The importance of charities can be measured by their numbers and—as Noel Hyndman points out on p. 247—there are now 200,000 registered charities in the UK, with an estimated total income of £80 billion. But that is only a part of the story. Their real importance is much more about the place now they occupy in our society. As the House of Lords Select Committee* concluded:
… they are the eyes, the ears and the conscience of our society. They mobilise … they inspire, they advocate and they unite.
And their role as providers of services for public good has grown exponentially during the past decade.
For these reasons, the health of the sector matters greatly to the wider public sector and to the whole of our society—which is why we devoted the fourth annual PMM Live! to the subject. That seminar and the articles which it inspired (set out below) posed a wide range of questions for government which currently remain unanswered:
How can we improve the quality of commissioning services from the sector when so much is short term, prescriptive and fails to make provision for necessary core costs?
How can we better involve charities as genuine partners in the design of services they will, ultimately, be expected to deliver?
Can we do more to encourage employers and individuals to provide the improved governance which the sector needs?
What is the future role of the Charity Commission and should it, as advocated by Andrew Hind (p. 251), be able to levy a financial charge on charities to secure its own financial future?
These unanswered questions may, of course, be addressed in the forthcoming strategic review of civil society. They should be because they require urgent attention if the sector is to cope with the challenges it faces.
At the same time, there are questions for the sector itself to ponder:
Are charities yet realizing the potential of the evolving SORP to drive accountability and transparency?
Is there sufficient clarity in the sector of what the future should look like and, in particular, how it retains its raison d’être and relevance in a rapidly-changing society?
Do charities fully understand the potential of technology not just to fundraise more effectively but also to provide better services at less cost?
My concern is that charities may be about to experience a perfect storm and that too little is being done to plan how best to cope with it … perhaps because too few people understand just how crucial they now are. Charities have to face up to their own failings but they should also expect to be supported and nurtured by governments, local and central, who owe them a great deal.
Public Money & Management's fourth PMM Live! was held on 25 October 2017. PMM Live! events are rooted in PMM's mission to bring government and academia together. In addition to our debate and new development articles, PMM Live! gives the journal added value when compared with more conventional scholarly journals. The articles that folllow are by PMM Live! 2017's speakers: Jill Pitkeathley (p. 246), Noel Hyndman (p. 247), Carolyn Cordery (p. 250) and Andrew Hind (p. 251).
Lord Bichard chairs PMM Live! and all are held at the House of Lords. The first, in September 2014, was on Benchmarking public services for excellent performance and was based on a PMM theme in Vol. 33, No. 4 guest edited by Clive Grace and Alan Fenna.
The second PMM Live! in October 2015 was on Sustainable public management: lessons for impact. Speakers were Christopher Pollitt, Sue Newberry, Jeffrey Unerman and Ian Carruthers. Articles based on PMM Live! 2015 were published in Vol. 36, No. 4.
The third PMM Live!, in November 2016, took the theme: Needing to know? Do policy-makers have enough information to ensure rational government? Speakers were David Walker, Jane Broadbent, and Colin Talbot. See PMM's Vol. 37, No. 4 for articles by the speakers and some of the audience.
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Lord Bichard
Lord Bichard is Chairman of Public Money & Management’s editorial board.