stronger civil society q9 consultation response 2010 11

Urban Forum's response to question 9 of the Office for Civil Society's consultation on Supporting a Stronger Civil Society. How can central government work with national infrastructure to support and deliver the Big Society?

NB The deadline for question nine was earlier than the rest of the consultation, in order to fit with their plans for a new Strategic Partners programme. We will be responding to the rest of the consultation early in the new year.

How can central government work with national infrastructure to support and deliver the Big Society?

Who we are
Urban Forum is a national charity, with over 750 members, predominately local community groups. We support voluntary and community sector organisations to carry out social action and influence what happens in their area, and in advocating for members through our research and policy work. We are a member led organisation and we are committed to supporting local people to improve their communities and tackle deprivation and inequality. Urban Forum is currently an OCS Strategic Partner, and also sits on DCLG's Voluntary and Community Sector Partnership Board.

Our response
Our answer to Question 9 of Supporting a Stronger Civil Society consultation (we will be responding to the rest of the consultation separately) draws on the evidence from a survey of Urban Forum's members and through feedback derived from Big Society events we have been holding across England over the last few months.

Our response is in two parts. First, we put forward the underlying principles need to underpin the work of national infrastructure organisations. Second, we suggest approaches we believe it is important for the OCS to adopt in working effectively with national infrastructure organisations in order to support the delivery of the Big Society.

Principles for effective national infrastructure organisations to support frontline civil society
In shaping a new strategic partners programme OCS should establish clear criteria for effective national infrastructure that can serve the needs of frontline civil society.

We propose four core principles to underpin this approach:
1. Accountable and transparent
It is essential that national infrastructure bodies, indeed that all charities and social enterprises, are genuinely accountable to their beneficiaries. For infrastructure organisations and support bodies this means being accountable to the frontline groups whose interests they are required to serve. Indeed the privilege of charitable status makes it a legal requirement for charities to serve the interests of their beneficiaries in furtherance of their charitable objects. This means being able to demonstrate evidence of how beneficiaries are involved in setting priorities and agendas, and a meaningful relationship with local beneficiaries through ongoing two way communication and shared activities. Effort should be made to ensure that accountability is meaningful and transparent and not simply tokenistic, through published evidence of feedback from beneficiaries.

Not only is an improvement in accountability in step with developments around transparency in government and expectations in accountability for public expenditure, it is also key to properly representing beneficiaries' interests, and to ensure that services and programmes meet the practical needs of beneficiaries.

2. Inclusive and participative
Inclusion needs to be a core principle for national infrastructure organisations, in order to reflect the broad and diverse interests of the sector. Service and support offered by national organisations must include particular groups/interests, particularly those who tend to lack power and influence. This should be reflected in membership and governance structures and services provided to members.

Any tendency to advocate on behalf of those who already have resources and voice should be strongly resisted, with a greater emphasis on supporting those who lack power and influence to be heard. Certain groups and communities are less well equipped with the skills, support and resources they need to engage with national support organisations. They often also feel excluded or distanced from many national organisations that seek to represent the views of civil society. Both the survey of Urban Forum members, and anecdotal evidence from members support the findings of the National Audit Office market analysis of current advice and support on this point. It is therefore important to actively encourage national organisations to support frontline groups to overcome these barriers.

Inclusivity also relates to the ability of a national infrastructure organisations to respond to the needs of minority groups and community organisations in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, so that new opportunities for social action can be utilised to strengthen civil society in areas where there is currently low social capital.

The importance of national VCS organisations to be inclusive in how they involve and represent different parts of the sector, and the community, does in no way diminish the need for specialist support within the sector for different parts of the community.

3. Collaborative and creative
There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that local VCS organisations often regard infrastructure organisations, both national and local, are too often their competitors for public service delivery contracts. Again this is further evidenced by the National Audit Office report above. This can lead to resources locally and nationally being sucked up at a disproportionate rate by infrastructure organisations.

To support the strengthening of civil society, particularly in the context of delivering the Big Society and the need for greater resilience in communities, this needs to be reversed. Local groups are generally better informed about what is happening in their area and how to respond to the challenges/need and therefore often (not always) best placed to deliver local services. However current limits to commissioning prevent local groups from competing on a level playing field with larger local or national organisations, who themselves may be able to offer different areas of capacity, expertise, abilities to link across areas and sectors. In practice increasing resilience in the sector requires a commitment of national organisations to working collaboratively with local groups to co-design and co-deliver activity. In the current economic climate it is essential that resources are deployed efficiently and that new ways of working are developed including new business models that support frontline groups to benefit from new opportunities that are being created. It also means greater collaboration between different national infrastructure organisations, which should not simply be a justification for larger organisations taking over smaller ones.

The current situation and government policy priorities around public sector reform, localism and the Big Society require a fundamental reconfiguration of the relationship between citizen and state, and between the public, commercial and VCS sectors. National infrastructure organisations also have a positive role to play in this process in building new relationships between sectors nationally and locally, and working in partnership with Government to leverage in additional sources of investment from the private sector and philanthropy.

The voluntary and community sector is notable for its adaptability, innovative approaches and openness to new ways of working. National infrastructure organisations need to be able to both encourage these characteristics, and help shape next practice within a context that is transformative.

4. Independent
The voluntary and community sector needs to be get on and do what it is good at - encouraging social action and resilience amongst disadvantaged communities, involving service users and residents, taking risks and being creative, meeting unmet needs in new and innovative ways, and tackling social exclusion. The sector can only do this if it is independent of the state, even when it is working towards some common objectives.

Approaches for OCS working with national infrastructure organisations
We have identified three key approaches that we feel it is useful for OCS to adopt in how it works with national infrastructure organisations.

1. Enabling not controlling
National infrastructure organisations need to have the freedom to respond to emerging needs and opportunities, and be funded to provide real support for a stronger civil society, without being over burdened by governmental prescription. Investing in civil society implies recognition that the state is less well placed to undertake this work. It is therefore counter-productive to subsequently dictate the best way to solve a particular problem or deliver a particular service. The shift over recent years to a more outcomes based approach to VCS funding is welcomed, but should be extended and built upon. Government's role should be to agree what it wants to achieve through its investment and then allow the voluntary organisation to determine and deliver the best way to achieve this.

2. Supporting the sector to develop new relationships and new funding mechanisms with the private sector
The private sector is an increasingly important potential partner and funder for the work of the voluntary and community sector. However the relationships and mechanisms for communication and funding are patchy and under developed, with opportunities often not matched to needs.

Development work in this area needs to be included in the new strategic partners programme, and be a priority area of support from central Government and national voluntary sector partners. We welcome the establishment of a new Transition Fund to support frontline VCS organisations to develop their activity and investment models. However, there is also a need to support this transition within infrastructure organisations too.

3. Valuing constructive criticism and being open to change
As it is an underlying principle that national infrastructure organisations need to be independent of Government, able to provide a dynamic, critical analysis, and offering and designing solutions. It is therefore essential that central Government values constructive criticism in open dialogue with national voluntary sector partners, and be open to change.

Conclusion
It is Urban Forum's view that in developing a new strategic partners programme the Government should give primary consideration to the ability of national infrastructure organisations in being accountable, inclusive, collaborative and independent. In this it needs to look both at track record and to emerging new work. Furthermore, we believe that enabling rather than controlling, helping to develop work with the private sector, valuing constructive criticism and being open to change, should underpin the Government's approach to working with national infrastructure bodies in the future.