Policy paper

Introduction

Published 9 August 2018

Applies to England

The purpose of the Strategy

The Civil Society Strategy sets out how the government will work to support and to strengthen civil society, without compromising its independence. Civil society refers to all individuals and organisations, when undertaking activities with the primary purpose of delivering social value, independent of state control. The government wants to build a partnership with charities and social enterprises, with volunteers, community groups and faith groups, with public service mutuals, socially responsible businesses and investors, and with the institutions which bring sports, arts, heritage, and culture to our communities.

A strong partnership of government, business, finance, and communities will help society rise to the enormous opportunities of our times. Civil society can help us make good on the promise of the 21st century: a more connected society, in which everyone can play their part.

Civil society can also help us tackle a range of burning injustices and entrenched social challenges, such as poverty, obesity, mental ill-health, youth disengagement, reoffending, homelessness, isolation, and loneliness, and the challenges of community integration.

Across our society individuals and organisations, including traditional charities, social enterprises, mutuals, and mission-led businesses, are designing effective responses to social challenges. Together with public services and mainstream businesses, they are creating ‘social value’: enriched lives for individuals and social justice in all its forms.

The role of government － and the purpose at the heart of this Strategy － is to act as the convenor of the emerging coalition of people and organisations which, together, have the answers to the challenges of our times. This means leading the debate about the future social model our country needs, coordinating investment, tracking data on what works, and most of all, ensuring people themselves are at the heart of the system we are building together.

The foundations of social value

The burning injustices our country faces are complex, inter-related issues beyond the control of any one agency in the public, private or social sector. In response, we need more than a series of individual programmes to ‘fix’ individual challenges.

The government believes that social value － enriched lives and social justice － flows from thriving communities. These are communities with a sufficient stock of financial, physical, natural, and social capital, in other words, resources including public funding, private investment, buildings, and spaces for community use, as well as trust, connectedness, and goodwill.

In thriving communities people have a sense of pride in the places where they live, feel able to get involved and take action to improve local life, and have control over the decisions which affect their neighbourhoods.^{[footnote 5]} There is a rich diversity of civic institutions, formal and informal associations, shared spaces, and activities. Local public services are properly part of the community, as they are responsive and accountable to the people they support, and local businesses recognise and fulfil their obligations to the places they work in.

Thriving communities make life better for everyone and naturally prevent or reduce social problems. This is something long recognised by the traditional social sector, including individual philanthropists, trusts, and foundations, as well as major public institutions like Big Lottery Fund and Arts Council England, who invest in the capabilities and infrastructure of communities.

Thriving communities protect and promote the rights and interests of the vulnerable and disadvantaged in society. This includes those with characteristics that are protected under the Equalities Act 2010. The social sector has long played a vital role in ensuring protection and representation for these groups and strong communities embrace this mission, creating integrated and thriving places for people to live and work together.

The role of faith groups is also essential. They play a vital part in meeting the need for greater integration and community cohesion. They are embedded within communities, well-able to recognise real local need and offer important services, particularly for marginalised and isolated groups. As with the wider social sector they speak out on important issues on behalf of those in need.

To help communities to thrive in this way, the government believes we need to strengthen the ‘five foundations of social value’, namely people, places, the social sector, the private sector, and the public sector. To strengthen these foundations, the government needs to take action. The approach is summarised in the illustration below.

The government recognises that prosperity and wellbeing depend primarily on the work of businesses, local public services and communities themselves. But there is a vital role for the government in boosting, and bringing together the capabilities and resources which a community needs in order to thrive.

The government’s Industrial Strategy, published in November 2017 seeks to rebalance the UK’s economy, boosting productivity and growth across the whole country.^{[footnote 6]} Alongside this, the government’s 25 Year Environmental Plan seeks to support sustainable development, to achieve clean growth, and increase our resource efficiency for the benefit of the environment, the economy, and our society.^{[footnote 7]} A central plank of both strategies is the recognition that the people best placed to drive forward local and sustainable economies are those who live, work, and do business in them.

The Civil Society Strategy takes this agenda forward. It complements the Integrated Communities Strategy green paper that invited views on the government’s vision for building strong integrated communities where people － whatever their background － live, work, learn, and socialise together, based on shared rights, responsibilities, and opportunities.^{[footnote 8]}

The following chapters address the ‘five foundations of social value’ in turn. Together, they detail a series of commitments and ambitions for the government, including support for volunteering and community action, investment and empowerment of people in places, a new model of commissioning public services including a focus on services delivered locally by organisations owned by staff, the community or service users, catalysing more social impact investment and developing new community investment models, and supporting the spread of digital tools for connectivity.

People should be able to take positive action on issues that they care about. This Strategy sets out a vision for all people of all ages to be able to thrive, connect with each other, and give back to their communities － building an integrated society that works for everyone, where people have a sense of control over their future and that of their community.

There is a special role for young people in the vision set out in this Strategy. The government is ambitious to meet the demand among young people for the opportunity to make a contribution, and to harness their energy and skills for the benefit of society.

The Strategy also addresses how business operates and how individuals and institutions invest their money. It is designed to speak to the broad sweep of responsible businesses and investors, as well as mission-led businesses and social enterprises.

How government plans to work

The government will convert into action the argument at the core of this Strategy: that the complex challenges facing society cannot be solved by the government alone, but by bringing together the energy and resources available across society. We will convene partners and deploy capital to harness the expertise of charities and social enterprises and the power of the private sector.

The ambition is to bring into the mainstream the work already well advanced in parts of civil society, including among responsible businesses and progressive public sector commissioners, where social value is in the forefront of what these organisations do. To this end, it is necessary to enrich the measurement of social value and to achieve consistency across public and private sector understandings of the concept. As detailed below (see ‘Measuring success’) the government will work with partners to design a coherent measure of social value. The dormant accounts scheme demonstrates how effectively public, private and social sector parties can work together. Banks and building societies have voluntarily contributed more than £1.1 billion to the scheme, and hundreds of millions of pounds have been made available for good causes.

The government is ambitious to build on these successes, and has allocated £135 million from dormant accounts to Big Society Capital to invest in providing homes for vulnerable people and to support local charities and social enterprises.

The government will also work with Big Lottery Fund to direct £145 million from dormant bank accounts to two new organisations, both of which will be independent of government, with their own governance structures. With a small core team, they will be tasked with deploying this funding to tackle some of the most serious social injustices: youth unemployment and financial exclusion.^{[footnote 9]}

Dormant account funding is unique. It provides the opportunity to deliver bold, innovative approaches and invest in long-term solutions. The approach being adopted here will allow interventions to be properly tested and evaluated over time, developing a lasting legacy of expertise and evidence not seen on these issues before.

The new organisations will provide the opportunity to catalyse partnerships that bring together the expertise of charities and social enterprises with the reach of the private sector (big business and local employers) to benefit some of the most vulnerable in our society. The new organisations will also seek to bring in additional contributions and investment from interested parties, further boosting the support available.

Next steps

This Strategy sets out a wide range of activity that the government either already is undertaking, or plans to undertake, to strengthen the foundations of social value, as well as ambitions for the long term.

A number of these actions take the form of commitments to work in collaboration with partners in civil society and in business and with the public, to develop further plans in a range of areas. This Strategy is therefore not intended as the final word on the government’s role in supporting civil society; on the contrary, it is the beginning of what will be an ongoing and evolving programme of work across government and civil society, united in a shared responsibility for our common good.

Ministerial statement: responsible business

The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy says:

Through the government’s modern lndustrial Strategy, which I launched in November, we are deliberately strengthening the five foundations of prosperity: ideas, people, infrastructure, business environment and places. I welcome and support this complementary Civil Society Strategy which will build on these foundations and bring further energy and partnership between government, business, civil society and local communities to bring improved prosperity across the UK.

Responsible business is a key part of that partnership and to forging an economy that works for all. Society rightly expects high standards from business. Corporate social and environmental responsibility should be an integral part of how our businesses operate and how they plan for long term success, including managing risks and sustaining trust in their goods, services and brands. We want businesses to communicate and be clear about their corporate responsibility and our world-leading corporate governance reforms will enable this, not only increasing the expectations of business but also encouraging a wider, positive discourse with civil society around transparency and accountability. Many of our leading businesses already connect or partner with community and voluntary groups as part of their corporate responsibility, and I want to encourage more of this.

Growing the economy and strong communities are mutually reinforcing and I very much welcome the steps which this new Civil Society Strategy takes to build on the lndustrial Strategy approach, particularly to involve communities more strongly in local planning for economic growth, prosperity and employment. Businesses of all sizes are part of the fabric of communities up and down the country. They deliver prosperity, jobs and livelihoods. Our Industrial Strategy recognises that the people best placed to drive forward local economies are those who live, work and do business in them. Now this Civil Society Strategy builds on that work to grow thriving communities across the UK.

1. The government’s Integrated Communities Strategy green paper, published in March 2018, sets out a bold and ambitious vision for integrated communities where people, whatever their background, live, work, learn and socialise together, based on shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities. ↩

2. ‘Industrial Strategy: building a Britain fit for the future’, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2017 ↩

3. ‘25 Year Environment Plan’, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2018 ↩

4. ‘Integrated Communities Strategy green paper’, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 2018 ↩

5. ‘Government unlocking £330 million from dormant accounts to build a fairer society’, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, 2018 ↩