Rob Preston and Alice Sharman went to Brighton this week for the Labour Party Conference. Here’s a summary of what happened.

Volunteering

The National Citizens Service chaired a fringe event at Friends Meeting House, hosted by centrist pressure group Progress.

MPs Tracy Brabin and Chuka Umunna both praised the scheme, which has expanded greatly under the Conservative-led government of the past seven years.

However, an audience member called out Umunna for failing to talk about the role of charities in creating a cohesive society in a divided time, as was the topic of the discussion. He responded by saying: “I’m sorry for not mentioning the third sector. We shouldn’t be expecting the voluntary sector to do this for free. We have got to properly fund these guys to be able to do this.”

Brabin spoke about the role of charities in taking over unused buildings in her consistency to provide community services. She said the services were “two-way traffic” because “the volunteer gets something out of it” as well. Brabin added that she had read in a recent edition of Vanity Fair that people who volunteer are better looking because they smile more.

Learning disability charities

The issue of funding for learning disability charities was raised a few times during the conference. At a fringe event regarding human rights, an audience member said it was impossible to properly discuss the topic without considering people with learning disabilities.

MP Catherine West said in response: “There are a lack of voluntary sector organisations because they do not have the funding.”

At another fringe event, Turning Point's chief executive, Lord Adebowale warned that the disability sector is facing a "difficult time" because of government cuts.

Adebowale, a crossbench peer who is also chair of Social Enterprise UK, said that beneficiaries of learning disability charities such as his were at “serious risk” because of the pressures facing disability charities.

He said: “Organisations like mine are facing a difficult time at the moment. The issues facing us are going to be about the costs of providing our service safely while facing massive cuts.

“We need to work in partnership with local government but I’m very worried about the viability of many of our services frankly.”

Commissioning

At the same event, Adebowale called on a potential Labour government to “put teeth back into” the Social Value Act.

Adebowale said the legislation, which came into force in 2013, was a “potential game changer” but had been watered down in its passage through Parliament.

The Co-operative and Labour Party councillor Emma Hoddinott said: “I know as a local councillor that two thirds of councils are not using the act.”

Adebowale said he would like to see a commissioning model that “is not about procurement or contracting” but is based around the needs of individuals and communities using the service.

He outlined four tests for which he said all public commissioning processes should pass:

• Power transferred
• People being listened to
• Design of service has to be explained in a sentence
• Outcomes have to be at worst co-designed, at best designed by the service user

Impact measurement

At another fringe event at the Labour party conference, organised by the Local Government Association, delegates discussed the current social investment funding environment for organisations providing youth services.

Labour councillor Amy Cross said a problem with the current model was that organisations with greater expertise in youth work such as local charities were put off applying for contracts because they lacked to capacity to measure their impact.

She said: “You end up with massive organisations that come in to an area that they don’t really know that employ workers that don’t know the area, don’t know the types of problems that young people are facing and actually, it just doesn’t work and it breaks down.”

Cross said local authorities were unable to provide any other type of investment, such as grants, for youth services while their budgets are so restricted.

Lobbying Act

At an event called Rethinking International Development, put on jointly by Charities Aid Foundation and the Barrow Cadbury Trust, the panel were widely in agreement about the need for reform of the Lobbying Act and expressed disappointment that the recommendations made in Lord Hodgson's review will not be acted on. Pickering said that these actions could be seen as "being regressive".

Lord Collins of Highbury said: "The party responsible for the Lobbying Act has caused many important voices to be lost from the public debate. 

"I want to see the long overdue reforms from the Hodgson review being implemented. I think those are the minimum changes we should see."

Religion

At the same event, a question from the audience asked the panel if the "systematic targeting of Muslim charities is an early indication of that slippery slope of restrictive civil society?"

In response, Stephen Doughty MP said "Is it deliberate and systematic? I'm not entirely sure, but there does seem to be an unreasonable additional level of suspicion of organisations with anything to do with Islam or Muslim in their name. It is wrong, an organisation should be judged on their standards. 

"I think there is an issue there. But there is a wider issue within government about religious organisations more generally."

Doughty said earlier in the discussion that the Conservative Party was “deeply suspicious of civil society, both here and abroad”.

Devolution

At an event discussing devolution, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said he was “forging new relationships with communities and the voluntary sector”.

He said: “One thing I am bringing through as Mayor of Manchester is a new relationship with the voluntary sector where we move away from this position of distrust, where we make them compete for project funding or annual funding, and constantly re-tendering.

“Let's welcome them in as equal partners in the building of our communities, let's give them five or even ten year contracts, core fund them, so that communities can contribute to the things we want to achieve.”

Dan Corry, chief executive of NPC, said mayors can “stop shutting charities out of contracts by stupid procurement policies”.

Corry also called on mayors to, as much as they can, give charities a “seat at the table with government for an area, so that their voice is heard”. He said that that “will put the responsibility on civil society to get its act together”.

“This civil society agenda should play straight into the hands of the devo mayors and I hope very much that they will want to take that up,” he added.

Fundraising

Shami Chakrabarti, Labour peer and shadow attorney general, spoke about the red tape she encountered when trying to raise funds for human rights pressure group Liberty.

Speaking at a fringe event chaired by the People’s Postcode Lottery (PPL) at the Hilton Metropole, she said there was a “huge [administrative] burden on fundraisers” and said society lotteries were important because “a lot of charities would not qualify for National Lottery funding”.

At this event, PPL managing director Jo Bucci renewed the organisation’s call for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to increase an annual income cap on the amount any society lottery can raise from £10m to £100m. She also called for an increase in the permissible amount of ticket sales for a single draw from £4m to £10m.

Regulation

At the same event, the chair of the Woodland Trust, Baroness Young of Old Scone,  said that charities are feeling picked on by the Charity Commission and punished by the Fundraising Regulator.

Young, who is a Labour peer, criticised the Charity Commission for not doing enough to promote charities at a time when the sector was under pressure.

She said: "We are being reviled in the Daily Mail, not hugely well supported by the government and the tax man is trying to get as much tax out of us as he can and the Charity Commission has kindly forgotten that as well as having a regulatory role it is also meant to be a promoter and supporter of charities. So we are kind of feeling picked on."

She also said the Fundraising Regulator had “got off on the wrong foot” with the sector. 

"To make that even worse the new Fundraising Regulator, which we all support as charities because it is an independent Fundraising Regulator supported by the charity sector, has set off on the wrong foot seeing as it is offering punishment rather than support and improvements."