Letter: The third way

Martin Sime (Platform, 23 February) finally gives the lie to the terminological inaccuracies in referring to either "charities" or the "voluntary sector".

The organisations to which Mr Sime alludes neither depend on charities nor are staffed by volunteers. They depend upon millions of pounds of public money from national and local government and, far from volunteering their time and talents for free, their staff are paid normal wages and salaries.

That is not to detract from the excellent services that many of those organisations provide. But surely it is dishonest to tug on the heartstrings of the populace by using words such as "charity" and "voluntary" and to acknowledge that they would be more correctly described as the "independent sector".

As such, they must accept that they are governed by economics just as the public and private sectors are.

James D Brown

Burnside Road

Elgin