Gareth Thomas, the new shadow minister for civil society, says government cuts to public funding “risk seeing philanthropic donations being used simply to help organisations survive”. He says this is a very different from Labour’s plans “to encourage philanthropy to help the third sector to expand”.

He is sceptical of the government’s Big Society plans. “No one can volunteer at a library or a Sure Start centre if it's being closed down. And nor can this Conservative-led government build a Big Society while simultaneously undermining its foundations with billions of pounds worth of cuts to the voluntary sector.”

Thomas, a teacher before becoming an MP at the age of 29, says: “The voluntary and community sector needs to have a support framework and to have the ability to work in partnership with government. It doesn’t need any more empty words and vague ambitions for a ‘Big Society’.”

As a former minister in the department for international development, Thomas worked closely with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He says: “I saw at first hand the excellent work the foundation was doing as a result of philanthropy, for example in its work to combat Malaria.”

He argues that the government should be working to encourage philanthropy by offering tax incentives but should at the same time be “ensuring that all citizens pay their fair share of taxes”.

Thomas welcomes the development of social investment bonds as an extension of Labour’s plans to boost funding for the third sector. He says: “We designed and were ready to launch the social investment wholesale bank and indeed launched the first social impact bonds.”

However, he warns that the sums involved will be very small “in the face of tens of billions of pounds in spending cuts, and billions more that are likely to be cut from public service contracts the voluntary sector already holds”.

He says if Labour returns to power it will be interested in encouraging the further development of social finance initiatives. He also regrets the axing of the University Matched Funding Scheme, set up in 2008 by the last Labour government. This was a £200m fund set up to match philanthropic donations. The scheme was open to all English Higher Education Institutions and was credited with generating a 12% increase in donations.  

Report says Big Society will fail unless civil service changes: read more

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