Charities need to be a vital part of the UK’s productivity drive
Boosting charity productivity is an overlooked opportunity in the campaign to tackle the UK’s productivity problem. Both charities and policymakers have a shared interest in doing so.
Publications
A Shared Interest: The relationships between policymakers and charities
This new PBE study for the Law Family Commission on Civil Society is the most comprehensive review of the social sector’s interactions with policymakers ever conducted
Summary of responses: unleashing the potential of civil society
In this call for evidence, charities, community groups, social enterprises, volunteers, policymakers, business leaders and academics provided their ideas as to how the potential of civil society can be unleashed.
Mind the Giving Gap – Unleashing the potential of UK philanthropy
Each year, members of the UK public voluntarily donate nearly £20 billion of their own funds to help make possible the work of tens of thousands of charities, employing hundreds...
Better Giving
When it comes to philanthropic giving, is it enough to simply increase the quantity, or should we also aim to improve the quality as well? And if so, what does it mean in practice to...
Hysteresis in the making? Pandemic scars and the charity sector
The resilience of the charity sector has come at the cost of workforce and volunteer wellbeing.
Why civil society is essential to levelling up
Without civil society, levelling up won’t succeed. Decades of attempts to tackle the UK’s entrenched regional inequalities have shown that the charities, community groups and volunteers that are at civil...
Better data, bigger impact: A review of social sector data
Nearly half a million social sector organisations in the UK play a vital role in sustaining our society and economy, but a serious paucity of data is preventing the social...
Spending Review and Budget Submission
Five key areas in which we believe government action could strengthen the social sector’s foundations.
Purpose: On Parallel Tracks
Great things can happen when civil society and the private sector team up, but the scale of engagement needs to be boosted. New research about the benefits that come when...
Taking account: the case for establishing a UK social economy satellite account
We know that the social sector plays a vital role in the wellbeing of our country. It also plays a vital role in our economy. But currently, we know very...
Third pillar, not gap filler
By examining what civil society provides that government and business do not, we aim to make the case for civil society to sit alongside, rather than exist as an afterthought...
Supporting effective volunteering for the 2020s
This note is the first of a series of summaries we’ll be publishing from the Law Family Commission on Civil Society's call for evidence on unleashing the potential of civil...
What is civil society?
Civil society is a term that’s widely used, rarely agreed upon, and not always understood – and it often means different things to different people. This page sets out clearly...
What’s missing? Evaluating social sector data gaps
As part of the Law Family Commission on Civil Society, PBE is investigating the role and potential for better data about social sector organisations, with a particular focus on charities.
Levelling Up: On the right track?
With each new announcement, it becomes clearer what levelling up really means. It also raises new questions as to whether the government will truly be able to improve people’s lives...
In the Public Eye: snapshot of public attitudes towards civil society
To mark the launch of the Law Family Commission on Civil Society, we commissioned YouGov to provide a snapshot of public attitudes towards civil society in November 2020.
Essay collection: Civil Society, Unleashed
21 thinkers, activists, professionals, writers and academics across the public, private and social sectors were asked the same question: ‘How do we unleash the potential of civil society in the...
Civil Action: exploring civil society’s potential in the 2020s
The Commission's aim is to achieve both concrete change and a broader shift in attitudes about civil society – all with a view to removing the constraints that hold the...