Cabinet releases best practice guide for limiting council cuts to civil society 1

Governance | Niki May Young | 5 Nov 2010

Nick Hurd has announced the release of a best practice guide designed to help councils limit the effect of spending cuts on civil society, at the Navca conference in Bournemouth.

Better together, written collaboratively by the Cabinet Office and the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (Navca) follows Prime Minister David Cameron's warning to local councils not to see cutting funding to civil society organisations as the "easy" option. The guide reiterates this point and outlines the need for communication, leadership, collaboration and transparency between civil society organisations and their local councils.

Examples of best practice are provided in five case studies based around these key themes. Minister for civil society, Nick Hurd said at the conference on Wednesday: “Small local groups bring people together and drive social change, lose them and you risk losing the community. The examples of best practice that we have published today show that local authorities can do much to support these groups even while making the difficult decisions necessary to reduce the deficit.”

Navca chief executive Kevin Curley warned that councils would be "doing a disservice to their local communities if they make cuts without first talking with their local voluntary and community sector and listening to how they can help".

The guidelines are designed to be used in collaboration with the renewed Compact which will be implemented later this month following its review by public consultation. Earlier this week Navca raised concerns about the renewed Compact slating its "subjective" terms and the removal of principles on prime contracting and European funding. The Commission for the Compact, which will close in March next year following the quango cull, also raised concerns, saying the Compact was "significantly weakened" in its new form.

Directory: National Association for Voluntary and Community Action
Who's Who: Nick Hurd

Place a comment

Gordon Hunter
Director
Lincolnshire Community Foundation
5 Nov 2010

More twin tub than effective spin!

It's all a bit limp.
Hard pressed community activists need more than some vague principles to help them survive. It’s not enough that five anonymous Councils support the voluntary 'compact' and attended some meetings to talk openly about how to deliver more for less.
What most grassroots groups need is occasional grant aid and some practical approaches to becoming self-sustaining: payroll giving, council tax incentives, planning concessions, social enterprise products, endowment challenge, on-line local giving, social media, digital communications……

[Reply]

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.