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Office for Civil Society Strategy and Consultation launched
Yesterday along with the announcement of various Quango cuts including ‘Capacity Builders’, the civil society strategy and infrastructure consultation by the Office for Civil Society was launched. See links to the two documents - The Building a Stronger Civil Society strategy [PDF, 175KB] and The consultation, Supporting a Stronger Civil Society [PDF, 255KB].
The aim of the strategy is to develop measures to support and strengthen the sector, in line with Government’s Big Society agenda and their wider reform. It puts forward some of the opportunities it sees for community organisations in terms of i) empowering communities – giving more power to communities, making local funding more priority led and available to groups ii) opening up public services – including reform of social care (to be announced Nov 2010), criminal justice and welfare to work opportunities and iii) promoting citizen and community action – encouraging more philanthropy, charitable giving, national volunteering, community organisers and a community first fund for disadvantage areas.
The strategy also says the Government will develop practical measures to support the voluntary sector, including reducing red tape for small organisations, making pro bono support easier to access, a Big Society Bank (using unused assets and making it easier for people to give money), modernising commissioning and procurement and supporting organisations to modernise and re-structure.
The consultation document asks a series of questions about how they can best play a role to support building infrastructure. Questions include; What support might your organisation need to become more resilient? Are there ways that expert intervention can support areas which are lacking social capital to improve local relationships and develop a stronger civil society? The consultation closes on 6th January 2010, apart for this question ‘How can central Government best work with national infrastructure to support and deliver the Big Society?’ which they want response by 25th November.
The strategy and the consultation offer opportunities for DPOs and it will be important for us to respond. There are various points important for us to note, for example, there is a National Citizen Service for 16 year olds, how will young disabled people be involved? Will the proposals to cut red tape include allowing People First Groups to submit Easy Read Accounts to the Charity Commission? How will DPOs fare from welfare, social care and criminal justice reforms?
The government’s current language in all of this says very little about equality, inclusion and diversity, but a lot about local people/communities being in charge of things, partnerships, collaborating with each other and business and public sectors. There is an emphasis on people and communities taking charge and creating solutions for themselves, which disabled people and our organizations have a solid history of doing. In this way it is important for DPOs to respond to this consultation and put forward a strong message about ourselves, the issues we face as a marginalized community (yet over represented by a huge industry of established service providers etc) and the added value we can bring to communties.
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