This snapshot, taken on 06/05/2007, shows web content selected for preservation by The National Archives. External links, forms and search boxes may not work in archived websites.
The State of the Sector Panel: Progress Autumn
2005
What is the State of the Sector Panel?
The Panel is made up of 5,600 voluntary and
community organisations. We have selected these
to reflect the range of organisations in the
population of voluntary and community organisations
in England and to pay particular attention
to those that provide public services.
What is the Panel for?
We established the Panel for two reasons.
In the first place the Panel will enable us
to monitor progress in meeting our commitment
to increase voluntary and community sector
activity under PSA (Public Service Agreement)
8 (“To increase voluntary and community
sector activity, including increasing community
participation, by 5% by 2006”) and PSA6
(“To increase voluntary and community
engagement, especially among those at risk
of social exclusion"). These PSAs cover
the period 2003/04 to 2007/08.
In the second place the Panel will enable us
to gather information about the sector’s
activities, concerns and needs in a more systematic
way - to reach the parts that other, smaller
or narrower, consultations, do not reach. We
will use this information to support the sector’s
activities, respond to its concerns and provide
for its needs. We hope that the Panel will
be a two-way street between government and
the sector.
The Panel is the second of two ground-breaking
research initiatives sponsored by the Home
Office (the other is the Home Office Citizenship
Survey). These will provide robust and complementary
information about voluntary and community activities
of organisations (the Panel) and of individuals
(the Citizenship Survey).
Why should voluntary and community organisations
participate in the Panel?
The Panel provides an opportunity for voluntary
and community organisations to have their say
about government’s work with the sector
and their concerns as organisations operating
in a changing environment. Members of the Panel
have embraced this opportunity and have let
us know in robust terms what they think and
what they want. We have learned much that is
interesting and constructive.
What will members of the Panel do?
Members will return one postal questionnaire,
return four postcard surveys and participate
in up to three telephone surveys (of between
15 and 30 minutes in length) per year over
the life of the Panel.
The four surveys are as follows:
Survey
1 (postal): on members’ activities
and resourcing
Survey
2 (telephone): on their
engagement with their
client groups,
members and other voluntary and community organisations, including infrastructure/umbrella
bodies
Survey
3 (telephone): on their engagement with government, including
the Compact
Survey
4 (telephone): on their human and capital resources (employees,
volunteers, information technology and accommodation) and organisational
capacity
The
postcard surveys collect quarterly updates
on the number of members’ employees and
volunteers.
We will ask all (5,600) members of the
Panel to complete Survey 1 (postal) and
quarterly
postcard updates (these provide monitoring
information for PSA8/6). We will ask most
(3,600) members to participate in Surveys
2, 3 and
4 (telephone). This means that some members
will not participate in every telephone
survey.
In order to see what these surveys are
like, please click below.
With the support of members of the Panel
we have made excellent progress. We have
completed
all the surveys in Year 1. In Year 2 we
have completed the first two surveys and
are now
working on the last two.
As with other major surveys we have had
a number of technical issues to deal with
in
Year 1
and this has delayed our reporting of findings.
We did, however, circulate a newsletter
of our preliminary findings from Survey
No1
at the end of last year. Click below to
see it:
Newsletter
December 04
We hope to publish a report of findings
from Year 1 in the new year
and follow that with a report
of findings from Year
2.
We will also publish a full technical note,
which describes how we carried
out the research, with each of these reports.
The future
We will begin research for Year 3 in November.
Members still needed
We need to recruit new members on a rolling
basis in order to reduce the burden on
any one organisation and to keep a balance
of
members that have different levels of income,
operate
in different regions, provide different
kinds of services and have different types
of clients.
If your organisation would like to be a
member of the Panel, please let us know
(see the
instructions for applying below).
We would particularly like to hear from
you if your organisation:
is
not registered with the Charity Commission.
How
can voluntary and community organisations
join the Panel?
Please fill in the attached
registration form and
e-mail it to:
State of the Sector Panel
FREEPOST (BH1475)
Sherborn
Dorset DT9 3ZZ
We have provided two
versions
of the form. The first, called “panelonlinereg”,
is a Word
document and is suitable for e-mailing to us. The
second, called “panelpostreg”,
is in portable document format (pdf) and is
suitable for printing out and posting
to us. If you would like to e-mail
the registration
form to us, first copy it to your hard drive, rename
it, fill it in and
then e-mail it back to us.
If you have any queries, please contact the Panel
Helpline on 0207 375 0177.
When should registration forms be returned?
We would be happy to hear from you at any time, but
in order to participate in Year 3, please send in
your form by Friday,
30 September 2005.
A big thank you
We are very grateful to members of the Panel, who
have proved keen to let us know what they are doing
and what they think. We had an amazing 81% response
rate to the postal survey in Year 1 and a pretty
wonderful 65% response rate to the postal survey
in Year 2. We know that, in particular, the postal
surveys can be difficult to fill in, and we have
been impressed by members’ dedication and hard
work.
