Civil Society Council announced

Last July, after months of consultation, the UK government announced the Civil Society Covenant. This is intended to help ‘reset the relationship’ between government and civil society, and to provide a framework of agreed principles to support effective partnership between the two. At the time, DSC analysed what’s in the Covenant Framework and some of the inherent issues and tensions. 

One of the next steps announced last summer was the establishment of a ‘Joint Council’ to oversee the progress of the Covenant. After a lengthy appointment process, the government have finally announced a ‘Civil Society Council’ with a range of members. It is intended to ‘bring civil society into the heart of government decision-making’ and will meet quarterly in Downing Street, and be chaired by Kate Lee of NCVO. You can read more about the new council here. 

Many in our sector will be wondering, ‘ok great, so what’s next?’ Today’s announcement gives some more information: 

• The new Council needs to have its first meeting, and will likely need to formally agree things like terms of reference. Apparently, this will happen in April. 
• The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is also in the process of setting up a Local Covenant Partnerships (LCP) fund, which will provide grant funding in 15 local authority areas in England, “to develop and implement new ‘local covenant partnership’ agreements”. The delivery partner for this hasn’t been announced yet. 
• The announcement says that “Cabinet Office have updated commercial and grants policy and guidance to ensure that they are clear, and consistent with the principles of the Covenant.”  
• A Civil Society Forum has been set up between HM Treasury and organisations that lead on finance and tax policy. This has been much needed to improve communication and consultation on things like the impact of fiscal and tax policy on charities. The government says it “will enable structured dialogue and engagement between civil society representatives, HMT Ministers and senior officials”. 
• A mutual exchange and learning forum is in development, to “build understanding of roles and responsibilities while sharing skills and expertise across the sectors. This will include a commitment from central government departments to deliver at least one inward and one outward secondment with civil society.” 

There’s no doubt that the process of agreeing the Covenant and the Council has been slower than many of us would have hoped. There may be many reasons for this, but ultimately it’s about how we can collectively take advantage of the potential opportunities moving forward. 

We have to remember that governments at all levels have and may in the future take a more hostile view to involving civil society in decision-making. So it’s in all our interests to do our best to make the Covenant work and to embed as much good practice as possible over the coming years.