Blog

Pete Alcock

Civil society is a very different notion from the third sector. This is vital to understanding the relationship between voluntary organisations and the state and engaging in political debate, argues Pete Alcock, Director of the Third Sector Research Centre.

The third sector is facing a radical upheaval in its political and economic environment and the goalposts are being changed. Rob Macmillan discusses leadership - and calls for strategic debate on the role and future of the third sector.

Proposed reforms to public services have had a high profile in the news in recent months, particularly in the fierce debate over the Health and Social Care bill. With a TSRC/ ESRC policy seminar set to explore these issues next week, James Rees discusses possibilities for the future of third sector service delivery.

TSRC’s research has highlighted the fact that a relatively small proportion of the population are responsible for the majority of volunteering, charitable donations and civic participation.  This group can be thought of as a ‘civic core’  just over a third of the population that together provide 90% of volunteering hours, four-fifths of the amount given to charity, and nearly 80% of participation in civic associations.

By James Rees

The Government created high expectations at the outset of the Work Programme that the third sector would be closely involved. But the programme has generated a considerable amount of concern and critisism. James Rees highlights the risks that the programme poses to the third sector’s role in the delivery of employment services...

By Pete Alcock

The Big Society has become one of the key political concepts of the UK Coalition Government. It was developed by the Conservatives in the run up to the 2010 election, with the personal endorsement of the leader, David Cameron. Since the election it has become a central feature of the new government’s policy programme, and has continued to be promoted by Cameron, who in July 2010 described it as his ‘great passion’.

However what is meant by the Big Society, and what the implications of it are for policy and practice, particularly in the third sector, are far from clear or uncontested.

There has been a lot of talk about how the voluntary sector is being affected by the recession and public spending cuts. The sector provides vital services, and cuts to these are and will affect people right across society. But cuts to the sector are also affecting those who work within it. As with every part of the economy, jobs are being lost and becoming less secure. The sector has historically high rates of job satisfaction, but is there a risk that this will be eroded by job cuts, insecurity and increased workloads?

By Razia Shariff

October was a month of reflection on the different events we attended, our website going live ( thanks to the persistance and perseverance of our wonderwoman Naomi), working on developing a monitoring and evaluation approach for our knowledge exchange work and reading our next round of research papers for publication in November (to be covered in next months blog !)

We participated in a number of very different events during the month so I will give a brief outline and web links so that you can find out more:

By Razia Shariff

September is conference season and we have used this as an opportunity to showcase what TSRC has been busy working on over the past year - yes it's been a year since ESRC and OTS announced the launch of the national Third Sector Research Centre! We have produced a number of publications based on the emerging research streams, which we promoted at the NCVO -VSSN Conference in Warwick, the DTA Annual Conference in London and the NAVCA Conference in Blackpool.

Razia Shariff

You may be wondering what we have been doing since October 2008 when the TSRC was officially launched – well this blog will give you an insight into the hard work underway by our researchers in Birmingham and Southampton Universities and our activities as the knowledge exchange team (KET) based in London. We don’t expect to offer ground breaking news or politically controversial views, but an insight into how our research is progressing, and reflections on the potential implications for policy and practice. The researcher’s blogs will comment on their latest findings, their reflections and the implications for academia.