The Wardman Wire

You can debate this article in the forums.

Introduction by Matt Wardman

Recently the Von Hugel Institute Centre for the Study of Faith in Society published a report “Moral, but No Compass” commissioned by the Church of England.

Over the next several weeks, we will be publishing a number of articles from a range of viewpoints - aiming to get beyond the initial reactions which many commentators have felt obliged to publish without reading the document itself. Most of these initial reactions seem to be attempts to create narratives supporting existing positions. That is a criticism that I would extend to all over-rapid reactions - including those I agree with who have indulged themselves.

There is much there relevant to the policy research and formation process with respect to the Third Sector, as well as the position of Christian churches in the UK, and their relation to government. I’m hoping to obtain a very wide range of perspectives in this second “online symposium” (our first one back in February was about MP Pay and Expenses).

We start off with an overview from Simon Barrow, Co-Director of Ekklesia, which is this week’s Thinking Aloud column. You can debate this article in the forums.

Churches and Public Service

Some years ago, one of the authors of Moral, But No Compass, the hotly debated report on government, church and welfare, was in conversation with me about politics and theology. In the midst of an enjoyable discussion, I asked him whether he had read a particular book. “Read it?” he exclaimed, with mock incredulity, “I haven’t even lectured on it yet!”

The person concerned, I should stress, is very far indeed from the kind of academic who would actually do that – talk about something he or she hadn’t read. Sadly, that doesn’t apply to many of those who have pontificated on the new report to (not from) the Church of England over the past few days.

The Times newspaper, which broke its version of ‘the story’ on 7 June 2008, two days ahead of the report’s embargo, couldn’t even get its title or number of pages right. It was also quick to pass over a mass of inconvenient details (that is, the bulk of the actual research) in order to inflate the one or two phrases that could be stretched towards the kind of exaggerated confrontation that counts as ‘news’ these days.

A reasoned debate

But as the initial heat of opinion cools toward something like a reasonable temperature, the more enduring aspects of what is at stake in all this will hopefully come to the fore: namely, the question about whether, or how, faith-related voluntary organisations might have a role alongside others in shaping a ‘new deal’ on welfare public policy beyond the old shibboleths of nationalization and privatization – which none of the main parties see as overriding solutions any more. The ‘commissioning’ or ‘enabling’ state is all the rage, these days.

There remain strong differences of emphasis, to be sure. Moral, But No Compass points out that Labour is still wedded to “innovative public service reform” with a “tendency to centralised, mega-contracts in some government departments”. The Conservatives, on the other hand, want to develop a “responsible society” by ensuring the voluntary sector is once again “set free” to be itself without being over-regulated and over-burdened with bureaucracy.

The upshot is that the Tories are more favourably disposed to some elements of “faith-group participation” in welfare than Labour, says the report - though Mr Brown’s party seems perfectly well adjusted to church schools and willing to contemplate employment centres, care services and more being run by religious groups. Both parties, in different ways, are also part of the trend towards making what was once voluntary more and more ‘formal’, whether through regulation or commissioning. Perhaps, as has been suggested before, the Liberal Democrats will find a niche as a more concertedly secular party, though in an ‘open’ rather than a ‘narrow’ (French) sense.

Clashing perspectives

On the substantive issue – should churches and faith bodies be direct administrators and managers of public services paid for by taxpayers and intended “for all”? – opinion divides sharply. Moral, But No Compass has no qualms in principle, but acknowledges the potential difficulties (rather briefly) and says that government needs to recover “a principled approach” to public service reform grounded in “gift, covenant, advocacy and justice”. This, it believes, demands a richer appreciation of the “civic value” added to the life, identity and health of the nation by Christian institutions in partnership with the whole realm of civil society. It concludes, “Only then will the government truly recover a convincing moral direction and its badly needed compass.”

The British Humanist Association, on the other hand (which advocates an end to religious privilege in the public arena, but upholds an open model of secularism and is quite willing to collaborate with faith groups on common ground), came out with a report in 2007 that said a sharp “NO” to expanding the role of religious organisations within the public services. That, it believes, runs the risk of lowering standards, increasing inequalities, introducing ‘parallel services’ and damaging social cohesion.

The BHA’s Quality and Equality research (November 2007) warned of the dangers of discrimination against staff not protected by Employment Equality Regulations pertaining to religion or belief or sexual orientation, because of the exemptions that religious organisations have from equality legislation, and of potential barriers to accessing services for the general public. It has also called for clarity on charitable ‘public benefit’ and a more transparent tendering process for faith organisations commissioned into public service supply and delivery.

My own perspective on the question of churches and other faith groups being commissioned through different kinds of contracting arrangements into helping run general welfare programmes is ‘qualified scepticism’. I don’t rule out such participation in principle, especially in multi-faith contexts, provided all the boxes can be ticked on equality and non-discrimination. But I have doubts as to whether that will really be possible; major concerns about the ‘client state’ it creates; a feeling of growing concern over the continuing submergence of civic autonomy into a ‘professionalised’ third sector, and a strong sense that the church is losing its notion of what it means to be, well, church in the rush to find a new way of being ‘established’ now that the old one is running out of steam.

Some more equal than others?

Since these are massive questions, I will restrict myself to two preliminary areas of comment. First, on the equalities agenda. One of the best ‘models of good practice’ from a Christian organisation involved in public service provision and school academies is the charter produced by Faithworks - who have been willing to listen and learn in this debate, and who, in spite of the qualms that will have been felt by chunks of their evangelical constituency, backed the 2007 Sexual Orientation Regulations requiring equal treatment and provision for gay people.

The charter is an important document, because it sets out 15 principles which might be followed by other church and faith organisations working in the welfare arena. It is reproduced approvingly as an appendix in Moral, But No Compass and represents a considerable step forward in recognising the obligations placed upon those serving the public with public funds from a faith base. Nonetheless, such projects are often able to benefit from exemptions in the Employment Equality Regulations 2003, which means that preference can be given to religious employees over others because of ‘values’ and ‘ethos’ - a contested category which includes faith commitments. As a policy researcher pointed out to me recently, this has potentially severe repercussions if Christian organisations are increasingly commisioned to provide public services on behalf of the state.

For example, if huge chunks of JobCentre Plus are contracted out to the Salvation Army, then a large number of public sector jobs will end up being transferred – with people possibly being sacked, refused promotion or similar. No enforceable guarantees to the contrary have been given. There could also likely be a drop in the quality of services, since the pool of talent from which exemption-practicing faith organisations draw on is invariably smaller than one without such restrictions.

In a recent employment tribunal case in Wales, where a Christian disability charity was found to have constructively dismissed a (Christian) manager because he refused to implement a policy which discriminated against non-Christians, it was clear that there were simply not enough suitably qualified practising Christians to hire. A Church of England bishop similarly fell foul of such a tribunal recently, because of his rejection of a gay candidate for a youth post. So both the law and the way some religious groups currently think and behave raises severe questions.

Church as an agent of change

From another angle, that of value, I would also want to question why some in the churches appear so keen to get hold of public service contracts. In what way does becoming an ancillary arm of the state assist the Christian vocation? Is money, influence, ‘credibility’ and a ‘new client base’ really what the Gospel is about? The Christian message involves a social hope rooted in gratuity, forgiveness, inter-personal transformation, and the risky call to peace and justice-making in the pattern of Christ. I can think of hundreds of church and related bodies that enable this to happen. Indeed, both as an adult education adviser in Southwark Diocese in the 1990s and as a an ecumenical mission secretary with Churches Together in Britain and Ireland up to 2005, I have been directly involved in fostering and supporting creative Christian engagement with society.

In projects and initiatives concerned with homelessness, restorative justice, conflict transformation, development, economic empowerment, social care, community action, anti-poverty work, neighbourhood regeneration and public advocacy, the churches have played a massive (and often hidden) role over the years, as Moral, But No Compass points out. But in almost all cases I can think of, too close an involvement with the overwhelmingly ameliorative agenda of government and the ’service sector’ has posed problems and challenges for those who want to question, not simply sanction, the status quo, especially as it impacts the most vulnerable.

Equally, the disproportion of resources, capacity, orientation, remit and approach involved is often stark. The Church’s community development adviser I worked closely with in South London often used to speak of “oppression by projects”, by which she meant the tendency of voluntary activity to get weighed down, de-energised, de-radicalised and over-stretched by the temptation to institutionalise. This doesn’t mean that cooperation and partnership is not possible (the example of Praxis that I quoted over on the Guardian’s Comment-is-Free suggests it is). But even though the boundaries may remain tricky in certain instances, this is very different from becoming part of the system.

Wrapping up

The new Von Hugel report on church, government and social policy has strengths and weaknesses which need to be considered carefully (rather than reduced to sound bites) in the coming weeks. But before the churches rush in to solve their need to be needed by helping government to solve its capacity and credibility crises, more critical distance is required. For neither the government nor for faith communities is the new ‘welfare settlement’ decided, as Moral, But No Compass might seem to suggest. Indeed, it has very far to go.

———–

Simon Barrow is co-director of Ekklesia. He has authored Expanding Horizons: Learning to be the church in the world (Southwark Diocese, 1995), ‘A friend indeed? The church’s caring role’ in (ed.) Michael Simmons, Street Credo: Churches and communities (Lemos and Crane, 2001), and ‘Redeeming religion in the public square’ (Ekklesia, 2006).