ARVAC Bulletin 101

Future Directions

“Policy making that is supported by high quality research is key to the successful delivery of Home Office aims and objectives.” These words were written by Paul Goggins, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State with responsibility for the voluntary and community sector, in this very publication in February. The Home Office has since been described as the worst-performing Whitehall department and every week seems to bring with it new revelations of dramatic failings of Home Office policy. This, together with other incidents, does not instill great confidence in the Home Office’s use of high quality research and leaves us wary of government departments as funders of research activity. Despite the importance that Mr Goggins attached to community research in his article, the Home Office saw fit to discontinue ARVAC’s core funding. Paul Goggins has since moved on. So has the responsibility in Government for the voluntary and community sector, and so now must we.

Given the recent blow I suggest that now is not the time to start pushing in a new direction but instead I suggest we remain still for a moment and to initiate a debate about where we go from here. I would think that this Bulletin might be a good vehicle for this debate and I would like to encourage all its readers of this bulletin to engage in this debate.

Personally I feel that we are witnessing the direct result of heavy reliance on funding from a government department. I suggest that the difficulties we find ourselves in now should be taken as a painful wake up call and that it should galvanise us to move into the direction of more independence.

Academics and activist like Peter Beresford have been telling us for some time now that many big voluntary bodies are now led by figures from the state and private sectors who are transferring their cultures rather than cultivating the values of voluntarism. They also suggest that as voluntary organisations have become more involved in providing services in a contract culture, they are less able to offer the advocacy that has historically been key to their independent role. I suggest that not only the independence of the voluntary and community sector is under threat but also the independence and integrity of research undertaken with and within the sector. The reasons for this would appear fairly similar.

Talk of the independence and integrity of research does not imply a wish to return to the search for the mythical beast of the truly independent researcher. This beast has been slain a long time ago. Instead the sort of independence referred to here is the independence from the distortions of research by the funders and purchasers of the research. I suggest that we have to be wary of government departments and also of those who distribute their funds as these often appear to be tied to agendas which have not come from the communities which become the subjects of such research. There is a need for clear independence in a field where the impact of research results and the agendas of research funders are so clearly linked and have so clearly a public impact. I suggest that a case is made to funders for a need to sustain high quality independent community research and that failure to do so might lead to the wrong questions being asked and many important questions not being asked at all.

We know that we cannot yet rely on the research councils and the higher education funding councils to support community research. Equally learned societies and universities are not queuing up to fund such research. Given the reservations I have voiced about government and government-related funding it would appear that for the time being we have to rely on philanthropic donations which are not tied to particular agendas for such research. The demand on those is high and we will need a very clear case.

We might also have to start by breaking the pattern Bob Holman once described in which controlling members of quangos, health boards, citizenship schemes, national voluntary bodies and hence the ones who are often defining the research agendas are appointed from among the privileged, who are distanced socially, financially and geographically from those at the hard end. This distance can also apply between researchers and the communities. A case for setting of community research agendas will need to take this into account. In order to break such patterns, reduce distance and combat the threat to independence, I am suggesting the collaboration of voluntary sector organisations services users and researchers. I suggest that the just distribution of power in the research process will improve our knowledge and contribute to making a recognisable and meaningful difference to the lives of the communities we serve.

I hope that this article might spark a wider debate which will explore dependence on funding from government agencies; distortion of community research agenda setting by agencies detached from those communities; and divisions between the communities, organisations and researchers. Such a debate might help ARVAC in setting its course for the future,

Jurgen Groltz is a reseach fellow at Roehampton University and a member of ARVAC’s management committee. He is writing in a personal capacity and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of ARVAC.

Responses to this article send to jurgengrotz@tiscali.co.uk will be included in Bulletin 102.