The Office of the Third Sector has produced a briefing note: NI 7 'Environment for a Thriving Third Sector, to provide Local Strategic Partnerships (local public, private and third sector representatives) with more information and guidance on National Indicator 7, ‘An environment for a thriving third sector’.
The new local government performance framework outlined in the 2006 Communities and Local Government (CLG) white paper, Strong and Prosperous Communities includes a single set of 198 National Indicators. These indicators cover all the national priority outcomes which local authorities will be responsible for delivering.
New local area agreements (LAAs) form the heart of the new framework. They are the agreement between central government, local authorities and their partners to improve services and the quality of life in a community. Although performance will be measured in an area against all 198 indicators, new LAAs will be the only vehicles for agreeing shared targets with central government. Each LAA has identified its choices of priorities out of these indicators (up to 35 of them), with specific improvement targets set for each of its choices.
The briefing note covers:
- Why NI 7 has been included in the National Indicator set
- How performance against NI 7 will be measured
- A proposed new third sector survey
- Guidance on agreeing NI 7 improvement targets
The survey mentioned above is designed to get voluntary and community sector views of their local authority’s effectiveness in providing an environment in which their work can flourish. It will be repeated after two years.
London Funders has been sampling the views of some key organisations on this indicator and what it might mean for community-based organisations. Our colleagues in bassac, the national network of multi-purpose community based organisations (and a London Funders Associate member), say:
“bassac welcomes the emphasis in the OTS NI7 briefing on reporting performance in every area, whether or not it has been included as an LAA priority. Careful consideration of the reporting design will be crucial in helping to exert pressure on those LAAs that do not include measuring the contribution of the Third Sector as a priority.
“We will also be keen to see that performance measurement based on a perceptions-based approach captures information about strength of local partnership arrangements, opportunities to influence local decisions and the level of support available from other third sector organisations.”
Further information on the new local government performance framework can be found on the CLG website. CLG have also published final detailed definitions for 138 of the national indicators.