Walking out of Downing Street last week (the ongoing cabinet secretary recruitment process having returned me to familiar territory) I crossed paths with an arriving stream of civil society leaders. Hugely diverse in appearance, background and areas of expertise, but united by a common dedication to making Britain and the wider world a better place. And by a sense of excited anticipation.
Excited, because they were about to hear the prime minister lay out his vision for a new ‘Civil Society Covenant’ designed to reset the relationship between government and the charity sector and “usher in a new era of partnership”.
Having chaired the two-year Law Family Commission on Civil Society that concluded last year, the significance of this intervention from the PM resonated strongly with me. That commission, hosted by Pro Bono Economics, asked how the government, businesses and charities might come together to collectively unleash the potential of civil society in the UK. It identified five key themes, including better data, a new focus on philanthropic opportunities, improved collaboration with the private sector and a renewal of the infrastructure that supports the operation of civil society across the country. It alighted too on a strengthening of the connection between charities and government – a recognition of civil society as a core part of the policymaking process, rather than simply a lowest-cost provider of public services.
Keir Starmer signalled his intent to pick up this thread while in opposition, joining his top team in detailed discussions with civil society leaders at an all-day conference back in January. That ‘summit’ was a sleeves-rolled-up exploration of how the activity and insight generated by the UK’s charities and community groups might best be plugged into Labour’s desire to deliver against its five missions.
The fact that this conversation has evolved into something more concrete so early in the tenure of the new administration speaks volumes for the priority given by the government to finding a more productive way to work with civil society. It is an approach which has no doubt benefited from the composition of the new government, with Starmer’s Cabinet boasting arguably the strongest charity sector background in modern history.
Yet the success of the covenant will rest on more than political goodwill, because partnership between civil society and government has been held back in recent years at least in part by the friction that sometimes exists between the charity sector and the civil service.
At one level, collaboration between the two parties should feel very natural. After all, both are motivated to do the right thing and have the capacity to step outside the short-termism of political and business cycles in pursuit of that. And civil society’s agility, innovation and hyperlocal networking should serve as a natural complement to the scale and stability of the civil service.
Indeed, it’s a relationship which is valued by many officials. Among civil servants polled for the Law Family Commission in 2021, 60% believed there should be more engagement between policymakers and charities and 32% argued that their own department would be more effective if charities and community groups were more involved in its work.
Yet a disconnect remains, with 39% of those same officials saying they felt the evidence produced by charities and community groups could be “partial or flaky” and 45% agreeing that these organisations have a tendency towards political bias. Those perceptions serve as important barriers for the archly neutral institution of the civil service, and they can’t simply be dismissed out of hand – uncomfortable though they may be for many in civil society.
But they are based on a relative lack of exposure. Consider for example that just 10% of the surveyed civil servants said they had served as a charity trustee in the previous 12 months, compared with 36% of MPs and 46% of local councillors. Likewise, only 31% of officials said they had volunteered their time in the past year, as opposed to 56% of MPs and 78% of councillors. And just 21% of civil servants reported using evidence or insights provided by a charity, compared with 49% of local councillors and 70% of MPs.
So, we have a civil service that recognises the potential value offered by charity sector insight, but which is somewhat sceptical of the information that is generated and – relative to others in the policymaking world – underexposed to it. Left unchecked, it’s a picture that may just undermine the new Covenant’s intentions – and therefore the government’s ambitions for partnership with civil society.
Happily, leaders within the civil service have recognised the need for action and have worked with Pro Bono Economics to arrange their own ‘summit’ with civil society. Scheduled to take place next month, it will celebrate the successes associated with collaboration, explore the blind spots that exist on both sides, and establish new touchpoints and relationships that can benefit both parties.
If it achieves its aims, it has the potential to amplify the already sizeable impact that civil society delivers on a daily basis by helping policymakers to tackle more of the challenges facing the country at an earlier stage. Better outcomes more efficiently delivered: truly a cause for excited anticipation.
Civil servants can register for A Civil Alliance event on 21 November here
Gus O'Donnell is a former cabinet secretary and is honorary president at Pro Bono Economics