The strange death of volunteer Wandsworth

The chart above shows the catastrophic collapse in the number of voluntary sector organisations registered with the council recent years. In 2002 there were 446 such organisations - last year just 23. That's a 95% decline in six years.

Wandsworth has a record of heaping services most councils elsewhere in the country provide themselves onto voluntary sector providers - but despite bearing far more responsibility for services volunteers have still seen grant-funding from the Conservatives locally slashed: and that is the principal reason for this massive decline.

I actually support the principle of encouraging local volunteers to provide services for their community: they are more in touch with those whose needs they serve, can often provide more efficient services better tailored to the individual needs of their clients. But the Conservatives see the voluntary sector as a means of providing services on the cheap. It's just not right.

There is a consequence here: a strong voluntary sector helps build strong communities which are concerned not just about themselves but about how their neighbours are doing too. The Conservatives don't understand why that matters - they don't believe there's such a thing as society, after all.