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State of the Sector Panel Survey

The State of the Sector Panel Survey was made up of 5,600 third sector organisations. The Panel was recruited to reflect the range of voluntary and community organisations and social enterprises in England and to pay particular attention to those that provide public services. Panel members were contacted each year to take part in a postal survey and telephone interviews, and approximately 3,600 took part in each of these stages.

The Panel was established by the Active Communities Directorate in the Home Office and the first survey was conducted in 2003. Responsibility for conducting the survey then transferred to Communities and Local Government, on behalf of the Office of the Third Sector.

After considering our means of engaging the third sector it was decided to end the State of the Sector Panel in June 2008. We would like to sincerely thank all of the organisations who took part.

What was the Panel for?

The Panel Survey enabled the Office of the Third Sector to gather information about the sector's activities, concerns and needs in a systematic way – to reach the parts that other, smaller or narrower, consultations, did not reach. Over the course of 2008 a series of four reports will be published, analysing the findings from the four years of the survey. The reports will be on the following:

• Activities, resources and engagement with beneficiaries
• Collaborative working and infrastructure organisations
• Engagement with Government bodies and use of the Compact
• Human, capital and organisational resources

The Panel also allowed the Office of the Third Sector to monitor progress in meeting its commitment to increase voluntary and community sector activity under the 2004 Spending Review. It also contributed to measuring the second element of the Cabinet Office Public Service Agreement (PSA) 4 (formerly Home Office PSA 6): “to increase the capacity and contribution of the voluntary and community sector to deliver more public services”.

Panel Reports

The Office of the Third Sector has published a series of reports analysing data from the State of the Sector Panel survey. The reports cover the following themes:

• Report Introduction and Panel Characteristics [PDF, 11 pages, 133KB]
• Report 1 [PDF, 34 pages, 141KB]
  Report 1 describes the activities carried out by the sampled organisations; the amount of funding they received from different sources and their views about the process. 
• Report 2 [PDF, 36 pages, 152KB]
  This report focuses on panel members’ engagement with their clients and different forms of relationship between organisations including group structures, mergers, collaborative working and membership of infrastructure organisations.
• Report 3 [PDF, 26 pages, 291KB]
  This examines the extent and effectiveness of the organisations’ contacts with different public sector bodies and their awareness of National, Regional and Local Compacts.
• Report 4 [PDF, 40 pages, 159KB]
  This considers the organisations’ human and capital resources, including the skills and training of their employees and volunteers, their use of Information Technology and the suitability of their accommodation

  Newsletters

• News from the Panel (No. 2), August 2006 – Activities and change in resources  [PDF 153KB, 12 pages]
• News from the Panel (No. 1), Dec 2004 – Panel members activities and resources [PDF 155KB, 12 pages]