1 Keep Ed Miliband in post for at least another year

“I’d like to hear Gordon Brown say the following: ‘Everyone that’s getting a new job step forward; not so quick Ed’,” says Ben Wittenberg, head of policy and research at the Directory of Social Change.

Consistency in Whitehall and Westminster has certainly been a problem for the sector in the past. But in the last year the formation of the Office of the Third Sector within the Cabinet Office, and the appointments of the experienced Campbell Robb alongside the extremely enthusiastic Miliband has helped to establish a certain stability that the sector is reluctant to let go.

Gill Nunn, director of business development at Charities Aid Foundation, agrees. “He must keep Ed Miliband in post at least for another year. If he goes it will be terrible,” she says. “We’ll end up with somebody we’ll have to educate again and we need a bit of consistency.”

2 Trust the third sector

Orlando Fraser, head of the voluntary sector working party within the Conservative’s Social Justice Policy Group, fears Brown will not show the commitment to the sector that Blair has demonstrated.

“I do not think Gordon Brown really ‘gets’ the third sector – certainly not in the way Blair increasingly did,” Fraser warns. “I think that he distrusts it as not being sufficiently under his control, and that he will instinctively always impose a state solution on a problem rather than enable a third sector one.

“Sadly, Britain’s vulnerable lose out most from this approach, because it is they who would most benefit from greater and more imaginative use of the third sector in tackling their complex problems,” he says.

Brown’s challenge, then, is to prove that he trusts charities to get on with the job. “[That] is the one thing I suspect he simply cannot bring himself to do,” Fraser adds. “I hope that I’m wrong.”

3 Address gender inequality in third sector management

A recent survey carried out by Third Sector Women identified a gap in both pay and opportunities for women at senior levels in the third sector. Rachel Whale, founder of the group, says it is time for Brown to take action and help the sector to redesign jobs in charity management so they are flexible enough to accommodate working mothers.

“I think it’s been an invisible issue,” she says. “We know that there is a salary discrepancy within the sector at chief executive level – a 20 per cent difference in median salary. Although women are quite visible as leaders of smaller third sector organisations and more visible in the really big charities, it is in the medium- sized charities they are less represented.

“I think the sector is very good at talking diversity but when it comes to gender at senior management level it’s not actually there.”

Brown could start by helping the sector to raise its profile as a career of choice, and taking that message into the UK’s universities, she adds.

4 Secure the sector’s income

Brown delivered a worrying blow to charities earlier this year, reducing the basic rate of income tax in a final flourish as Chancellor. The potential knock-on impact through reduced Gift Aid income is worrying.

Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, says Brown must do something to secure the sector’s future income. “We are very concerned that the last Budget’s reduction in the basic rate of tax from 22 to 20 per cent will have a substantial effect on the amount of money charities can claim on Gift Aid income,” he says.

“The sector is likely to lose over £70 million and we would like the government to take measures to ensure the sector does not suffer financially from these tax cuts.”

The CFDG has already called for a full review of all charitable giving in response to the 2007 Budget announcement. “We would like to see this review taken up by Gordon Brown’s government,” says Ernese Skinner, CFDG’s policy and campaigns officer.

But HM Revenue and Customs has already warned fundraisers against asking the government for a big “wish list” in its forthcoming consultation on improving Gift Aid. Given the new Prime Minister’s background, these requests could fall on deaf ears.

5 Extend the key worker housing scheme to include third sector employees

“The sector is fabulous at attracting the most able and committed young staff. It’s also increasingly effective at turning these staff into potential third sector leaders,” says Tony Breslin, chief executive of the Citizenship Foundation. “However, the challenge is to retain these colleagues, especially as they reach their late 20s and early 30s and face the housing costs that even those on first sector salaries struggle to contend with.”

He believes the one thing that could transform opportunities is the extension of the government’s key worker housing programme to cover third sector employees who are first time buyers. “If Gordon Brown acknowledges that third sector workers are key workers, it would send a powerful and empowering message to the sector and beyond.”

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6 Secure the rights of older volunteers

Volunteering has undergone something of a renaissance since 1997, with the government keen to encourage young people, particularly, to give their time. But 83-year-old CSV volunteer Ken Ross says Brown must also acknowledge the role that older volunteers can play in the growth and development of the sector.

“I’d like to see Brown introduce a programme to ensure that older people’s volunteering is enabled to grow and that older people who give their time have their travel costs reimbursed,” Ross says. “This can sometimes be a sticking point for [those organisations] that would like experienced people to give their time to help young people.”

7 Funding for research into BME giving trends

“We know very little about the giving habits of black people in the UK, and how black people contribute to the voluntary sector by way of donations,” says Mide Akerewusi, chair of the Black Fundraisers Network.

In order to ensure that the BME community is fully engaged with the UK third sector, more work needs to be done to understand the motivations of BME donors. According to the network, 97 per cent of charities working in the BME community say they do not receive the funding they need. An exercise in profile raising would certainly help. Brown should provide the funds to research these trends in detail.

“I would like to see a bit of funding put towards exploring how we can understand more about how black people do actually give right now, and how we can celebrate and promote black philanthropy,” Akerewusi says.

8 Allow charities access to a register of unclaimed assets

The government has been relatively slow to act on unclaimed assets. Though the Commission on Unclaimed Assets reported earlier this year, little has been achieved so far in giving the sector access to dormant funds.

Cancer Research UK’s Kumar says Brown should ensure that unclaimed assets are accounted for, and their value should be made public. “We would like the government to create a comprehensive national register of all unclaimed assets. This will ensure that both charities and individuals have full access to the information they need to find the money they are owed,” he says.

9 Implement the Compact

Brown needs to throw his weight behind the Compact – given the government’s commitment to public service delivery in partnership with charities, this is set to become even more important.

John Stoker, the Compact Commissioner, is already listening out for positive noises from Brown and wants to hear something more definite when he takes up his new role. “Making the Compact real is not simply tick box compliance; it requires sustained partnerships that value all the partners and have positive outcomes. It would help if the government stated clearly its collective support for the Compact, and that this was demonstrated in departmental plans and delivery chains,” Stoker says.

But Stoker has no powers of his own. He cannot force Compact compliance, whatever the government rhetoric. Is this an anomaly that can be rectified by Brown? The CFDG’s Skinner thinks so. “We would like assurance from Gordon Brown that the Compact Commissioner is given real teeth and can provide charities with a line of recourse when statutory bodies do not deliver their side of the Compact,” she says.

10 Do not allow Lottery funding to be diverted to the 2012 Olympics

Though the coffers of the Big Lottery Fund have been preserved for the voluntary and community sector, the same cannot be said of other Lottery funding streams. A coalition of umbrella groups, including NCVO and Voluntary Arts Network, has already made public its fears that arts, sports and heritage charities will lose out to the Olympic Games.

The DSC’s Wittenberg says this is unacceptable, and it is time Brown admitted the mistake and promised not to fund the Olympics through the Lottery purse. “The voluntary and community sector should not suffer as a result of government’s mistakes in planning and budgeting for the Olympics,” he says.

“[If] Olympic assets will be realised in order to support local communities and organisations after the event, why should the VCS carry the burden of that risk? If that’s a sure thing, why doesn’t the government borrow against it, and then use the income from selling it off to pay it back? To ask the voluntary sector to underwrite the risks is totally wrong.”

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