The minister for civil society, Rob Wilson, defended his department from critical remarks about its effectiveness and hinted at an upcoming announcement, at an event last night.
Achievements by the Office for Civil Society were "not insignificant”, Wilson said yesterday at the Christmas reception hosted by NCVO and the All-party Parliamentary Group for Civil Society and Volunteering.
“Some people have been saying very recently that the Office for Civil Society is ‘hollowed out’. All I can say is that those people are going to look very silly in a few weeks’ time when we announce our forthcoming plans.”
Wilson’s remarks were made in response to Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, who said that the Office for Civil Society had been left “gutted” and “hollowed out” following the recent spending review.
Bubb said the office no longer carried the functions it was created for and only appeared to have resources for social impact bonds and the National Citizen Service.
“The OCS has been gutted,” Bubb said. “Everyone would have got angry if they had abolished it, but instead it has been hollowed out.”
He added that it was “debatable” if it could still be called the Office for Civil Society.
“You have to ask whether it really still exists, or whether it’s just a name on a door,” he told Civil Society News. “There are now only a handful of civil servants working on anything but NCS and social impact bonds.”
But Wilson yesterday dismissed Bubb’s remarks.
“There has been a lot going on and as a department we have done really well out of the spending review,” he said.
“We’ve managed to protect the Big Lottery fund, which I know some in the sector were very concerned about. We’ve also protected some of the core projects which we have in the Cabinet Office, for example we are going to be doubling the number of community organisers from 5,000 to 10,000.
"There is going to be a vast expansion in the NCS and we’ve also managed to secure £100m for social impact bonds. These are not insignificant achievements for the Office of Civil Society,” he said.
Wilson said he was pleased to have backed “important campaigns” - like Social Saturday and Giving Tuesday – and pointed to the department’s commitment to employee volunteering and “getting on and making sure the Charity Commission has the powers it needs through the Protection of Charities Bill”.
It has been a “difficult and challenging year”, Wilson said, but “with the backing of government”, millions of social entrepreneurs, community-minded individuals, trustees, charity workers and others could “make Britain a much better place to live”.
“My ongoing mission is to deliver that,” he said.
‘Large-scale changes’ for fundraising ahead
Wilson said fundraising challenges over the year would bring about “large-scale changes for the sector and some reform”.
“I’d like to place on record my great appreciation to Sir Stuart Etherington for leading the fundraising review and for the work that NCVO did in supporting the Cabinet Office for making sure that self-regulation has a place in the future.
“I was greatly heartened by the summit on Friday,” he said. “There has been some real progress there and I think we can now see that through to the end.”
