NVSC

The initial findings of the National Survey of Third Sector Organisations have recently been released. Kevin Blowe, Coordinator of the Aston-Mansfield Community Involvement Unit, explains what they show.

The National Survey of Third Sector Organisations, conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Cabinet Office, is part of the government’s new performance monitoring of local authorities and sought to measure the contribution that local government and its partners make to the environment in which independent third sector organisations can operate successfully.

Between September and December 2008, 104,000 charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises were contacted to complete a questionnaire. This was the biggest ever survey of the sector and asked about local and national funding relationships, advice and support services and the state of relations with local government. In Newham, there were 246 responses, representing 33% of those contacted.Early results concentrate only on the results from questions that measure the government’s National Indicator 7, “An Environment for a Thriving Third Sector”. They show that nationally, the greater the level of engagement by local public bodies, the more positively voluntary and community groups view their relationship with local councils and health services.  Out of the 49,000 organisations who took part, the majority (51%) “have no strong views in either direction”, meaning that councils across the country “may well see an opportunity to bring them on board as positive and active partners”. Preliminary results indicate that Newham mirrors these national figures, although the figure was lower: 42% said that local public bodies have neither a positive or negative influence on how successful they are.Nationally only a small minority of voluntary and community organisations (16%) described the influence of statutory bodies on the success of their organisations as either “positive” or “very positive”. The survey also looked at levels of engagement and the preliminary report highlights evidence that at a national level, a majority of those who said they had a great amount of engagement with local statutory bodies were more likely to also see a positive or very positive influence – a factor that Campbell Robb, the Director General of the government’s Office of the Third Sector, has described in a letter to Chief Executives of local councils as “a staggering success”. Until the full results have been published, however, we will not know whether this apparent relationship between higher levels of engagement and those groups who gave positive responses is also a factor in Newham.  What we do know is that in line with the rest of the country, a minority (18%) of all those who responded in Newham described either a “positive” or “very positive” influence on the success of their work. However, 22% of Newham respondents had a “negative” or “very negative” view of the impact of local public bodies on their organisations’ success, considerably above the national average of 14%. Full analysis of the results will be available in April 2009 but the government has indicated its belief that a stronger third sector can be an asset to every local authority area. The results of the national survey indicate that the government  will set a target for Newham’s Local Strategic Partnership to achieve a “statistically significant improvement” of 6.2% in the level of positive feedback from local organisations about the way that statutory bodies influence their success.With a higher than average level of nagative responses in Newham, the survey highlights the need for the considerable effort to achieve this, but the National Survey of Third Sector Organisations potentially provides an opportunity to discuss practical ways local organisations can work with thier statutory partners, both to improve the environemnt for successful, independent third sector organisations and also to help public bodies to achieve the challenging national targets that they must meet by 2010.