This month’s policy roundup gives you a taste of what the policy and influencing team has been up to over the past month. By Shareen Patel, policy and influencing officer.
Charity campaigning
The issue of charity campaigning and political activity has once again been in the spotlight (is it ever out of it?) and ACEVO will always speak out to defend the legitimacy of charity campaigning. In response to comments recently made by the home secretary following the Care4Calais inquiry which suggested that charities campaigning in line with their charitable objectives are acting against the interests of the British public, Jane commented in sector press, and our joint letter with NCVO to the Telegraph editor was published on 2 September. We expect this to be an area of increased media attention and scrutiny in the coming months in the lead up to and including a general election and will continue to defend and uphold our sector’s legitimate right to campaign and undertake political activity in the pursuit of charitable purposes.
A manifesto for the future
Having concluded our first set of ‘on-the-road’ sessions for our joint work with NCVO to produce a manifesto for the sector, we are now in the process of writing up an initial discussion paper based on all the input received so far. Thank you for your involvement to date. The intention is to provide an opportunity to our members and the wider sector to provide feedback on the next draft sometime in the Autumn, as we then proceed to having a final version produced in time for the announcement of a general election.
We will be providing practical help and guidance for charity leaders in the run-up to the election and continuing to supporting charity leaders to campaign and engage with confidence.
Get involved in Home Truths 2
We recently launched Home Truths 2, a programme of work with Voice 4 Change England designed to challenge and support mainstream UK civil society to take serious practical action on anti-racism and race equity.
We need your help to gather more responses to the survey for Black and minoritised ethnicities people working in the charity sector to gather experiences of racism and asks for views on what is helpful in advancing race equity in the sector. Please complete it if it applies to you and share it with your teams and networks so that we can get the richest data. We hope to be able to issue a report reflecting on the findings in December. The findings will also help to inform the remainder of the Home Truths 2 activities.
You can also commit to our diversity leadership principles. To sign up, please email policy@acevo.org.uk.
Taking action on the climate crisis
A reminder that on Thursday 21 September 11-12pm, James Wallace, CEO of River Action is speaking at our digital member-only event on the climate crisis. For more details or to sign-up, please email events@acevo.org.uk.
If you haven’t already done so, please take a look at our climate leadership principles and sign-up to start taking the action needed. We’d still love to hear from members who are already signatories about how they’re getting on with implementing the principles, so please do send any progress reports to shareen.patel@acevo.org.uk.
Coming up
- We are expecting the Charity Commission’s Social Media Guidance to be published imminently and will share key details once published.
- The third set of provisions of the Charities Act 2022 is expected to come into force this Autumn. View the first set and second set currently in force now. The third set relates to simplifying amending the objects and governing documents of unincorporated charities, closing a loop-hole in relation to gifts to merged charities which will remove the requirement for charities to retain shell-charities post-merger to secure certain legacies, enhancing the Charity Commission’s powers to appoint and authorise the remuneration of charity trustees, in addition to implementing the final changes related to charity land.
The policy and influencing team is here to help! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at shareen.patel@acevo.org.uk.
