There are more third sector organisations (TSOs) per person in the more affluent southern regions of England than elsewhere, according to a new report.
According to the Third Sector Trends 2022 report, there are about 4.4 charities (with an income of less than £25m) per 1,000 people living in London, compared to 3.4 across England and Wales overall.
The report says there are 4.2 charities per 1,000 people in south west England and 3.6 in the south east, compared to 2.6 in Yorkshire and the Humber.
“There are about 200,000 organisations in England and Wales, but they are not distributed evenly,” it says.
“There tend to be more third sector organisations (TSOs) per 1,000 population in the more affluent south of England than elsewhere.”
More larger charities in poorer areas
The report says that in the least affluent areas there tends to be a higher concentration of charities with an annual income of £50,000 to £25m than in the most affluent areas, where there is a larger proportion of micro and small organisations.
“The likely reason for the larger proportion of small organisations in wealthy areas, is that social capital is stronger and people have greater financial resources at their disposal,” the report says.
“Each of these factors may incentivise people to engage in charitable work and/or be interested in the idea of setting up and running TSOs.
“In poorer areas, there is a stronger concentration of larger charities for several inter-related reasons. At a pragmatic level, it is cheaper for organisations to establish themselves in less affluent areas because properties and rents may be lower.
“From a practice and purpose point of view, larger TSOs are more likely to engage in activities that meet urgent or critical needs – and much of this work may be funded by grants and contracts from agencies that have a statutory or strategic mission to invest in such issues.”
The report also finds organisations tend to have been established longer when they are based in the most affluent areas, whether they are in ‘major urban affluent’ locations or in ‘town and country’ affluent areas.
Income is not evenly spread across organisations. Micro organisations constitute 35% of the sector, but they receive less than 1% of sector income.
By contrast, the largest organisations command 72% of sector income, but only constitute 5% of organisations.
Employment and volunteering
It is estimated that the sector in England and Wales employs about 1.1 million people, and around 40% of organisations are employers.
The report reads that the indications are that employment has grown in the sector since 2019, “but not dramatically so”.
“One factor that is constraining sector growth is that 43% of employers are currently struggling to recruit new staff. Furthermore, a fifth of employing organisations say that they are finding it harder to hold on to their existing staff.”
The report adds charities heavily rely upon regular volunteers, and regular volunteers commit, on average, around 72 hours work per year, or six hours a month.
There are about 4.3 million regular volunteers working in England and Wales at the moment and collectively they contribute 312 million hours of work.
If this work had to be paid for by TSOs, it would amount to £3bn at the level of the National Living Wage, and 80% of average wages would be nearly £5bn.
“Over half of TSOs report that it has been harder to hold on to older volunteers and it looks unlikely that this has been fully compensated for by the recruitment of new volunteers. Indeed, a quarter of organisations say that they are losing some of the volunteers who joined them during the pandemic,” adds the report.
‘The sector is the glue that holds society together’
Published today by the Community Foundation, the report received more than 6,000 responses over England and Wales, and fieldwork began in June and concluded at the end of September 2022.
Rob Williamson, chief executive of the Community Foundation, said: “This first report clearly shows the importance of the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector in terms of size and employment in England and Wales.
“We already know the sector is the glue that holds society together by providing help and support to many in need but at a basic level it employs and pays tens of thousands of people and puts millions into local economies. Without it we would be poorer in so many ways.”
“The vital role the sector plays is why we at the Community Foundation have set up a cost-of-living fund to support organisations which may be struggling with the double whammy of increasing demand and increasing costs.”
Related Articles
