The changing political landscape

Civil Society

There has been a lot of talk about civil society. The Office of the Third Sector has been renamed the Office for Civil Society. Civil society is a much broader concept than third sector, including many different organisations and groups of people. The diagram below (from NCVO's Almanac) shows some of the categories covered by the term and how much they're worth.

The Big Society

Slightly different to Civil Society, the Big Society is a vision for giving people much greater say in local decisions and to encourage them to get involved in their communities. We've put together a whole briefing on what it could mean for your funding.

The Spending Review

The Spending Review 2010 took place on 20th October 2010 - click here for NCVO's analysis.

The three priorities for this review are:

Thinking innovatively about the role of government in society
Taking the difficult decisions to reduce the deficit collectively as a Government
Consulting widely using all available talents to deliver a stronger society as well as a smaller state

Note point three - there is an emphasis on consultation. This has been underlined by George Osborne:

"What we want to do is make sure that all political parties, that the brightest and best brain across Whitehall and the public sector, that voluntary groups, think tanks, trade unions, that members of the public are all engaged in the debate and discussion about how collectively we deal with the problem - after all, it is our collective national debt" (speech to Parliament, 8th June 2010)

NCVO has produced a brief on the Spending Review (pdf 84kb)

The Budget 2010

The cuts announced in the budget sound alarming - averaging 25% for most government departments. Read NCVO's breakdown of what it means for the sector here.

The National Lottery

The Government is also consulting on changes to the distribution of proceeds from the National Lottery. They are proposing a reduction of the amount that goes to the BIG Lottery Fund from 50% to 40% and redistributing this to the other Lottery distributers in the arts, sport and heritage. The Government also proposes that 100% of BIG funding goes to the voluntary and community sector.

Read the NCVO briefing on the proposed changes to National Lottery Funding (pdf 82kb)
You can respond to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport's consultation here (deadline 21st August)