Making the Compact work for charities
January 2009
Sir Bert Massie, Commissioner for the Compact, set out his recommendations about its future on 28 November 2008.
His report to Kevin Brennan, OTS Minister, summarises the findings of three months of dialogue between the State and voluntary sectors. His key recommendations were that:
- The Compact remains a voluntary agreement and that no further consideration be given to converting it into statutory form.
- The Compact and codes be rewritten into a single document, with particular consideration given to the implications for local compacts of a revised national Compact. The redrafting should take account of, and refer to, the new local performance framework, local strategic partnerships, local area agreements and the comprehensive area assessment.
- The Commission be mandated to begin the work of revising and rewriting the Compact forthwith, according to a consultative process to be agreed between the Compact parties.
- The Commission for the Compact is established as a statutory corporation. The statute establishing the Commission should also provide that, in the exercise of its functions, the Commission should act independently, having first agreed its business plan with the Secretary of State.
The Compact was established 10 years ago as an agreement to provide an overall framework for promoting effective partnership between Government and voluntary sector organisations and was inspired by the Deakin Commission report on the future of the voluntary sector. The Commission for the Compact was set up in 2007 address the barriers to the Compact’s adoption and implementation. Richard Corden, its CEO, observed: ‘The Government and voluntary sector support the Compact and want to make it work better. There is no doubt that the Compact has helped to improve Government voluntary sector working relations since 1998. But many think it has taken 10 years to make five years of progress. Our task is to speed this up.’
See also Elizabeth Davies and Richard Corden's viewpoint article in Caritas, Issue 10, September 2008 and Ernese Skinner's article (CFDG) in this issue
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