Under the previous national Conservative administration, I often found myself wishing the government would just take a bit more interest and consciously consider how to work with the VCSE sector. Overall, I didn’t find myself railing against policies towards the VCSE sector, as we usually felt like an afterthought. Under the new Labour government, I have been on a rollercoaster this past few weeks, and hopefully, the two big events won’t be news to you, but they do merit specific attention this month.
Firstly we heard about the proposed Civil Society Covenant, which is intended to reset the relationship between government and our sector. The four principles (recognition, partnership, participation, and transparency) are now open for consultation until midday 12 December. I want to encourage you to give your feedback on the principles.
For me, whilst it is on the whole very positive, it misses the mark on two issues. On funding, it simply says, ‘support honest conversations about funding and challenges’ as if its sort of 50:50, issues on both sides. I can probably see why the funding issue has been kicked down the road as too complex and potentially contentious for this early set of principles. However, I think it fundamentally misrepresents the VCSE sector, and I think this has been borne out in the second major event detailed below -the NI blooper. A better principle would be ‘government recognises the not-for-profit basis of the VCSE sector is a fundamental and defining characteristic, which alongside our social purposes, make us distinct from the private sector and worthy of a special working relationship.’
The second issue for me is the one around participation which as a headline is a great pitch – for the sector is very much the beating participatory democracy of our country – being involved in public life by literally being involved in it. But the bullet points fall back to consultation, decision-making, blah blah blah, and the primacy of elected democracy. A better principle would be ‘the government recognises that local communities’ are best placed to make decisions about their own lives and commits to subsidiarity in decision-making, including government getting out of the way entirely where appropriate.’ Anyway, have your own say by clicking the link above.
So, to immediate matters and the big impact of the budget on us as employers. Whilst the majority of the sector will be protected as small employers this is not true once you pass the thresholds. Support Staffordshire is a live example, where the new lower threshold, new NI rate, and the fact we are ineligible for the NI allowance, together mean that we will see a £50-72k hike in our payroll bill from April. Yes, we are big as small local charities go, with almost 100 staff and a turnover of about £3M. But in the grand scheme of things, we are still quite a small organisation and crucial to the argument, we are not a large profit-making company who pays its taxes begrudgingly.
In fact, as a registered charity we are not really allowed to make profits (only surpluses for reinvestment in our charity purpose). And despite what some may think about charities like us, we simply don’t have £50k sloshing about in our budgets. We run a tight ship and deliver as much charitable purpose as we can for our income. That is why we have signed the NCVO letter to the Chancellor asking her to reconsider this policy with regard to charities. It is a plain nonsense to charge charities doing public good, to raise money for public services, as those services are already propped up by these charities. Indeed, it will only exacerbate the problem which they are trying to solve as charities withdraw services and put more pressure on the NHS and other public bodies. As a reset goes this isn’t feeling very progressive right now.
Garry Jones (he/him)
Chief Executive
Support Staffordshire
