Eddie Barnes: Even the do-gooding sector has its dross to bear

I THINK we can all agree that the world is full of dross plumbers. And dross electricians, and dross satellite dish– installers and dross gardeners.

Add to them dross human resource managers, dross environment protection officers and, yes, even dross journalists, and you can conclude that dross-ness pretty well afflicts every trade and profession out there. All except one that is. In Scotland's voluntary sector there are no dross workers at all. None. This at least is what the Labour Party appears to believe.

Its stance emerged following the latest set-to at the Scottish Parliament last week when SNP backbencher Rob Gibson had the temerity to declare that there were certain groups in Scotland's voluntary sector that were, well, dross. "Many of these organisations have grown like Topsy and someone has to say 'we need to look at this now and we have to make sure they're doing a job for the community'," he declared. "At long last we've lifted the lid on the way that things were being done in the past and we're seeing where the valuable parts are and where the dross is, and we have to support the value. "

Labour's Margaret Curran went straight to Defcon 1. "Calling any organisation or people working in this sector, dross, given the valuable work they do is simply unacceptable," she declared. "Given the work they do, Scotland's voluntary organisations deserve better. Mr Gibson and the SNP may be unapologetic but that does not mean that they do not owe Scotland's voluntary sector a fulsome apology."

The apology has not come, and surely no one in the real world expects him to deliver it. Gibson may have been a tad crass in his language, but he was quite clearly justified. I put his point to one leading player in the voluntary sector. Was there some dross out there? Of course there was. Dross is democratic. Dross is classless. Dross knows no bounds. The sad truth – as deep down we all know – is that you can have the best intentions in the world, that your heart can be in the right place, but that doesn't spare you from the possibility that you might not, on occasion, be very good at your job.

To be fair to Curran, her anger related to the wider financial picture facing Scotland's voluntary sector. Well-documented cuts to organisations like the Cyrenians in Aberdeen and Age Concern in the Highlands have been laid at the door of Finance Secretary John Swinney – and with some justification. It is an accepted fact that the first thing that local councils will chop if their budgets are squeezed is the cash which they send out to local voluntary groups. The suspicion is that it will be these groups which will be the fall-guys as local authorities attempt to maintain Swinney's freeze on council tax. For Gibson to rub it in by abusing the sector was clearly too much.

But, extracting the heat from this particular exchange, Gibson's intervention should be welcomed, for he has focused attention on an issue in Scotland which does require detailed scrutiny. Even the SNP MSP's Labour critics privately agree that Scotland's poverty industry needs examination. And with well-intentioned legislation – for example on homelessness – having further extended the obligations of the state, there is no harm whatsoever in casting a beady eye over the financing of all this do-goodery.

Curran herself must know this. In 2004, the old Scottish Executive Communities Department, which she once led, had to commission external auditors to find out how more than £500m of funds used to help the infirm and elderly was being spent. One insider said at the time: "Councils were basically told to go and get as much as you can and come up with ways to get money. The level of scrutiny about how it was used was nonexistent. There was no one at the centre ensuring that it was all done equitably." Savings of around £70m a year were identified. This story could be told a dozen times over. Cash is spent because it's there, not because it's needed.

All the parties need to study this matter compassionately, but also rationally. Wendy Alexander once called foul over this waste, but now – as opposition attack-dog – all wider issues have been forgotten in the stampede to land a blow against the enemy. But so scatter-gun and hysterical is Labour's approach over SNP "cuts" that they are already losing their bite.

Swinney and the SNP have a tougher job. Finding efficiencies in well-meaning organisations is a job not for their faint-hearted. But do it they must. Every penny spent badly in one place means that a more needy cause goes begging. If only for moral reasons, the waste has to stop.