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Re-defining Voluntary Action

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Small Voluntary Organisations in the 'Age of Austerity'

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Abstract

In this chapter, I explore the social processes through which voluntary action came to be redefined in neoliberal terms from the 1970s onwards. This includes the creation of the VCSE sector as a unified entity separate from the public and private sectors. I discuss the creation of Local Strategic Partnerships to provide public services; the emergence of strategic lead organisations for the sector; and the growing linkages between academics, business and the state to frame a neoliberal evidence base. In the final sections, the connections between state policy and discourse and the organisational form of different kinds of VCSEs are examined.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Financial Times, 16 November 2015.

  2. 2.

    A professor at the University of Birmingham who was, until 2014, Director of the TSRC.

  3. 3.

    NCVO has a traditional view of social enterprises as VCSE sector trading organisations with profits that are not distributed but that serve their central mission (www.ncvo-vol.org.uk). In government publications and Ministers’ speeches, this definition has changed as a result of the introduction of the new business form of Community Interest Company. CICs can raise capped shares and distribute some profit provided that they retain a social purpose and reinvest the majority of profit.

  4. 4.

    www.dh.gov.uk

  5. 5.

    www.keepvolunteeringvoluntary.net

  6. 6.

    Speech 23 May 2011.

  7. 7.

    www.yougov.co.uk/news/2013/11/04/nationalise-energy-and-rail-companies-say-public/

  8. 8.

    Bourdieu (1993), ibid.

  9. 9.

    See also Will Hutton’s article (22 November 2015). Everything we hold dear is being cut to the bone. Weep for our country. The Guardian.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business, University of Greenwich, London, UK

    Pauline McGovern

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McGovern, P. (2017). Re-defining Voluntary Action. In: Small Voluntary Organisations in the 'Age of Austerity'. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52188-0_3

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