Community providers

The crisis at counselling service Relationships Aotearoa seems symptomatic of the way the Government deals with non-government social and community service providers.

Ideologically, it promotes social services being provided by nongovernment organisations, but the reality is an expectation they will provide services on the cheap, particularly with professional staff being paid considerably less than they would earn in a government agency.

Further, to receive government funding contracts these organisations are tied up with compliance requirements which are so prescriptive their character gets submerged to the extent they effectively end up functioning as a government department.

Most troubling is that NGOs are constrained from engaging in the vital civil society role of being a social conscience, holding governments to account for the affects of their policies on needy people. Victoria University research in 2013 found 51.6 per cent of 153 charities surveyed feared losing contracts as a result of criticising government actions. A concerning example of this was the proposed replacement of the Problem Gambling Foundation by the Salvation Army as the main provider of problem gambling counselling services.

The Government does not value the not-for-profit sector. Rather, it values profit-making property developers and multinational corporations.

Peter Matthewson, Avondale.