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s PM2: The road ahead

Karl Wilding, Director of Public Policy, NCVO

Dave Kane, Senior Research Officer, NCVO

Rob Macmillan, Research Fellow, Third Sector Research Centre

UK Civil Society Almanac 2014

David Kane, Senior Research Officer

Fast facts

900,000

civil society organisations

Universities | Co-operatives | Community interest companies | Trade

unions | Housing Associations | Independent schools | Community

groups | Political parties | Faith groups | Financial mutuals

161,266Voluntary organisations

Total income

£39.2 billion

Total spending

£38.0 billionNet assets

£104.8 billion

29% volunteer at least

once a month

800,000Paid staff

Number of organisations

Trends since 2000(voluntary sector)

Source: NCVO/TSRC, Charity Commission

Sources of income

Income sources2000 – 2012(£ billions, real terms)

Change in income from government

Change in voluntary sector income from government between 2010/11 and 2011/12 (£ millions)

Source: NCVO/TSRC, Charity Commission

Income from individualsVoluntary sector income from individuals between 2000/01 and 2011/12 (£ billions)

Spending

Expenditure of general charities, 2011/12 (£ billions)

Reserves

Voluntary sector reserve levels, 2000/01 - 2011/12 (£ billions, 2011/12 prices)

Liabilities & loans

Type of liabilities, 2011/12 (% of liabilities, excluding micro organisations)

Paid Workforce

Voluntary Sector employees, 2001 – 2013 (headcount)

Volunteering

Proportion of people formally volunteering, 2001 – 2012/13 (% of respondents)

Changing Landscapes for the Third Sector

Rob MacmillanUniversity of Birmingham

‘The Road Ahead’ workshopEvolve 2014

London, 16th June 2014

The ‘Changing Landscapes’ project

• Aim: to bring together insights from a network of recent qualitative longitudinal research projects in the third sector

• Involves:– Data sharing and archiving, secondary analysis, research synthesis – Knowledge exchange (across the network of studies, and with policy-

makers and practitioners)

• Core themes: sustainability, independence, hybridisation, participation, inter-organisational relationships and impact

Network projects

1. Real Times: an in-depth study of third sector organisations over time (TSRC, University of Birmingham)

2. Pathways Through Participation: What creates and sustains active citizenship? (NCVO, with IVR and Involve)

3. The Opportunities and Challenges of the Changing Public Services Landscape for the Third Sector in Scotland: A Longitudinal Study

(Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier Universities)

4. Third Sector Trends Study (Durham University)

5. Employment Relations in the Voluntary Sector / Personalisation and the Voluntary Sector Workforce

(University of Strathclyde)

6. Recession Watch (Institute for Voluntary Action Research).

http://changinglandscapes.leeds.ac.uk/

‘Unsettlement’

A third sector in transition?

• economic context – (dual) impact for the sector of recession, austerity and cuts

• political context and priorities – the Coalition’s framing of a fiscal crisis; the ‘Big Society’ as a (partial) decoupling of sector and state?

• ‘Shaking-out’ - contraction and closure? enough ‘room’ for everyone?• ‘Shaking-up’ - organisations being more ‘enterprising’, demonstrating value

and greater consolidation

An ‘unsettlement’?

• Where resources, relationships, approaches and understandings are called into question (from Fligstein and McAdam “A Theory of Fields” 2012)

• Continuity and change – compared to what? leading to what?

Sustainability

• Voluntary action – how tough or fragile? how enduring? exaggerated anxiety?

The organisations in our study are all experiencing a bewildering set of challenges, characterised by complexity (for example, changes to the organisation and funding of public services) and distress (in particular, increasing levels of poverty and hardship amongst their users and beneficiaries) (IVAR 2012: 4).

• Sustainability strategies (1):– Income - retaining resources/income generation– Expenditure - containing costs; ‘paring back for survival’– Activities - managing demand; rationing and signposting

• Sustainability strategies (2):– Restructuring/redundancy– Reconfiguration/merger– Repositioning/rebranding

a) Restructuring/redundancy

• Cutting costs – shedding hours, projects and staff

• Multiple agendas and managerial restlessness – necessary evils and organisational agendas

• Substitution between paid and unpaid work

“it’s some of the most painful stuff I’ve ever had to do, it’s absolutely horrible, absolutely horrible.

People come in and really look you in the eye and tell you how desperately they want their job and they enjoy their job and you just feel dreadful because, you know, it’s not about whether you want your job or not…It’s about how much money we’ve got and as much as you like your job, we’re not going to have a job for everybody at the end of this and it’s shit, what can I tell you?” (Advice services)

b) Reconfiguration/merger

• Lots of talk but relatively little action

• Preference for ‘sharing without merging’

• ‘On the sniff’ for merger/takeover opportunities

“the strategy around that has to be tacit and not overt so I don’t think you go out there and openly pursue a kind of merger and acquisition strategy” (Social housing)

“so there’s quite a lot of potential basket cases out there if I’m honest, and it wouldn’t be sensible for either charity to… the coming together of two baskets is not a good idea” (Family support)

c) Repositioning/rebranding

“you’ve got to be aware of what other people are doing. We certainly try and stay close to key competitors and their tactics to understand what the world is going to look like and we try and adjust our plans accordingly. We do quite a lot of I suppose what the private sector would call market analysis, you know... what is the world going to look like, what are the political directions, how do we position ourselves to work in that way….”

Niche (in relation to other organisations):

“where I want to be by the end of the year, which will be a completely different organisation, a fresh new start and that kind of professionalism will be seen by our stakeholders, which I think then by the end of the following year we really would be in a good position to have the data, have a proven track record of delivering quality services, to go and get more funding”.

Branding as a strategy of affiliation and distinction:

Transition

The defining characteristic of this environment is that of continuous transition, in which survival means being able to adapt to new and shifting sets of circumstances…

…transition has become an essential and permanent feature of what it is for an organisation to survive, thrive and make a difference.

IVAR (2013) ‘Turning a Corner’, p.9

Supporting the sector…to change

Civil society organisations will need to embrace new skills, partnerships and organisational models if they are to seize the opportunities that lie ahead. It will be vital for civil society organisations to improve their business skills, become more entrepreneurial and strengthen their governance .

Government wants to invest in a new programme of strategic interventions which will help organisations modernise and become more efficient and more entrepreneurial in order to take advantage of the opportunities ahead

(Cabinet Office 2010: 6, 8)

Transition as policy

• Transition Fund (£100m, 2010-12)

• Transforming Local Infrastructure (£30m, 2012-13)

• Advice Services Transition Fund (£33.6m, 2012-14)

In order to thrive and secure its future sustainability, the independent advice sector will also need to be more enterprising and business-minded. Simply funding direct services will not secure this future for local providers. The traditional sources of funding that the advice sector has relied on in the past are changing, and the amounts available are reducing. The Advice Services Transition Fund is to support changes that will help the sector to become more enterprising and resilient.

Uncertain futures – ‘Birch’• Timescales of transition – fast and slow• Weathering the storm, cuts and reprieve through ‘transition’• Buying time – ‘laying down funds’

“It’s been difficult to plan for….and that’s the big thing even at the moment, that actually it is still difficult to see what’s in front of you.. The plans have to be ‘we’re as flexible as we need to be to do what we need to do’, you know… But it doesn’t necessarily feel comfortable really, that you’re having to be so quick on your feet that actually you don’t want to lay things down because that might slow you down, so let’s keep it open and fluid”

“we are a different animal now than we were 12 months ago. We would not have focused on half the things that we’ve focused on. We’re not as good as we need to be, and that’s what I mean about it takes a long time to change”

Evolve 2014