A new website, mentoring, employer-supported volunteering and bursaries to help frontline groups access specialist services are all central to the government’s new vision of how best to support civil society groups to build the Big Society.
Yesterday civil society minister Nick Hurd (pictured) published the government’s consultation on the future shape of sector infrastructure, inviting views from the sector about what kind of support it wants.
Supporting a Stronger Civil Society outlines the government’s views on why previous support provision has not been great, and offers its new ideas for the future. The government declared that it wanted to invest in a new support programme for civil society organisations that will help them “modernise, become more efficient and more entrepreneurial”.
The document said: “In the past, the government’s approach to building the capacity and skills of civil society focused on a limited range of providers, primarily charities and social enterprises such as local Councils for Voluntary Service.
“The current government wants to encourage better connections both among civil society organisations and with the public and private sectors. The potential to transfer relevant skills has hardly been tapped.”
The consultation concludes by outlining how the government sees support being provided in future:
“All the potential priorities set out in this consultation paper are for discussion and should not be considered to indicate firm commitments to action. However, any action taken in these areas could be linked, to ensure that the frontline experience of accessing support is coherent.
“This could mean that an organisation would first search online for useful toolkits and resources. If they needed further help, the website would help signpost them to infrastructure services. If these did not meet their needs, then improved brokerage would enable them to access skills from pro bono volunteers. Where their needs were still unmet, and in line with the criteria, then they could apply for a bursary.
“This would encourage efficiencies by ensuring that low-cost options are explored first and help make the process of accessing support more streamlined for local groups.”
The consultation closes in January.
