The new Compact - a critical look
Following this week’s publication of the renewed Compact, it is worth taking another look at some of the reservations concerning the document which were expressed during the consultation period two months ago.
At the time, Paul Barasi, director of Concrete Solutions CIC, urged that the Compact “be put at the heart of the Big Society”, in accordance with the government’s promise (in its Supporting a Stronger Civil Society document) to strengthen the voluntary and community sector capacity through the Compact.
He criticised the renewed draft Compact for failing to explain what the Big Society vision is and how the Compact will underpin it.
Mr Barasi also argued that the new Compact should “make a meaningful link with Local Compacts.”
According to a report in Civil Society, the Commission for the Compact “has hinted that its criticisms of the renewed draft over the consultation period have been ignored, with a spokesperson for the organisation stating: ‘We approve of the brevity of the renewed Compact but our comments made on the draft remain.’”
The commission for the Compact was axed in the government’s recent cull of quangos and all its work will end by April 2011.
17 December 2010
