Society daily: 26.07.10

Inside a charity shop — Many charities feel powerless to complain about the cuts. Photograph: Don McPhee

All today's top Society news and comment

Rape charge anonymity pledge dropped after MPs' protests

Care home worker jailed for alleged sex abuse sees sentence cut

Social housing firm shares crash after public spending clampdown

Editorial: The Spirit Level has spooked the Right

Madeleine Bunting: the Coaltion aide policy is quintessential Cameroonia

Chris Ford: Stop the interfering, methadone works

All today's Society Guardian stories

Other news

• A leading social landlord says housing associations and councils should be required to join a national scheme that would allow their tenants to move more easily from one part of the country to another, reports the Financial Times

• Thousands of speed cameras will be switched off after a 40% cut in the funding handed to councils for road safety, says the Daily Mail

• NHS foundation trusts will get freedom to maximise private income and borrow from the money markets, under proposals put forward today by health secretary Andrew Lansley.

• Between eight and ten health quangos are to be scrapped, including the Health Protection Agency and the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, the Department of Health has announced.

Society Guardian weekend highlights ... in case you missed them

Local Charity cuts jeopardise Big society

Thousands of British girls face genital mutilation

NHS wasted "hundreds of millions" on private providers, says Lansley

All Sunday's Society Guardian stories

All Saturday's Society Guardian stories

Little evidence of support for charities

You may have seen my Guardian news story on Saturday about how grant cuts to many local charities threatened to undermine the "Big society". A few reflections on my researches:

1./ I've seen little evidence that councils (or Whitehall) have done much so far to assess the strategic value of local charities and community groups, either in providing services, enhancing statutory services, or creating social capital.
2./ As as consequence quite a few charities that have demonstrated impact and value (and been lauded by ministers for doing so) still face serious cuts.
3./ The Compact seems to be dead in the water. If Capita or Serco had been treated in the same way as some charities have over funding, councils and the government would be facing a fair few law suits.
4./ Many charities feel powerless to complain about the cuts and are reluctant to speak out in case they are singled out for more pain.
5./ The way in which the cuts have been carried out has hugely dented trust in the government Big society idea.

There's a sense that if some on the right get the important support role of small charities and state funding in Big society – Nick Hurd, for example – many do not. Karl Wilding of NCVO tweeted this piece on the Conservative Home blog, which gives you a flavour of some of the contradictory and muddled mainstream right-of-centre thinking. This holds that (a) charities should not be providing public services anyway, so if their grant is cut, so what? (b) ok, maybe charities are better at public services than the "monolithic" state, but the taxpayer shouldn't properly fund them because they will become corrupted; and (c) if the charities are really good at what they do, they won't be cut ... er, will they?

Last week a senior manager in a national charity told me that he'd realised the Tories "didn't actually see charities as partners". What he meant was that for all the rhetoric, they instinctively really didn't like or trust charities. They may not be part of the state, but they'd been living off the state, which made them suspect, and were most likely full of Guardian-reading lefties. As you can see from the Conservative Home blog post comments, the debate about broader societal role of charities and community groups quickly gets lost in a welter of pet hates and loathing for human rights charities and community arts projects.

None of this bodes well for Big society.

• Is your charity of small community group in danger of losing its grant funding? Tell us (confidentially) at Guardian.co.uk/cutswatch

Society Guardian blogs

Joe Public

Sarah Boseley's global health blog

Guardian awards

Guardian Public Services awards 2010

Guardian charity awards 2010

Society Guardian social enterprise summit

We are starting to plan this year's Society Guardian Social Enterprise Summit. Last year's summit was a great success - you can read about it here. Once again we are looking to showcase inspiration, innovation and practical ideas on how social enterprises can deliver public services. Whether you are from the public sector or from a social business, we want you to tell us who you'd like to see and what you would like to see discussed. Email to charmian.walker-smith@guardian.co.uk. You can Follow Guardian Social Enterprise on Twitter