Are local voices disappearing?

I’ve been thinking again recently about why it matters when a local voluntary organisation loses a contract to an agency from outside the area. The service will continue and may well be delivered to a high standard – one would certainly hope that any agency winning a tender or competitive bid has been able to demonstrate a commitment to quality. Many of the same staff will probably remain in post having transferred across to the new provider. So what is lost?

Surplus that could have been earned by a local organisation to build its capacity to deliver additional benefits in Oxfordshire might end up being used in some other part of the country entirely. But let's face it, there’s probably not much surplus around these days.

More importantly, if leaders and managers are not transferred across with the service because management now happens somewhere else we could be losing local voices. This is even more the case if the local organisation closes and a whole management committee disbands. Who will now attend and speak up at meetings? Who will represent the organisation and its users on local partnerships? Will strong relationships that have been built up over the years between local providers be lost? What happens to the informal connections that used to happen because of physical proximity?

I am not a conspiracy theorist but in dark moments I wonder if what I am describing here as a loss is actually seen as a gain by some funders. Little by little we may end up losing the stroppy people. But they are usually stroppy for a reason – they feel passionately about the wellbeing of their clients and service users. I'm sure that is equally true of many people working in statutory bodies but we don't always hear such strong messages from them.