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9 Jun 2010

A look at the recent history and heritage of cooperation and competition within the Third Sector using three events.

Each event involves significant government funded support to the wider organisational Sector through the Sector’s infrastructure bodies. Each event involved larger organisations.

EVENTS
1. Home Office commissions a report on the relationship between competing parties to develop an ICT Hub for the sector in 2005
2. The loss of the Third Sector Leadership Centre in 2009
3. 2009 HM Treasury response to compensation claims by charities investing in Icelandic banks.

Supporting information for the three events is found in extracts below.

EXTRACT from Home Office report on proposed ICT Hub
http://www.davidcarrington.net/documents/Finalreport-IndependentPerson.doc
“During the late summer and early autumn of 2004, relations between organisations in both the Consortium and CITRA soured further and attracted press coverage within the specialist (see for example Third Sector 29 September 2004). The ACU convened a meeting on 11 October which was attended by representatives of organisations on both groups. Agreement was reached at the meeting “to introduce an independent assessor / auditor into the membership process and both parties also agreed to step back from making inflammatory comments to the press .”

EXTRACT from Third Sector news on Third Sector Leadership Centre Http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/Channels/Management/Article/897956/NCVOs-business-plan-leadership-centre-simplistic/
“Ben Kernighan, deputy chief executive of the NCVO, said: "It was a high-quality plan with clear objectives and was realistic about what it was trying to do."

Peter Kyle, deputy chief executive of Acevo, which accused the NCVO of failing to engage in any detailed discussion about the business plan, said the paper vindicated his organisation's concerns about the bid.”

EXTRACT from Treasury response to Treasury Select Committee to compensate all charities with investments in Icelandic banks
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtreasy/656/65604.htm
“The Government recognises that many third sector organisations, and not just those with deposits in Icelandic banks, are struggling due to reduced income at this time, and that is why we have taken this particular response to supporting the sector. Compensating the Icelandic bank charities would be at the expense of providing this support to charities more broadly during the downturn.”

My pointed thoughts from each event are as follows

1. Prolonged public events between leading infrastructure players with conduct unbecoming. A major poor example of a cooperative way of working especially for small frontline organisations that look to infrastructure players to lead by example.
2. It is not clear if a better option for design and implementation of the ICT Hub was lost in the dust and debris.
3. Some charities standing in the shadow of the hill of returns while looking at the mountain of risk on the far side of the hill. And the compensation claims was of the order of tens of millions of pounds, at the very least.

Summing the events up ... conclusions and implications appear when actual funds are at stake and organisations compete or cooperate or both.

• The balance and mix between competition and cooperation is out of kilt
• The attempted raid on Not-For-Private-Profit Sector general support funds highlights that the Sector is an uneasy mix and not a comfortable continuum of organisations and objectives.

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