The third sector is not only critical to the future of service delivery. It is the beating heart that makes our towns, villages and rural areas attractive places people want to live in, says Nicola Bulbeck

Slashing is the new hacking in the media quest for hot news reporting, but of a more socially and morally-responsible flavour.

You will have read the headlines, heard the radio interviews. We are all ‘slashing voluntary sector funding!’

The media characterise this as fat-cat bureaucrats protecting their own jobs by picking on the defenceless, threadbare, hard-working voluntary sector.

The third sector can lobby and central government can tut-tut disapprovingly and keep its hands clean but, of course, the reality of the matter is very different and very local. Our funding really has been ‘slashed’.

All councils are having to find different and more cost-effective ways of doing things. All councils are having to stop doing some things. That is local people making local choices.

At the district level, we are the local voice. We are the champion of our communities, and we have been decentralising and devolving for years. Our members live on their patch, know the issues and understand the real-life impact of spending choices.

In much the same way that, for the Government of the day 20 years ago, the private sector was the answer, ‘neighbourhoods’ are the answer today. Whatever we do, the view seems to be that somebody else could do it better.

So, we are told to divest ourselves of our services and devolve them to local communities and individuals.

So far, our local choices in Teignbridge and Torridge have enabled us to protect funding for the third sector. Yes we have had to make other hard choices, and there are more to come.

However, we see the third sector as not only critical to the future model of service delivery promoted by the Government, but also as providing the beating heart which makes our towns, villages and rural areas places people want to live in and visit.

These are the organisations that employ local people, support vulnerable residents, work with young people, protect the local environment, bring culture and life to our towns and villages, and many other things.

These organisations are local people who are stepping-up, taking control, mobilising, running their own communities and helping others less able.

Can the third sector expect to emerge unchanged from these troubled times? Well, clearly not. We have already started conversations about how we will help local people to have the capacity and capability that the Government aspires for them.

Yet they too are going to have to face a loss of sovereignty as they co-locate, combine their back-office functions, and amalgamate with other groups which were previously probably ‘the competition’. Change happens. It affects us all. And the third sector needs to rise to that challenge too. There is a place for lobbying and campaigning to protect funding streams, but there is also a place for ‘grown-up’ conversations which accept the reality of where we all are and how we can all work together to make the best of a bad job..

Nicola Bulbeck is joint chief executive of Torridge and Teignbridge DCs