Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- one The voluntary sector: contested or strategic ground?
- two The changing face of welfare and roles of voluntary organisations
- three Researching the voluntary sector
- four Dilemmas of market ideology: the impact of growing competition in two urban areas
- five Performance and shifting accountabilities: from trust-base to regulated inter-organisational relationships
- six Collaboration in community-based projects: solutions or new organisational challenges?
- seven Community heroes, survivors or casualties? Exploring risk and resilience in the voluntary sector
- eight Advocacy and democratic participation in a changing environment: room for challenge?
- nine Values and visions for a future voluntary sector?
- References
- Index
five - Performance and shifting accountabilities: from trust-base to regulated inter-organisational relationships
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- one The voluntary sector: contested or strategic ground?
- two The changing face of welfare and roles of voluntary organisations
- three Researching the voluntary sector
- four Dilemmas of market ideology: the impact of growing competition in two urban areas
- five Performance and shifting accountabilities: from trust-base to regulated inter-organisational relationships
- six Collaboration in community-based projects: solutions or new organisational challenges?
- seven Community heroes, survivors or casualties? Exploring risk and resilience in the voluntary sector
- eight Advocacy and democratic participation in a changing environment: room for challenge?
- nine Values and visions for a future voluntary sector?
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Competition and outsourcing, as is evident from the last chapter, have been closely associated with an increase in regulation, detailed service specification, targeted outcomes and performance monitoring. As Chapter Two outlined, a gradual re-engineering of dominant organisational arrangements over some 25 years has produced a burgeoning of regulatory frameworks, and command and control forms of governance and management that have gradually had an impact on voluntary sector organisations (VSOs). From roughly 2007 onwards, government policies began to acknowledge an over-emphasis on regulation, professional standards and excessive performance targets and their potential to undermine the development of responsive local services. More latterly this is visible in the rhetoric of localism and criticism of big government. However, as outsourcing and contracts have expanded, the opportunities for locally designed service targets and community-level transparency in narratives around services appear more remote. There is a contradiction therefore between recent policy aspirations to reduce the burden of audit, while rapidly advancing the outsourcing of public services. The recent shifts are in how the sectors and players are being aligned in the chains of accountability.
This chapter discusses changing cultures of accountability and reporting and their effects on VSO activities. First it considers the more concrete effects of a growing performance culture on VSOs and insights that could be gained from a trust-based approach. It draws on a variety of examples from the studies outlined in Chapter Three to offer insights into ways that particular approaches to audit have become culturally embedded in expectations and organisational arrangements, posing problems for small VSOs. As the title of the chapter suggests, the chapter explores the changing nature of relationships between funders and VSOs; and using the lens of trust, highlights ways that differential power exercised through frameworks of performance management and regulation undermine open communication in inter-organisational relationships. Paradoxically, the means used to ensure accountability and manage risks for funders may increase risks of concealed service failures, while also impinging on voluntary sector (VS) autonomy. The final part of the chapter also discusses recent evidence to assess whether the rhetoric of localism and reducing the command and control culture of the state (Kendall, 2010) is bringing benefits to VSOs.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Voluntary Sector in TransitionHard Times or New Opportunities?, pp. 97 - 122Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2013