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A shared mission – Civil society’s offer to a new government

  • Dr Charlotte Augst

    Consultant and former Executive Director, Policy, Campaigns and Improvement at Diabetes UK

  • Anne Pordes Bowers

    Strategic lead, Community Public Health, London Borough of Newham and Lead, London Community Champions Development Programme

A new government is exciting – particularly one that seems to want to actually tackle the major issues damaging our communities, places and planet. And so it’s no surprise that there are multiple publications of ‘asks’ for the new government – many of them from civil society organisations.

However, what would happen if we didn’t just have asks, but offers? What if we were saying: here is what we as civil society can – and want – to do to stop the damage, to play our part in rebuilding communities, places and planet. In our experience, this is particularly important for the voluntary, community and faith sector – who have been hit hard by austerity and rising demand, and the previous Government’s assertion that we should ‘stick to our knitting’. 


Why do this? 

There are good reasons to step up and make an offer alongside an ask. 

First – the challenges society faces very obviously cannot be fixed by government alone. If Covid taught us one thing it is that partnership is vital, and that climate change, structural inequality, the denigration of expertise and the decline of our collective social contact are not problems that government of any stripe can single handedly fix. Second  – the missions framing put forward by the government explicitly asks for and provides the opportunity for stakeholders, partners and people to bring their assets and to create a space that Government, as a very powerful actor, holds and fosters, but that it cannot own.

Third – civil society is already in the solutions space. Most voluntary sector groups are far too small to be about policy teams, let alone public affairs activity. It’s people cracking on with solving problems on their doorstep. Of the nearly 164,000 voluntary and community organisations in the UK in 2023, nearly 50 per cent are micro – ie with an income of under £10,000. Over 80 per cent have an income under £100,000 a year. These are people who are working hard to address the issues they see. At a local level from our own experience, the number of people engaging in Newham Council’s sector-leading participatory budgeting programme People Powered Places has increased exponentially. Between the first programme (2021/22) and today’s programme (2024/26) there has been a more than 50 per cent increase in the number of projects, from 206 to 366 (there has also been a massive increase in the number of residents voting on projects, from 2,600 to 10,000). 

So what if those organisations amongst us who do have influencing teams and plans focused on what we can and do already offer to the collective effort of addressing inequalities and improving outcomes, experiences and life chances? What if we showed that our asks and offers enable us to bring our best, contribute the most, and enable a truly stronger collective? 

As leaders who have worked in and with the community sector for some time, here is what we think the civil society sector can and should confidently take to the new government. We know the sector can do them, because we see our communities doing this work every day. 

  1. Deep, strong and trusted relationships with communities: Civil society organisations, both those grown and led locally, and also those run by and responding to people who live with the problem they are trying to solve, are powerful two-way connectors between communities and policy and practice leaders. They have the trust of people, know what the real issues are and have a much richer sense of how to address these, tapping into people’s own agency. They can mobilise people to take action, or change behaviours. This has been shown clearly during Covid, and was evident before – in campaigns around living wage, smoking bans and rights for LGBTQ+ people. 

  1. A holistic, real life approach to problem solving: People rarely struggle with just one thing that isn’t working. Or those who do can normally find, and use, the help they need easily. People who are affected by multiple challenges at once – by poverty, loneliness, violence, anxiety or poor housing, need their lives understood holistically. This is how the community sector works. Even if their strapline is single issue, they rarely stick inside that box. They don’t just know about the treatments for one health condition, they are also able to talk to people about how their ill health affects their income, their work or their family life. We know organisations focused on tackling digital exclusion also help mothers travel to see their children in hospital, or organisations helping people with housing challenges who are then addressing multiple health conditions. We sorely need this approach in the time of scarcity where progress on multi-agency delivery is stalling under funding pressures. 

  1. Flexibility and agility: Communities’ needs shift, (never more evident than during Covid and more recently the cost of living crisis) and civil society – particularly small, locally focused civil society – shifts in response, pivoting to needs as they arise. Some of this is learned behaviour for organisations who survive on responding to constantly changing priorities of funders. But it’s also often because civil society’s closeness to communities allows it to quickly identify emerging needs and changes, enabling a swift response.. This should not be confused as an argument to persist with decades of unreliable and piecemeal funding. So much more could be done if organisations knew they were secure and didn’t need to worry about rent or the cost of IT licences. It is to say that civil society can and does respond to communities quickly – often more quickly than the statutory sector. 

  1. Lead at the place level that matters to people: Devolution and delivery closer to communities are constant threads in the programme Government has set out. One of the questions that often arises is ‘What’s the right footprint?’. Because our sector and wider civil society defines and structures itself around community, we flex this in ways that are very helpful to the statutory sector. On some issues, community might be an online forum for people living with a very rare condition or issue. On others, community is gathered around a place like a park, a place of worship, a GP surgery or a school. Civil society understands this and operates in the types of spaces (virtual, real, cultural) that make sense to people. Keeping the boundaries fluid around who belongs can help compensate for the necessary rigidity of statutory geographies. 

  1. Truth to power(ful): Our sector can talk to politicians and other key decision-makers about what matters, what works and what doesn’t work. It can help maintain a moral purpose and remain focused on real life outcomes. At our best, we are both practical and ambitious, able to flex, but also steadfast in our commitment to the cause. The focus from political leaders on long-term, real life outcomes, epitomised in today’s government by their commitment to five ambitious missions, has the potential to be a powerful driver for impact and cohesion. 

So what… 

Given how much we already do – and can grow – the asks are still important. Core funding, strategic inclusive commissioning, dedicated investment in our organisations’ sustainability, particularly those working on the margins and those led by minoritised people, are needed if we are to make the most of what we can offer. 

We believe that these offers to a new government should be irresistible. We are already working to achieve the missions. We have unparalleled energy and potential. You wouldn’t try to get a rocket into space without firing on all cylinders, would you? It is time for lift off.