If
you’re interested in the future of youth volunteering,
then you’ll no doubt be aware
that the Russell Commission is no longer the Russell Commission,
but a new ‘youth led’ charity called V. Having
produced an exhaustive list of recommendations to promote
youth action and engagement, the Commission has evolved into
this charity (with some healthy government funding available
to it to the tune of £50 million in matched funding)
to follow through its own suggestions.
Responding to Mr Russell’s advice, the Home Office had
set up a working group to deliver on youth volunteering and
attract private sector matched funding for investment in young
people. The team, within the Active Communities Directorate,
came up with V, but it is unclear how the working group and
the charity will work together in future. Even the Home Office
seems unsure, with a spokesperson providing an ambiguous “they
will work closely together”.
The two bodies are the latest manifestation in a long line
of government initiatives directed at the voluntary sector.
Youth volunteering aside, charities already unpicking what
the ChangeUp programme and National Hubs of Expertise mean
to them, now face making sense of the role of Capacity Builders,
an arm’s-length government body which aims to lead the
agenda on improving the infrastructure that voluntary organisations
rely on.
And the picture is set to be further complicated, as the Treasury
has stepped in to create the Office of Charity and Third Sector
Finance – looking at practical issues such as tax and
Gift Aid and guide government policy into the future –
and the Fundraising Standards Board has been established to
support self-regulation.
Mark Blake, project manager for the Compact, itself an attempt
to encourage better collaboration between charities and the
government, says the pace of change has left many confused.
“I certainly don’t think there is enough clarity
in terms of how all the different aspects of the changes that
they’ve pushed through fit together,” he says.
As it stands, each of these projects is currently working
in isolation, resolving individual issues rather than joining
up to benefit the sector as a whole. “Things are going
along in their own little silos at the moment and people are
looking at that little silo that affects them. I don’t
think the sector’s really clear on how that’s
going to pan out,” he says. “At the moment, I
don’t think government really has clear answers.”
A Compact Commissioner, who could theoretically help to join
up these disparate entities, is soon to be appointed, providing
a voice for the charitable sector in its dealings with government
agencies. But, says Blake, the Commissioner’s role will
not be to provide such a link between the different projects,
central government and charities. “If the government
really wants us to collaborate I think they are being a bit
naïve in thinking this will happen just like that,”
says David Membrey, deputy chief executive of the Charity
Finance Directors Group. “A dictatorship is a much cleaner,
faster moving vessel than a democracy.”
He said the introduction of numerous advisory bodies, policy
groups and taskforces was potentially confusing, but as Capacity
Builders takes over primary responsibility for delivering
the ChangeUp programme, the structure should become clearer.
Initiative efficacy
Questions are already being asked about the progress and
effectiveness of the various
initiatives introduced over the last few years. Capacity
Builders has promised to conduct a wholesale review of the
hubs as its first priority, while the Compact has already
come under fire. “The Compact has no teeth,”
says a spokesperson for Sue Ryder Care. “We’re
hearing all the right noises but we’re not really
seeing very much change at all.”
Looking at the hubs, government funding for them was delayed
and had to be spent very quickly. Early problems faced by
the hubs due to the late arrival of that funding, such as
attempting to allocate their funding while also recruiting
staff members, are now resolved. The hubs are expected to
have a real impact from this summer.
As for the earlier difficulties, Membrey warns that the
problem is not failure to deliver but inflated expectations.
“People were expecting things to happen and things
to change quickly and it isn’t going to change quickly,”
he says. “One of the problems is that people misunderstand
what the hubs are there for. I think some of the frontline
organisations misunderstood how that would impact on them.
People don’t realise that it is infrastructure benefiting
from this.”
Pat Jones, implementation manager at the Governance Hub,
says she is pleased with the progress it has made so far.
She says it is working closely with the other hubs, including
the finance and workforce specialists, to produce joint
strategies in an attempt to improve links between the projects.
She also says it is too soon to establish whether or not
the hubs have been successful, and she fears that funding
will dry up after 18 months, leaving the hubs unable to
carry out their objectives.
“I would be surprised if everybody feels they understand
what is going on,” she says. “We’re just
trying to do the job we have been set out to do, but if
you’re in the position of a local charity you might
feel very differently.”
Even large charities feel left out of the picture. A spokesperson
for the British Heart Foundation said none of the government
projects unveiled so far had had any impact on its work,
due to its size, scale and self-sufficiency.
Mixed messages
Mixed messages over the arguable success of the ChangeUp
programme mean proposals for the future now coming into
force are also under a critical spotlight. David Hunter,
policy and development officer at acevo, says he has high
hopes for the new Office of Charity and Third Sector Finance,
saying it is more than simply a re-branding of the existing
team within the Treasury. “This one is broadened out
to do things like social enterprise,” he says.
Hunter believes the new office represents an opportunity
for the government to look seriously at full cost recovery,
for example, and that its location within the Treasury indicates
a real commitment to the sector from government. “They
want to get more and more involved in the sector,”
he says. “Let’s hope they won’t impose
too much more bureaucracy on the sector in terms of monitoring
cost and spend.”
It is still unclear, however, how closely the Treasury would
work with other government departments on voluntary sector
improvement. “There is a need, as ever, for government
to be joined up. They’re fine sounding initiatives,
but how they translate into reality is the key sticking
point,” he adds.
Ben Kernighan, director of services and development at NCVO,
says he can understand charities’ frustrations with
the number of initiatives spawned by the Home Office and
Treasury. He says the creation of the new office provides
a unique opportunity for a first point of contact within
government. “The particularly valuable role that we
think the initiative will play is to look across the whole
of government and to think about how the government can
help to strengthen the sector in the long term,” he
says.
Megan Pacey, director of policy and campaigns at the Institute
of Fundraising, agrees that the office could herald a new
dawn of integration from the government. “The main
advantage that I can see with this new office is that it
will do that linking up of existing initiatives across government,”
she says. “I hope it will take that step and join
up all aspects.”
But as the Compact Commissioner and the hubs also appear
to be such a first point of contact for organisations, who
should charities turn to? Pacey says such questions are
a result of a bad bout of ‘initiativitis’ on
the government’s part, but warns charities should
not be too eager to criticise.
“From our point of view, and from the sector’s
point of view, this is a very nice place to be,” she
says. And with all three major political parties putting
the role of the voluntary sector at the forefront of their
rhetoric, she says an understanding of charities’
potential is the one thread that links the seemingly disparate
projects. The question is, is that enough?
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