DSC policy update - week commencing 23 November 2020

The Spending Review is tomorrow (25 November), so keep your eye out. Hopefully, we might find out some information on the government’s plans to help the sector over the coming year.  Here’s a little round up of other news from the week:

Nearly 200 charities have joined forces, calling on the government to reconsider plans to reduce the proportion the UK spends on aid to 0.5% from 0.7%

The letter was signed my major charity leaders including Save the Children, Greenpeace and Unicef. This is not the only opposition the government has come up against. MPs from seven parties, including Peter Bottomley from the Conservative party, are urging the government to reconsider cuts to the aid budget, which is expected to be announced in the Spending Review despite the Tory manifesto promising to maintain spending at 0.7%. The Archbishop of Canterbury has also warned about the consequences of cutting the aid budget. Fingers crossed these concerns don’t fall on deaf ears.

NAO looking into funding distribution

After ongoing concerns about the delays in distributing the £750 million emergency funding announced for charities in April by the DCMS, The National Audit Office will be looking into how well ministers responded to the pandemic, including how quickly funding was distributed to charities. As mentioned last week, although all the funds have been allocated all the funds haven’t yet been distributed.

Social sector’s contribution is ‘underestimated and overshadowed’ according to CE at the Bank of England

The Chief Economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, has said that the social sector’s contribution is often ‘underestimated and overshadowed’ meaning that it can be left fragile. He referenced this month’s survey from Pro Bono Economics and thinks progress could be made and have considerable results in the areas of measurement impact and technology. For more information read Civil Society’s article here.

Pro Bono’s Covid Charity Tracker

As just mentioned the latest edition of Pro Bono’s Covid Charity Tracker were published this week. Over 200 charities responded to the November survey which showed that 75% of respondents are preparing for high demand in 2021. Civil Society have written about the findings here.

Community groups should be given greater power over local assets

The Think Tank, Localis, has published the report ‘Renewing Neighbourhood Democracy’ and has urged that community groups should be given greater power over local assets and a £2bn Community Wealth Fund should be set up to support local devolution. Third Sector have written about the report here, if you’d like to find out more.

John Lewis’ Christmas Advert

Lastly, of course the John Lewis advert had to get a mention. This year the advert has focused on kindness rather than gift giving (it’s another certified tearjerker!) It promotes the ‘Give a Little Love’ charity campaign which aims to raise £5 million over Christmas to be split between the charities FareShare and Home-Start.