It’s time for the Third Sector to take some risks

The board is changing, take a risk

THE third sector is broadly a responsive and innovative sector. It has responded well to the changes and challenges of devolution over the past decade or so. It has not had to fight hard to be heard and the vast majority of Welsh politicians are very attuned to its messages, whether they are delivered collectively, individually or locally. That is no surprise especially since so many of them have strong third sector backgrounds themselves.

The relationship is a natural one with both give and take, but also underpinned by respect and engagement. Indeed, from the very outset the National Assembly and Welsh Assembly Government have developed structures to include and support the sector in the bigger “family” of Welsh civic society. The Third Sector Partnership Council was developed for this very end. Anecdotal evidence has always indicated that it works better, perhaps, than the equivalent bodies for local government and economic development. There is a natural affinity between the sector – at least that which is based in Wales – and the new governance structures for Wales that emerges.

All of which is underpinned by the Third Sector Scheme, which outlines obligations on both sides to work together and consult with one another. It contains key commitments from WAG like section 3.7, which states that each Welsh Minister shall meet with representatives of the relevant networks of Third Sector organisations covering their areas of responsibility at least twice a year. Alongside this we have seen the publication of the three-year plan for the sector, The Third Dimension, which comes to an end next year.

According to the most recent annual report on the Voluntary Sector Scheme, WAG certainly believes it is delivering. The report also shows government funding to the sector, with ever more accurate detail on the funding provided by individual Welsh Government Departments. In total in 2008-09 the Welsh Government spent nearly £493 million on direct funding of the Third Sector. That is a considerable – and commendable – investment.

Recent specific achievements by the government include the hosting of the Social Enterprise Coalition UK’s annual VOICE Conference in Cardiff in February 2010, which was attended and addressed by several Ministers. The Welsh Assembly Government has also worked in partnership with the Big Lottery Fund to develop a new Community Asset Transfer Fund. This three year £13 million capital and revenue fund opened for applications in October 2009.

But today shouldn’t just be about self congratulation and retrospection. It needs to be focused on the next stages and the challenges to come. Just because things have worked well in the past, it doesn’t mean they will do so in the future.

The powers of governments to act can occur broadly in three ways – funding, strategy, legislation.

Change is very apparent in the way that the government is making hard choices about spending. Some big decisions have already been made and others will follow. I cannot envisage a state of play over this year and the coming years where the level of investment in the third sector remains as high as it currently is. There are some third sector organisations which have been predominantly or exclusively funded by government. That is not a healthy place to be. Independence of thought and action cannot come from dependence on the state. Every third sector body, umbrella or otherwise, needs to assess the level of funding it receives from WAG and plan for tougher times. The years of plenty are over, for everyone.

The government will also be looking over the longer term at service duplication. Are there places where the state and the sector deliver the same sort of services? Are there localities where multiple voluntary organisations compete and duplicate? It may be a slow process to streamline arrangements, but expect that to happen.

When it comes to strategy, the second strand of government activity, the picture is equally challenging. The sector has been engaged. Consultation upon consultation with its name stamped all over them as consultees. The WAG website makes much of its record on consultation and it has indeed been open and responsive. But as well as being over-consulted, many in the sector have felt short changed. Not usually because they’ve not been listened to or because they haven’t been able to shape policy. But because that policy has been so inconsistently implemented.

The Welsh Assembly Government has more strategies than there are policy pledges in a Welsh Liberal Democrat election manifesto. But without implementation and a consistency of measuring outcomes, what are they worth? Simply more shelves of documents gathering dust. And when they get too dusty you get a new strategy borne from more consultation, and a strategy which reiterates 75% of the last one.

Next year we have the Assembly elections. The sector will be working on manifesto submissions now. But before they come up with five, 10 or even 50 new ideas you want in government programmes, why not look back at existing policy and just ask the government to implement it more vigorously and consistently? After all, new policy costs money to develop as well as implement. Why not save WAG the trouble and the cash of reinvention? Go not for the new and the blue, but for the old and the borrowed.

Legislation is an area where there has been huge change. When it comes to devolution, the arrow of history is clearly pointing in the direction of more powers exercised for Wales in Wales. The story of the last 50 years has been one of increasing capability for policy divergence between Wales and England. When Ron Davies said famously that devolution was “a process not an event”, he was of course right. But it is not true to say that that process began with the Government of Wales Act 1998 or the referendum of 1997. In reality power through executive responsibilities had been devolved to Wales decades earlier. The story of the last decade is more one of the development of a democratic and stronger civic context for those powers. It is a process, and a dynamic one at that. The story of the next decade will be one of increased dynamism – and increased expectation of the third sector.

The Government of Wales Act 2006 may sound like an uninspiring read, but through this legislative framework laws for Wales that are drafted and made at the National Assembly have been possible since 2007. If and when we hold – and win – a referendum on fuller primary law making powers for the Assembly, even more legislative power will accrue.

How the sector responds to this opportunity is critical. The story of third sector engagement between 2007 and 2010 has not been an easy one. The Legislative Competence Order system is not intrinsically wrong. It is a system which has, at least to a point, delivered substantial new areas of primary legislative responsibility to the Assembly.

And it has offered the third sector considerable opportunities. Every LCO has come with opportunities to consult and influence – both at the Assembly and at Westminster ends. There have also been opportunities to promote ideas for legislation through Assembly backbenchers, although the number of Measures being proposed has been pitiful until the last six months or so. You can blame the process if you want – and it is indeed cumbersome – but every sector of Welsh civic society hasn’t stepped up to the mark. It just hasn’t engaged enough and been brave enough to come up with enough ideas.

Perhaps it’s been the lack of clarity around the powers that’s the problem. Though at the same time there has been plenty of training available for the third sector – loads of it – and many organisations in the room have been to multiple events. You’ve had the pep talks and the skills training. What’s held you back?

Surely it isn’t that the process is too complex? Is the current LCO system any more complex than some other legislative processes? Would any more than 2% of the population understand the process of an European Directive? What percentage of Welsh people are familiar with all the processes of the passage of a Bill into an Act at Westminster? How many of us are fully conversant with the various procedures which can be applied to secondary legislation made by Welsh Assembly Government Ministers?

Maybe it’s a resource issue. Over-consultation is not easy to deal with and for some organisations it has surely been a particular burden, especially since the weight of ordinary non-legislative government consultation has not diminished during this period. Responding to the ideas of others – let alone coming up with a legislative idea of your own – is particularly resource intensive. And demands a different skill set when engaging with legislation rather than policy, which is what you’ve all been used to. It doesn’t surprise that some of the sector has found it a bit much. I certainly have.

And maybe there’s an element of risk aversion here, too. UK charities are not great at trusting their Welsh ends to pilot legislation. Fact. The hoops and hurdles are too high, the confidence is too low. And maybe there’s not enough imagination either. Or trust. Whatever it is, the sector is generally risk averse when it comes to Wales.

Yet that is the last thing the sector needs to be as we look towards the next 10 years. It needs to make its years as a sector or it will get left behind as the Assembly grows and changes.

Back in 2000 it was the Children’s Society that made headlines when it unilaterally pulled out of Wales. It was a low point for the third sector and dismayed many people. But the rest of the sector did not pull out then. It stayed – but has it made the most of staying?

And when it looks to the next 10 years, what does it expect to achieve? There are big financial and service delivery changes coming. Legislative power will continue to grow, quickly if a referendum is won, steadily if it is not. But it will be needed now more than ever.

It’s time for the third sector to take a few more risks. And then it will know the real strength of its partnership with government.