Flexible working practices key to future, says academic

In a lecture on the ‘post-work world’, Dr Justin Davis-Smith of the Centre for Charity Effectiveness outlines four ways in which charities should respond to a future in which most people work fewer hours

Charities should introduce more flexible working practices and build better partnerships with the private sector to help society adjust to a world where people work significantly fewer hours, according to a fellow at Cass Business School.

Dr Justin Davis-Smith, senior research fellow at the Centre for Charity Effectiveness at Cass Business School, was giving a lecture on charities and the post-work world, a future in which some believe that greater automation could render as many as 50 per cent of jobs obsolete.

Davis-Smith said that for a more utopian vision of the effect of widespread job losses to come true, charities had four ways in which they could help.

First, he said, charities should model good workplace practices themselves and campaign for the private and public sectors to follow suit.

“I think we have a responsibility as charities and voluntary organisations to take a lead in terms of restructuring our workplaces,” he said.

“So that means offering more opportunities for flexible working, more opportunities for job sharing, and more ways in which people can blend their use of time in the paid labour market with hobbies, voluntary action and charitable activity.”

Second, Davis-Smith said, charities should be more creative in terms of engaging people in social action and volunteering, and in finding ways of blending that with their paid work and other activities.

He said this involved understanding the rise of episodic volunteering, “the desire to just dip in and out of volunteering and wrap it around their lives rather than engage in something for an extended period of time”.

Third, said Davis-Smith, the sector should note the “blurring of the boundaries” between the private and voluntary sectors, and build better relationships with ethical businesses.

“I think there’s a real opportunity for charities and community groups to make much more meaningful partnerships with for-profit groups to try to pick up on the appetite, particularly from the millennial generation, to work in organisations that are doing some social good,” he said.

“I think what we are seeing is that young people in particular are not that choosy about where they work and which sector they work in; they just want to do some good. It seems to me there is a real opportunity for our sector to build more meaningful partnerships with small businesses, social enterprises, B-Corps and some emerging hybrid organisations that are blending for-profit and not-for-profit motives.”

Finally, Davis-Smith said, charities should look at the “sharing economy”– Uber and AirBnB, for example – and how a more “social aspect” could be introduced to that concept.

But he also warned about the challenge to established charities of retaining relevance in a world where technology makes it easier for people to “self-organise”. He said charities should begin to better understand the ideas and values that cause people to interact in this way.

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Charity Finance Group calls for joint working party on VAT post-Brexit

In its submission to the Chancellor before the autumn Budget, the group says government and charities could work together to bring in a rebate scheme

The Charity Finance Group has called for a joint government and charity sector working party to decide how the VAT system should operate after Brexit.

In a submission to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, before the autumn Budget, which will take place on 22 November, the CFG says there are some “significant opportunities” for charities from Brexit, in particular in charity tax, and that the government should “lay the foundation for a stronger charity sector”.

Irrevocable VAT costs the charity sector approximately £1.5bn a year, which is equivalent to £9,204 for every charity in the UK, the submission says.

The European Union currently sets rules on VAT zero rates, but the CFG’s letter says that on departing the EU the government could help charities by phasing in a rebate scheme to allow VAT incurred on non-business income to be reclaimed over five years.

This could be supplemented, it says, by converting existing VAT exemptions into zero ratings or “options to tax”, which would allow charities to recover VAT.

These two proposals could save the charity sector 90 per cent of its current VAT tax burden, the submission says.

“The impact of VAT reform would be transformational to the UK charity sector, not only reducing the amount of time spent focused on structuring activities in such a way as to avoid large VAT bills and paying for advice, but also in freeing up hundreds of millions of pounds to be spent on helping advance good causes,” it says.

The CFG is also calling for charities to be exempt from paying insurance premium tax – a tax on general insurance premiums – and for business rate relief for charities to be increased, including a target to create 100 per cent rate relief by the end of this decade.

The CFG’s letter come after a submission last week from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the charity chief executives body Acevo and UK Community Foundations that called on the government to create a successor to the European Social Fund.

The ESF provides European investment for social issues, such as improving skills and training and reducing inactivity among young people and the long-term unemployed. Charities receive approximately £300m a year from the ESF.

The joint submission said that the government had an opportunity to keep the best aspects of the ESF while reducing the scheme’s bureaucracy.

The £1bn in dormant assets the government’s Commission on Dormant Assets recently uncovered should also be used to strengthen the charity sector, the joint submission said, including allowing communities to purchase local amenities and assets, such as village halls or pubs.

The Association of Charitable Foundations has also backed both of the NCVO’s proposals in a separate letter to the Chancellor.

The Charity Tax Group also used its submission ahead of the Budget to call for an improved VAT system, reform of Gift Aid donor benefit rules, reducing tax burdens on the charity sector and making charities’ trading subsidiaries exempt from HM Revenue & Customs’ Making Tax Digital programme.

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