Civil society plans ‘a timid, tick-box exercise’, says shadow charities minister

Steve Reed accuses the government of attempting to cover up its neglect of the sector

The government’s plan to develop a civil society strategy is a timid tick-box exercise, according to the shadow minister for civil society.

In a statement released this morning, Steve Reed accused the government of neglecting the sector and said it was attempting to cover this up.

Tracey Crouch, the Minister for Civil Society, today announced plans to develop a strategy through a listening exercise that will begin next year.

But Reed said charities would have little faith in the “timid” strategy, particularly after the government rejected the recommendations of Lord Hodgson’s review of the lobbying act.

“This civil society strategy is little more than a tick-box exercise to cover up the government’s total neglect of the sector,” said Reed.

“It doesn’t take a year-long review to find out that demoting the civil society brief from a powerful, cross-department position in the Cabinet Office was always going to leave the sector isolated.”

Gemma Walpole, chief executive of the small charity the Norfolk Family Mediation Service, welcomed the announcement that the strategy would explore how charities could collaborate.

“It’s really good news,” she said. “But small charities are already doing lots of collaborative work on how to be more effective together, so I hope that the strategy listens to small charities and takes into account work that has already been done, rather than duplicating it.”

Andrew O’Brien, director of policy and engagement at the Charity Finance Group, said it was important that the strategy was backed up by funding and a “beefed-up” Office of Civil Society to implement it.

“Without this, any strategy has the risk of becoming merely words on paper and having no impact on the operating environment for charities,” he said.

“Given the tough times ahead, we cannot afford to waste the potential of the sector.”

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the charity leaders body Acevo and the Association of Charitable Foundations all welcomed Crouch’s announcement.

Karl Wilding, director of public policy and volunteering at the NCVO, said: “Making sure voluntary organisations are valued and supported by the government will mean they can do even more across society.”

He said the consultative approach set out by the minister was right to get the best results.

Vicky Browning, chief executive of Acevo, said: “It’s good to see Tracey Crouch’s commitment to producing a civil society strategy that will protect the sustainability of the vital work our sector does.”

She said she hoped the strategy would “provide a platform to support and develop our sector and its impact in the years ahead”.

The strategy proposal has also been welcomed by those representing small civil society organisations.

Mandy Johnson, chief executive of the Small Charities Coalition, said: “I’m genuinely excited about it. Tracey Crouch has a track record, having developed a similar strategy in her role as sports minister, which seems to be going well.

“My only concern is that she is talking to the right people, not just those with the money, and recognises that 97 per cent of the charity sector is the little guys.”

Tony Armstrong, chief executive of the community charity Locality, said the strategy needed to focus on how government could harness the power of community by providing more support for community organisations.

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Government has shown ‘complete and utter disregard’ for charities, says shadow minister

Labour’s Steve Reed says the government’s failure to produce a report on the impact of Brexit for the sector shows it is not interested in charities

Steve Reed, the shadow minister for civil society, has accused the government of showing a “complete and utter disregard for the UK’s charity sector” because it failed to consult charities about the impact of Brexit.

A letter published yesterday by the Department for Exiting the European Union included the government’s formal response to a House of Lords EU External Affairs Sub-Committee report called Brexit: Trade in Goods.

The annex to the government’s response includes a list of 58 sectors for which reports have been compiled, but not published, about the impact of leaving the European Union in those areas.

The sectors for which an impact report has been produced account for 88 per cent of the UK economy, the government’s response says, but does not include any impact report about the likely effect of Brexit on the charity sector.

The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign estimated before the EU referendum last year that charities would lose more than £200m a year in EU Commission funding if the UK were to leave the European Union.

Reed, who has tabled an urgent parliamentary question about the issue, said: “The government has published a list of 58 different sectors it has consulted about the impact of Brexit. But charities were excluded. 

“Although the government has consulted the gambling sector and the crafts industries, they didn’t bother asking the voluntary sector. Civil society organisations employ more than two million people, contribute £12bn to the economy and stand to lose millions in EU funding after Brexit.”

He claimed that the lack of an impact report for the charity sector showed the government was not interested in charities.

“The government’s complete and utter disregard for the UK’s charity sector is breathtaking,” Reed said. “When they started cutting public services, they told charities to pick up the pieces. Now, with charity funding drying up, the government doesn’t even pretend to be interested in what charities think any more. It’s a disgrace.”

The DEXEU was unable to provide a comment before publication of this story, but it is understood that an impact report covering the voluntary sector was not produced because the reports focused on sectors that trade within the European Union, not those that receive funding from it.

An opposition day debate on the 58 sectoral impact assessments is due to be held in the House of Commons today.

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Social investment should not replace public funding, says shadow Treasury minister

Anneliese Dodds, MP for Oxford East, tells the Labour Party conference it should not replace statutory services that should be carried out by the public sector

Social investment should supplement, not replace, public sector funding for youth services and there is a “clash of cultures” between social investment and the charities it funds, a shadow Treasury minister has told delegates at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

Speaking at a fringe event about social investment in the youth and community sector, Anneliese Dodds, the MP for Oxford East, said social investment was part of a “mixed economy” but should not be used to replace statutory services that should be carried out by the public sector.

“Where I am concerned is that sometimes some of the rhetoric seems to suggest this could actually shift into some statutory services, and for me the whole point is that it should be operating in areas where there is such a high level of risk that local authorities and public funding can’t cover it,” she said.

“I don’t think it should be moving into areas where ultimately we should have proper public provision and where we really need to have that stability of service quality, especially around statutory responsibilities.”

Dodds also highlighted a “clash of cultures” between the predominately business-oriented language used by the social investment sector and the actual role youth charities play in society.

“Even the language we use is really interesting,” she said. “We use the language of social entrepreneurs, but we are not talking about profit seekers but about people who are efficient in their use of constrained resources to get really good outcomes. Why do we attach the label ‘entrepreneurs’ to that?”

Other speakers at the event highlighted problems with the perceived complexity of social investment and about people’s understanding of how it worked.

Anna Smee, chief executive of UK Youth, said that acceptance of social investment was growing, but in the main because of charities’ problems in getting grant funding.

“Three or four years ago, people didn’t know what social finance was,” said Smee. “It was a really big and scary thing and seemed like this crazy David Cameron idea that would never happen.

“Now we are seeing much more acceptance of it, mainly because people have no choice – they’ve been driven down such a challenging funding route they were willing to consider everything.

“But most of the youth organisations we’ve spoken to still don’t know where to go. They’ve never heard of the key fund, they’ve never heard of Big Issue Invest, never heard of Nesta and all the infrastructure that has grown up over the past five years. They didn’t see it as something for them.”

Smee said that youth charities had typically struggled to collect good data and this needed to be improved. Best practice should be shared, she said, to help attract social investment.

Leigh Middleton, managing director of the National Youth Agency, said that many organisations were put off by the “significant complexity” of social investment agreements, and funders were still reliant on data and key performance indicators being met rather than more qualitative evidence about youth charities’ work.

Barry Williams, director of the youth charity membership body Ambition, said cynicism about social investment “is still out there” and he was concerned that some charities were hanging on for the return of grant funding rather than exploring alternative finance models.

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