
Michael Locke, Paul Robson and Steven Howlett
15 Voluntary Organisations in a Changing Social
Policy Environment 213
Margaret Harris
Index 229
Acknowledgements
This book rests on foundations laid by many hands.
We are especially grateful to our colleagues and students at
the LSE’s Centre for Voluntary Organisation. Their discussions
with us about the complex relationship between social policy
change and organisational issues in voluntary agencies stimu-
lated and informed our approach to the present volume.
The individual chapters began life as papers presented to the
Centre’s twentieth anniversary symposium held in September 1998.
They represent, however, only a small selection from a total of
thirty papers given at that meeting by scholars from many coun-
tries. Our collegiate debates over those two memorable days helped
the contributors to this particular book to revise their contribu-
tions for publication.
Finally, we wish to thank Irene Rochester, whose painstaking
and patient labours enabled us to present a finished typescript
to the publishers in timely fashion.
MARGARET HARRIS
COLIN ROCHESTER
vii
Notes on the Contributors
David Billis is Visiting Professor at Imperial College. In 1987
he founded PORTVAC, the first university-based programme
working with voluntary agencies and in 1987 he became Direc-
tor of the Centre for Voluntary Organisation at LSE, which built
on and incorporated the work of PORTVAC. He co-founded
the journal Nonprofit Management and Leadership. He has ex-
tensive research and consultancy experience in the public, private
and voluntary sectors in several continents and is author or co-
author of a number of books, including Welfare Bureaucracies
(1984), Organising Public and Voluntary Agencies (1995) and (edited
with Margaret Harris) Voluntary Agencies; Challenges of Organi-
sation and Management (1996).
Justin Davis Smith is Director of the Institute for Volunteering
Research, a joint initiative of the National Centre for Volun-
teering and the Centre for Institutional Studies at the University
of East London. His extensive research includes a 10 nation
European study of volunteering and recent commissions for the
Home Office and the United Nations. Publications include Vol-
unteering and Society (1992) and (as co-editor) An Introduction
to The Voluntary Sector (1995). He is editor of the journal Vol-
untary Action and co-founder and Honorary Secretary of the
Voluntary Action History Society.
Nicholas Deakin holds a Leverhulme Fellowship at the Local
Government Centre at Warwick University. Until 1998 he was
Professor of Social Policy and Administration at Birmingham
University, a post he had held since 1980. Previously he worked
in central and local government and at an independent research
institute. He has held numerous research grants and has written
viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
widely on urban policy, race relations and the voluntary sector.
He was Chair of the Commission on the Future of the Volun-
tary Sector 1994–96. Recent publications include The Enterprise
Culture and the Inner City (with John Edwards, 1993); a new
edition of his text The Politics of Welfare (1994), Contracting for
Change (with Birmingham colleagues, 1997) and The Treasury
and Social Policy (with Richard Parry, 2000).
Peter Halfpenny is Professor of Sociology and Director of the
Centre for Applied Social Research at the University of Man-
chester. His main interests in the voluntary sector revolve around
resourcing issues. He was responsible for the design and analy-
sis of the Charities Aid Foundation’s individual giving survey,
which ran for seven years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since
then, he has undertaken a series of studies of the determinants
of individual giving, giving by small companies, the income of
the UK Jewish voluntary sector, and the impact of funding changes
on the voluntary sector.
Margaret Harris is Professor of Voluntary Sector Organisation
at Aston University Business School and was formerly Assistant
Director of the Centre for Voluntary Organisation at the Lon-
don School of Economics. Before moving into academia she
worked in local government administration and research, and as
a volunteer adviser and trainer for the Citizens Advice Bureau
Service. She has researched and published numerous articles on
voluntary sector management, governing bodies and congregations
and other faith-based organisations. She edited (with David Billis)
Voluntary Agencies: Challenges of Organisation and Management
(1996) and is the author of Organising God’s Work (1998). She
is International Editor of the journal Nonprofit Management and
Leadership.
Steven Howlett is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for
Volunteering Research. He was previously Research Fellow at
the Centre for Institutional Studies at the University of East
London where he worked on a project to evaluate urban regen-
eration programmes in East London. Other research interests
have included the changing roles of voluntary organisations in
local service delivery and its implications for stakeholder groups
x Notes on the Contributors
and for local governance. He has also worked in local govern-
ment as an Economic Development Officer at Durham County
Council where he was involved in developing and implementing
projects to regenerate the East Durham coal field area.
Jeremy Kendall is Research Fellow at the Personal Social Serv-
ices Research Unit and the Centre for Civil Society at the London
School of Economics and Political Science. His research inter-
ests include the development of the mixed economy of social
care in the UK; the social, political and economic contributions
of the voluntary sector internationally; and the voluntary sector
in the UK in general. He has published (with Martin Knapp)
The Voluntary Sector in the UK (1996) and co-edited (with Perri
6) The Contract Culture in Public Services: Studies from Britain,
Europe and the US (1997). Recent journal articles include, with
Helmut Anheier, ‘The third sector and the European Union policy
process: an initial evaluation’, Journal of European Public Policy
(1999). He is editor of Voluntas, the international journal of
voluntary and non-profit organizations.
Martin Knapp is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the
Personal Social Services Research Unit at the London School
of Economics and Political Science. He is also Professor of Health
Economics, and Director of the Centre for the Economics of
Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry. His current research
is mainly concentrated on mental health services, the develop-
ing mixed economies of health and social care (particularly in
relation to community care), child social care and the voluntary
(non-profit) sector.
Diana Leat is Visiting Professor at VOLPROF, City University
Business School. She has held research and teaching posts in a
number of Universities and national voluntary organisations and
has written extensively on the voluntary sector and on social policy.
During 1999–2000 Diana held a fellowship in philanthropy with
Philanthropy Australia.
David Lewis is Lecturer in Non-Governmental Organisations at
the LSE’s Centre for Civil Society and convenor of the MSc in
the Management of NGOs. He has written extensively on NGOs
