JOINT STRATEGIC NEEDS ANALYSIS – THIRD SECTOR TOPIC PAPER

INTRODUCTION:

This document has been produced by Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council (EVOC) – Edinburgh’s Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) – which, with Volunteer Edinburgh and Edinburgh Social Enterprise Network (ESEN), comprises The Edinburgh Third Sector Interface (TSI).

It aims to provide a broad introduction to the Third Sector in Edinburgh, in the context of delivery of health and Social Care Services, at the commencement of the new integrated arrangements. We intend that this document will be developed further to provide additional benchmarks for the of the needs and aspirations, challenges and opportunities for the Third Sector’s care and support providers in the context of four core aspirations:

1. Equal partnership with NHS Lothian and City of Edinburgh Council.2. Co-productive contracting and tendering.3. Stability and longevity of grant funding.4. Investment in preventative spend.

Drawing upon information available from a wide range of sources, this information is at first intended to be illustrative and does not aim to be exhaustive. EVOC acknowledges that whilst there has been limited consultation with Third Sector partners. More extensive consultation with partners across the sector will inform future iterations of this paper which will be to include sections on the aims and aspirations of the Sector and as well as clearly identifying challenges and opportunities to these aspirations.

OVERVIEW AND BACKGROUND 1,2:

“To be recognised as an integral part of the bigger picture when it comes to working with people on the ground3”

Edinburgh’s Third Sector is hugely diverse, consisting of charities, social enterprises and voluntary organisations/community groups. These organisations can be comprised of paid staff and volunteers or run entirely by volunteers – whatever the needs of those organisations.

1 CF: Edinburgh Compact, Compact Voice: Edinburgh’s Third Sector in 2014. 2 CF: Edinburgh Compact, Edinburgh Compact Partnership Strategic Framework and Action Plan (2015-20).3 CF: Edinburgh Compact, Compact Voice: Edinburgh’s Third Sector in 2014.

Many organisations have a particular locality focus and work in strong, close partnerships with other local organisations and the community and with particular focusses, for example working with older people or people with learning difficulties, to provide the kinds of services would not generally be provided by Statutory services.

Additionally, there are a large number of national and international organisations which often take a wider focus upon single issues and single conditions which will frequently include campaigning and lobbying for policy change and/or something.

What is the size and income of the Sector? There are upwards of 4,000 voluntary organisations based within Edinburgh. These are comprised of 2,8014 organisations formally registered with The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) as charitable, as well as an estimated 1,200 community groups5.

71% of these organisations work solely or largely within Edinburgh, 29% working across Scotland, the UK or internationally6.

There are also just over 200 organisations in Edinburgh who class themselves as Social Enterprises.

The combined income of these organisations, at £2.2 billions (which rises to £2.45 billions when Further and Higher education and private schools are included), makes a major contribution to the city’s economy, with the Sector also one of Edinburgh’s largest employers.

The Sector employs in the region of 15,000 people7 and provides extensive workforce and skills development, employability support and life-long learning opportunities for young people and adults of all ages.

4 OSCR June 2015, includes charitable trusts and foundations and newly formed organisations which meet the charity test and excludes Further Education establishments, Higher Education establishments and private schools. 5 EVOC 20156 Compact Voice Survey – 2014. 7 Edinburgh by Numbers 2014.

Sources of income for the Third Sector include:

Donations, fundraising and legacies, Interest and investment income, Government and Public Sector funding, Trading, Charitable activity, and Other income (i.e. miscellaneous income).

The funding sources for different size organisations demonstrates their varied profiles: larger organisations (in the £25k - £99,999 range) report approximately 50% of income derived from Public Sector Organisations while smaller organisations (<£24,999) derive significantly more of their income from donations, fundraising and legacies; trading and from charitable activities (for example, subscription dues to attend an activity group or lunch club.)

Asked if the Third Sector would grow, stay the same or reduce in coming years, respondents the to the Compact Voice Survey8 36% indicated that they believed the Sector would grow, 42% believed that it would remain the same size while 22% believed that the Sector would reduce in size during the course of 2015.

8 Ibid

What does the sector do?The graphic to the left shows the distribution of organisations working toward any given charitable purpose as at June 2015. OSCR categorises each of these themes according to one or more of 15 charitable purposes. Most state more than one charitable purpose.

Statistics from the Scottish Charity Register show that there are 655 charities whose purpose is the improvement of people’s health. Set alongside other purposes, such as working with disadvantaged people (691) and the relief of poverty (537), we start to get a feel for the scope of the sector in delivering both Health and Social Care services.

Add to that non-charitable organisations and Social Enterprises we start to build a picture of a complex interplay between the individuals and autonomous organisations the Sector with the community and the wider world including Statutory and Independent Sector partners.

As noted above, there are more than 4000 different organisations within the city – 71% of whom work exclusively within Edinburgh. This diversity within the Sector allows a level of freedom which is, in many ways, in direct contrast to the Statutory Sector with it’s ‘Command and Control’ management structures.

Some of the core benefits of the freedom afforded by this structure are:

Responsiveness – both to individual needs and wider community issues. Trust – organisations are closer to the community and local residents. Innovation – trust and flexibility allow experimentation to directly respond to

the needs of communities. Value for money – monitoring and evaluation repeatedly shows that the

Sector delivers excellent value for money. Connectedness – both internally and externally.

Volunteering:

As noted above, volunteers form a core element of the work of the Third Sector and many organisations simply would not be able to function without the support of a dedicated pool of volunteers. In addition, good governance is provided for all Third Sector organisations by volunteer Trustees who frequently dedicate large amounts of time to the establishment of organisations, supporting funding initiatives and working within communities to build community awareness.

At the time of the Compact Voice survey (2014), 54% of organisations indicated that they are engaging more volunteers than the previous year and 74% reported that volunteers were also giving more hours than the previous year, Despite this 56% indicated that they do not currently have enough volunteers.9

Within Edinburgh, Volunteer Scotland10 reports that 29% of all adults within the City, an estimated 120,000 people, volunteer formally through an organisation or group. This is marginally above the national average of 28%. Quoting 2012 figures, this often undervalued resource delivered 17 Million hours of support, advice, training and other skills into the Third Sector at a value of approximately £308Millions. 11

Across Scotland the value of the volunteering economy amounts to an estimated £2.6 billions with approximately 162 million hours given in 2012.

One of the key challenges within the Third Sector, and a key role for Volunteer Edinburgh, is ensure that volunteers are always treated both as an extremely valuable resource, one which should be nurtured and fully supported to achieve the goals set by the organisations to whom they deliver their services, but also that they are not commoditised and viewed as ‘free labour’ or as replacement staff members.

For further information about volunteering opportunities or about the recruitment, training and support of volunteers, please contact Volunteer Edinburgh: http://www.volunteeredinburgh.org.uk or 0131 225 0630.ORGANISATION AND COORDINATION:

9 Compact Voice survey (date) 10 Scottish Household Survey (2013), http://www.volunteerscotland.net/policy-and-research/data-and-graphs/local-area-profiles/edinburgh/ accessed 15/12/15 11 ibid

EVOC RedBook: Since 2014, a comprehensive mapping exercise of activities delivered by the Third Sector within Edinburgh has been initiated by EVOC.

The EVOC Red Book is available at www.evocredbook.org.uk.

Unlike our Statutory Sector partners, but in common with the Corporate Sector, the Third Sector has no overall management and it is key to understand that autonomy, within individual organisations, is a significant strength within the Third Sector. The ability then to re-form itself and to deliver innovation within practice and partnership is found within the flexibility delivered through very local governance within individual organisations which can in turn be aggregated through partnerships and consortia.

This can also be, to some degree, a challenge within the Sector. With no overall command and control it can become difficult to take or to own a genuinely representative voice and it is therefore always challenging to represent the views ‘of the Third Sector’.

When partners seek to engage with Third Sector organisations this kind of coordination and/or voice may be generated through a range of means. These include: professional representative bodies for particular professions, through campaigning groups, consortia of organisations working toward a particular goal and through the three partners of the Third Sector Interface.

These partners as well as the Third Sector Interface (Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council (EVOC), Volunteer Edinburgh and Edinburgh Social Enterprise Network (ESEN)) work with the Sector to deliver themed and geographic networks or forums which provide opportunities for providers to come together to share intelligence, collaborate and to influence decision-makes within Edinburgh, across Scotland and the United Kingdom.

By developing these networks and forums the Sector is able to ensure that the voices of individual organisations are represented throughout all levels of local and national government as well as to key decision-makers. These voices are then very much fed into Citywide policy and decision making through the Third Sector Strategy Group, The Edinburgh Compact and through the geographic Voluntary Sector Forums of each Neighbourhood Partnership.

This diagram shows the structure of Edinburgh’s networks and forums and how the information they provide passes backward and forward amongst each of these groups.

EVOC RedBook: Since 2014, a comprehensive mapping exercise of activities delivered by the Third Sector within Edinburgh has been initiated by EVOC.

The EVOC Red Book is available at www.evocredbook.org.uk.

EVOCJANUARY 2016