There
are plenty of examples of public sector bodies working well
with charities and improving the relationship between the
sectors. Indeed, with over a third of the voluntary sector’s
income paid by the state it would be worrying if there weren’t.
Of course, there are also examples where it goes badly wrong.
Take, for example, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).
The quango, or more correctly a non-departmental public body
(NDBP), has spent much of the year in the headlines of the
sector’s press for its decision to sue Kids in Communication
(KIC FM), a small Wolverhampton-based group that provides
radio skills training for youngsters.
The origins of that dispute, over a £119,000 contract,
stretch back to 2003, but it was only settled in the spring
when a former director of the charity paid £50,000 of
his own money to avoid a court case. In the meantime, the
LSC had racked up £155,000 in legal fees. John Stoker,
the then compact commissioner, was probably guilty of understatement
when he said the case had “not been a good experience
for anyone”.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this has tended to divert attention
from some of the LSC’s more noble endeavours. It might
also cast doubt on their effectiveness.
One of these is the council’s efforts with its Working
Together Strategy. Published in May 2004 (shortly after problems
with the KIC FM contract had started to materialise) the strategy
aimed to “create a step-change” in the LSC’s
relationship with the voluntary sector. At the start of this
year, the LSC – keen to ensure the strategy was actually
implemented – introduced a Working Together Advisory
Group, whose members are drawn from voluntary groups, to advise
it.
Some, of course, will dismiss this as a gimmick. Inevitably
Rob Smith, chief executive of Kids in Communication, is not
impressed. He is still smarting from the results of what he
maintains was a “backside-covering exercise” by
those involved at the LSC who had handled the contract badly,
and doubts an advisory panel will make any difference.
“We weren’t even aware of it until recently,”
he says. “I think the LSC probably just needs to be
seen to be doing something, but the relevance of it is doubtful.”
If there was a time for listening to the voluntary sector,
he suggests, it was when his group was trying to negotiate
an amicable resolution to the contract dispute.
The advisory group’s chair, Shirley Cramer (also the
chief executive of Dyslexia Action) admits that the case has
done the LSC’s reputation no favours. However, she maintains
that the group is doing valuable work. “It’s actually
very sad because there is a lot of good work going on,”
she says.
Positions on the group were advertised and Cramer says the
ten members have been selected to represent the diversity
in the voluntary sector, including large, small, rural and
urban groups, as well as a consortium body. “It really
reflects the voice of the voluntary sector as closely as possible,”
she says.
This is already having an effect, according to Cramer. For
instance, the group’s work includes helping ensure all
processes are Compact compliant; ‘proofing’ procurement
processes to ensure they don’t disadvantage third sector
groups; and creating a staff development programme for the
LSC to ensure workers understand how voluntary groups work.
She is confident the group will help make sure the promises
of the strategy actually materialise.
“You can have lots of lovely words from senior people
in an organisation but until you begin to see how to make
it work on the ground, those words don’t really mean
anything,” she remarks.
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Old hands
Of course, such groups are not new. At local level, for
instance, there are any number of panels made up of voluntary
sector workers to help councils or NDPBs’ regional
offices work better with the sector, and there is strong
evidence that they can achieve this.
Theresa Gillard, head of contracting for the Birmingham
Voluntary Services Council (BVSC) is responsible for one.
She was seconded for five months to Birmingham City Council,
working one day a week to develop a new commissioning framework.
To help her do so, she used a forum of local voluntary sector
chief executives as a consultation group. Her work ensured
the adoption of three-year contracts, full cost recovery
and a light monitoring scheme for smaller contracts. It
also helped the council achieve Beacon status for partnership
working with the sector.
“It’s helped the council take down some of the
real barriers that stopped voluntary groups going for commissioning,”
remarks Gillard, who is now, coincidentally, doing some
similar work with her local LSC office.
Similarly, at a national level, many government departments
have groups in various guises that help oil the wheels of
the relationship with the charity sector. Saskia Daggett,
manager of the Compact Advocacy Programme at NCVO, says
these groups are essential in helping to meet a key principle
behind the compact: open discussion and dialogue.
“It’s crucial that the sector’s concerns,
experience and expertise can be listened to,” she
says. DEFRA and the Department of Health are both doing
particularly good work with their groups making sure this
happens, she adds.
To date, however, these groups are less common in NDPBs.
This is a shame because it is arguable that this is where
such advice is most needed, as these bodies have a particularly
bad record when it comes to their relationship with the
sector. True, the Learning and Skills Council case was particularly
bad (“Unbelievable”, says Daggett. “We’d
never handled anything like it.”) but the Legal Services
Commission, and Job Centre Plus have also had problems.
Partly this seems to be down to the way such bodies are
set up. The Compact, for instance, plays no part in their
constitutions, and for many the voluntary sector has been
– at best – a side issue. Cramer’s work,
for instance, includes changing the organisation’s
data capture system so that the group can actually see which
third sector organisations it has dealings with and how
they contribute to the targets that drive the body. To date
this hasn’t been clear, so its relationship with the
voluntary sector has not always been a focus.
“Part of the problem is just down to structures that
have been put in place for accountability,” explains
Cramer.
Undoubtedly, central government and the departments sponsoring
these bodies bear some blame for this. As Daggett points
out: “You can hardly blame NDPBs for not sticking
to the Compact, for instance, if they’ve never been
told about it and it’s not in their guidance.”
On the other hand, she says, this excuse is getting a little
tired. The Compact, after all, has been around for nine
years now. “Enough already,” she says. The finger
pointing has to stop.
In this respect, Cramer’s group is to be welcomed
as it is likely to be part of the solution. How much of
a solution, though, is open to question. Even Cramer admits
it will take time to change an organisation with a budget
of £10.4bn.
At the Commission for the Compact, meanwhile, head of policy
Andy Forster says that while such initiatives are to be
encouraged they are only a small part of the picture. Giving
the Compact a more formal role through local strategic partnerships,
for example, is likely to see far more impressive results.
However, his counterpart at Acevo, Seb Elsworth, is not
so sure. There is much more that can be done, he agrees,
but he argues that the sector should take real encouragement
from these schemes. What they show, he says, is that the
argument has been won.
“We’re at a tipping point,” he explains.
“The last few years have been about discussing the
principles and priorities. Those are now settled. In terms
of full cost recovery, long term contracts, risk sharing
– they have all been accepted.”
The challenge now, he says, is how to implement them. Of
course, when it comes to this, some are already doing well.
Others, though, still have further to go.
Should they have got involved?
One of the criticisms that can be levelled at the Working
Together Advisory Group is its near invisibility during
the dispute with Kids in Communication. Some noted that
neither Cramer nor NSPCC director Mary Marsh, who both sit
on the National Council, publicly intervened.
Whether those individuals should have done so is open to
question, but as for the Advisory Group, Daggett insists
it was entirely proper that it refused to get involved.
“I’m quite pleased that they didn’t,”
she says. “The role of these groups is to look at
the relationship with the voluntary sector as a whole, not
take on particular cases. I can see it being quite messy
if it did.”
Not surprisingly, Cramer agrees, although she points out
that even if she had wanted to help, there was little she
could have done.
“It was a difficult one, because the group didn’t
know anything about it,” she says. “We had no
background information and it was with the lawyers by the
time we heard about it, so we weren’t able to look
at it.”
Nevertheless, she says, the changes her group is helping
to put in place mean that such a case would not escalate
to the same extent in future. “Going forward things
will be dealt with differently,” she insists. “We
wouldn’t expect to see that happening again.”
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