Almost half of voluntary sector respondents taking part in Compact voice’s annual survey said that the sector’s ability to act independently and campaign freely has declined over the last 12 months.

Compact Voice’s Annual Survey of Local Compacts 2015 also found that 80 per cent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that the Compact is important and effort needs to be made to implement it in full.

The Compact is the agreement between government and the voluntary and community sector, which sets out key principles and establishes a way of working that improves their relationship for mutual advantage.

Key findings:

• 20 per cent of respondents said their local Compact was refreshed in the past two years. A third said they are planning to renew theirs over the coming year.
• Of the new commissioning structures that have emerged in recent years, Clinical Commissioning Groups have the highest level of engagement with the voluntary sector, with 80 percent of respondents saying they work together in their area.
• Almost half – 48 percent - of voluntary sector respondents believe the sector's ability to act independently and campaign freely has declined over the past 12 months, up from 32 percent in 2014.
• 65 percent of voluntary sector respondents said they had experienced cuts over the past 12 months.
• Compact groups are working well, but it is clear some are struggling with resourcing their work. This was the most commonly cited challenge this year.
• The vast majority of respondents said they had heard of the Social Value Act. However, only 29 percent said their local Compact or partnership group had agreed on a definition of social value, and only 33 percent of voluntary sector respondents said they had been asked to demonstrate their social value.

Conclusions

Compact Voice has concluded that the Compact is still of value for engagement between the voluntary and public sectors, and that new commissioning bodies are increasingly likely to sign up to local compacts.

However, it concluded that there are now fewer Compact steering groups, and those that exist meet less regularly. It also concluded that the Social Value Act is only managing to embed social value in a minority of public services contracts.

The report said: “Finally, and perhaps most significantly, our survey shows that many voluntary organisations believe their independence to be under threat. Indeed, following this survey the Cabinet Office have decided to insert an anti-advocacy clause in all government grants from 1 May 2016.

“This move is inconsistent with the Compact and will likely compound existing concerns that the ability of voluntary organisations to speak out on behalf of their beneficiaries is being eroded. How this development impacts on local partnerships up and down the country will need to be closely monitored going forward.”

Methodology

The survey was based on 97 responses, an increase on the 80 responses collected in 2014. Of these, the respondents were split fairly equally between frontline voluntary sector organisations and local infrastructure organisations.