policy & Advocacy
ACEVO's policy and press team works to represent and support our members (chief executives of third sector organisations including charities, social enterprises and housing associations) on a wide range of issues in the media, in Westminster, and in Whitehall. In this section of the ACEVO website you can find out what policy issues we're working on, and see what we're saying and how we're covered in the media. Below you can read the latest on our work.
ACEVO Roundtable Series: Supporting vulnerable beneficiaries
We are holding a series of roundtables to build up a picture of what life looks like now and over the next few years for various vulnerable beneficiary groups represented by our members. These roundtable discussions will look at the current and future situation for various vulnerable groups, and explore how ACEVO can help to communicate members’ concerns to government and elsewhere. We hope that the discussions will provide a forum for members to share and debate views with each other as well as feed into our work with the Cabinet Office, CLG, HMT etc on public service reform, localism and its impact on vulnerable groups.
Please note that places are very limited and are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.
The roundtables will take place on the following dates at venues in Central London:
Children: 15 February 9.00am - 10.30am
Learning and physical disabilities: 21 February, 10.00am - 11.30am
Older people: 23 February, 10.00 – 11.30am
Mental Health: 28 February, 8.30am – 10.00am
Carers: 8 March , 11.30am - 1.00pm
Violence against women and girls: 21 March, 1.00 - 2.30pm
Please contact the policy team at policy@acevo.org.uk for more information or to book a place. Please indicate clearly which roundtable you would like to attend.
ACEVO's ANalysis of the Chancellor's Autumn Statement
29.11.2011
The Chancellor has delivered his Autumn Statement, which outlined the Government’s plans to “protect Britain from debt storm and do all we can to build foundations of future growth”. The Government plans to do this by stimulating money and credit supply and by investing in infrastructure and education, the Chancellor argued.
The majority of the speech was dominated by OBR forecasts for growth and borrowing.
- Short term growth is lower than expected with GDP in Britain expected to grow this year by 0.9% – and by 0.7% next year
- OBR also announced that borrowing is falling – from £127bn this year, to £120 billion next year; and predicted to be at and £24 billion a year by 2016-17
In terms of public spending, the Chancellor set out expenditure totals for the two years following the end of the Spending Review period (2015-16 and 2016-17) and announced that Total Managed Expenditure will fall during that period by 0.9% a year in real terms. The Government will set out in future how resources will be allocated between areas of Government.
The Chancellor confirmed that public sector pay would increase by just 1% after the public sector pay freeze ends. Departmental budgets will be adjusted in line with this, with the exception of the NHS and the school budgets in order to “protect those budgets in real terms”.
Charities and VAT
In the accompanying document, the Government announced that it will introduce a VAT cost sharing exemption for services shared between VAT exempt bodies, including charities and universities.
Small business and employment
The Government will consult on further reforms to employment law, including changes to TUPE regulations and a system of compensated no fault dismissal for small companies.
The Chancellor announced a number of measures that aimed to help small businesses gain access to finance. This includes the National Loan Guarantee Scheme, to reduce interest rates for small businesses. Business with a turnover of less than £50 million will be eligible and the scheme is expected to be up and running the in next few months. It is estimated that this would equate to “reductions of 1 percentage point in the rate of interest being charged to these companies”.
Announced prior to the statement today, was the Government’s £1bn plan to tackle youth unemployment. The Youth Contract will offer financial incentives for businesses to give private sector work experience to those unemployed for 3 months. The Government expect that 200,000 people will be helped by the scheme.
Vulnerable people
In terms of help for vulnerable people, the Government had previously announced that plans to double the number of free childcare placements for the most disadvantaged families.
The Chancellor also announced that working age benefits will rise in line with September’s CPI inflation number of 5.2%.
Other announcements
Other announcements made today include:
- The Chancellor announced that for the third year in a row they would be raising the bank levy
- The spending plans of the Department for International Development were on course to exceed 0.7% of national income in 2013 and will be adjusted to prevent the UK from exceeding this target
- £1.2 bn of savings will be used to support schools reform, the Government announced. Half of this will go to Local Authorities, and the other half will be used to support reforms and the growth of free schools
- A large part of the statement covered the announcement of the The National Infrastructure Plan. The plan announced 500 projects that would be delivered over the next 10 years
- The Government will offer mortgage indemnities to help 100,000 families to buy new homes and will be “reinvigorating the right to buy” the Chancellor said, confirming an up-to-50% discount for families taking advantage of the new right to buy scheme
You can read the full Autumn Statement Document here. Please contact policy@acevo.org.uk
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