The Scottish Government

MALCOLM CHISHOLM
DECEMBER 2005

INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE OF THE VISION

1. We start from a strong belief in the importance of the sector. Our vision of the future is of a Scotland where we have unlocked the potential of voluntary and community action, where the voluntary sector's broad contribution to communities and to Scotland is fully recognised; where the sector is regarded as an equal partner alongside the public and private sectors and where it has a strong voice and the capacity to play out its role in Scotland.

2. This document is intended to provoke debate and discussion about where the sector can make the most valuable contribution to Scotland and what the Scottish Executive's role might be in supporting this. In this vision, the Scottish Executive sets out:

• A definition of the voluntary sector
• Why working with the voluntary sector is part of our vision for Scotland
• Our role in supporting the vision
• What we are doing and what more we could do to promote the role of the sector
• What others can do - the challenges for the sector
• Next steps to realise the vision

What is the voluntary sector?

3. We begin with a definition of the voluntary sector. The voluntary sector is made up of a rich diversity of organisations with different legal forms and structures leading to some confusion about how the sector should be defined. The voluntary sector includes unincorporated community and voluntary groups, registered charities, friendly societies like credit unions and the growing number of social enterprises. This paper identifies shared features which set the sector apart from the private and public sectors. All voluntary organisations are essentially:

• Driven by a social, cultural or environmental purpose rather than a pursuit of profit or personal gain per se, they reinvest any surpluses of their activities to further their social, environmental or cultural purpose.
• Are non-governmental, non-statutory and independent from the state (and therefore largely, but not entirely synonymous with charities which include a handful of statutory and state bodies).
• Are governed by volunteers, on an unpaid basis, who take responsibility for the strategic direction of the organisation - usually a voluntary management committee or board of trustees.
• Will often use volunteers in their work and will often benefit from donations from the public.

4. Although our definition is broad we do not want to stifle the different forms adopted by the sector. Our definition simply seeks to create a common language to better enable engagement. A more detailed definition of the voluntary sector is included ( Annex E).

WHY WORKING WITH THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR IS PART OF OUR VISION FOR SCOTLAND

5. Since devolution the Executive's relationship with the sector has evolved from one largely based around funding, used to drive the voluntary sector to pursue a fixed agenda, to a more sophisticated relationship based on mutual trust and appreciation of distinctive values and roles. Government alone can not meet all the challenges that face us in the early 21 ^st Century and therefore the Scottish Executive must create new partnerships. Environmental threats, regenerating deprived communities, ending poverty, discrimination and disadvantage and creating strong, safe communities are important joint agendas of the future.

6. Our approach as an Executive therefore needs to recognise the broad roles the sector can play and its contribution to Scottish life. In future, we want to support the sector in four key areas:

As a service delivery partner - delivering effective and efficient services in areas such as social housing and children's services and in areas like recycling, community transport and alternatives to custody. However, to achieve improved outcomes, the sector also needs to be more involved in strategic planning of services locally, including Community Planning.

Its contribution to building strong communities - building on the sector's strength in communities and its unique ability to build social networks between individuals and organisations, building community cohesion, encouraging civic involvement, participation and active citizenship through volunteering and by empowering communities.

Its role in advocacy and developing policy thinking - the sector's independence makes the sector well placed to debate the big issues facing Scotland, advocating and speaking on behalf of groups of people. The Executive also makes extensive use of the sector as a source of advice and expertise on policy development. But for there to be better outcomes in policy implementation, the sector needs to be more involved at an earlier stage in the policy cycle.

As an agent of change - building confidence in individual's own abilities and outlook through volunteering, supporting people to take positive lifestyle choices and individual responsibility. The voluntary sector also spearheads cultural and social change.

These roles are not static and can change and overlap; many groups use their experience of providing frontline services, for instance, to influence their policy and lobbying roles.

WHAT HAS THE SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE ALREADY DONE TO SUPPORT THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR

7. The sector has grown substantially over the past ten years. There are more people working in the sector, it is generating more income and is spending more itself on delivering for more people than ever before. In recognition of the sector's importance the Executive has over the past 6 years put in place a number of initiatives to promote the sector (see Box 1).

8. There is no doubt that the sector is important to Scotland. There is ongoing work to grow the capacity of the sector across the Executive, and via public agencies such as Communities Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and local authorities. We need to consider now what more can be done to make the vision a reality. Challenges that have emerged during our research for this paper include:

• Funding - how to use what we already channel to the sector in a more efficient and effective way.
• How to engender a culture of volunteering amongst more young people and remove barriers to volunteering for all.
• How to support the voluntary sector to deal with the impact of regulatory changes.
• How to build the sustainability and capacity within the sector, especially at local level. Voluntary organisations report that they have difficulties in fulfilling their roles because of problems of planning for the future, recruiting volunteers and board members and obtaining funding.
• How to encourage a more strategic relationship with the sector across Scottish Executive departments and with other public sector bodies, local authorities and their Community Planning partners - and how best to tap into the sector's wealth of knowledge to support policy development.
• How best to support the sector to do what it does best in terms of advocacy, grass-roots work, working with the least advantaged groups, building community capacity, engaging with others in setting local priorities.
• How best to support the sector to influence the design of, and compete in the market for, public service delivery.
• How to continue to support innovative working by the sector and also support what is proven to work well.
• The Scottish Executive's policy on citizen engagement and active citizenship is inherent within many different units and policies across the Scottish Executive - how to bring this work together?

TURNING THE VISION INTO REALITY - WHAT MORE CAN THE SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE DO?

9. We are entering a new phase in our relationship with the sector: while there have been positive results from the joint effort by the voluntary and public sectors we need now to take our work to the next level. We need to embed this work, reinforce, consolidate and implement this work consistently within the Scottish Executive and with the rest of the public sector, and raise the level of awareness of the contribution the sector makes within Scotland.

10. The Scottish Executive's role is to provide an enabling environment to better promote a closer dialogue with the sector. Essentially, the Executive sees future engagement with the sector as a way of delivering better outcomes for Scotland, including better services and better policy. Central government should set a strategic framework that encourages but does not control or over-specify what the sector should do, as it is the sector's independence which nurtures its innovation. The Executive's role therefore is to make pragmatic improvements for example through improving funding arrangements, clarifying support mechanisms for voluntary organisations, strengthening the dialogue with the sector on policy development and forging more consistent links between the sector and other public agencies.

11. The argument for a more strategic focus on our work with the sector is that an enhanced relationship is part and parcel of efficient government - working with the sector must be about delivering outcomes and real improvement in the lives of people and communities in Scotland. Instead of focusing on supporting the voluntary sector because of what it is, an alternative approach would be to focus on the outcomes an organisation aims to achieve over a specific period of time ². An outcomes approach holds real advantages and opportunities, but also challenges for both sectors. This requires government to give clear signals about what it is trying to achieve in different policy areas and then inviting the sector to work with us on joint priorities. As part of this we need to establish and communicate the roles we see the sector playing in the future and we also need to identify key challenges in our engagement.

12. Priorities for action for the next three years can be grouped under 3 broad areas;

• Funding the sector - the Scottish Executive needs to ensure that our funding and procurement practices are fair. Funding streams should deliver clear outcomes, and we should avoid duplication where we can with funding provided by other public sector agencies. This should form part of our wider work to streamline bureaucracy and rationalise multiple funding streams across the Executive. Those in the sector tell us that the main challenges they face are around funding being too short term, and in attracting core funding and funding for their policy and advocacy work. This difficulty is wider than Scottish Executive funding but there are issues around the Scottish Executive's funding streams being too narrowly defined, so that organisations do not have the flexibility to tackle problems as they present themselves making it difficult to promote joined up thinking and effective working on the ground. There are also concerns that present funding relationships stifle the emergence of new partnerships between the Executive and the sector. There are arguments that the Scottish Executive funding should be reviewed, that steps need to be taken to reduce the number of funding streams, and that new models need to be developed which make it clear when the Scottish Executive is funding 'voice' ³ and when we are funding infrastructure support. In addition, emphasis needs to be placed on investigating monitoring mechanisms which both minimise bureaucracy and maintain accountability.
• Promoting the voluntary sector's broad contribution to Scottish life. There is a challenge in facilitating what the sector can do for Scotland in terms of service delivery whilst not smothering the specific contribution (i.e. community cohesion, independence, innovation) that the sector brings as a provider. The sector has a broad contribution to make to Scotland and therefore our intention is to take forward an approach that recognises the sector's many roles and there are challenges around how we do this. Specific suggestions about how the Scottish Executive might work with the sector to fulfil its potential to deliver quality and reliable outcomes across a full range of voluntary sector activities are contained in later sections of the paper. An important aspect of this is about building stronger, more consistent links between the sector and different policy areas.
• Building on best practice in engagement with the sector and building the relationship between the sectors. The Scottish Executive already works with the sector in developing policy and there is a growing case that a more strategic approach should be taken. The Executive also has a role in encouraging stronger more consistent relationships between statutory and voluntary sectors at local level such as local government, NHS Boards and others - particularly those engaged in Community Planning Partnerships in order to bring about better clarity and cohesion between national and local priorities and the voluntary sector.

13. The vision is essentially about changing behaviours and supporting people and their capacity to work with the voluntary sector at many levels of government. As such this is a challenging agenda and we must deal with the challenges. It is our intention to develop the 3 broad areas over the next 12 months, and to have made significant progress over the next 5 years.

14. New policies and support for the sector over the next 5 years will be evaluated against five key principles.

• Delivering a better relationship
• Making the most of resources to the sector
• Putting customer, beneficiaries and end user needs first, delivering for communities
• Supporting partnerships and collaborative working between the voluntary sector and public agencies
• Promoting volunteering through the existing Volunteering Strategy

PROMOTING THE ROLE OF THE SECTOR IN SERVICE DELIVERY

15. We are committed to ensuring that services are flexible, personalised, and designed around the needs and preferences of service users. The voluntary sector has a major role to play in that approach and in supporting principles of public service reform. These include:

• designing services around the needs of users
• improving service quality
• increasing efficiency
• joining up services
• strengthening accountability (including to users and communities)

16. These themes will influence how we work with the voluntary sector. We value this role because:

• The sector is user focused - the sector is not driven by profit but by mission and a commitment to groups of users. Increasingly users themselves are establishing and leading their own voluntary organisations and the sector can draw on these experiences to improve services directly and inform wider policy debates.
• It is able to connect with sections of the community which government services often cannot reach either because they are not trusted or because statutory services do not provide the specialised support needed.
• It is cost-effective - the sector is able to provide value for money. Voluntary organisations operate with minimal bureaucracy and hierarchy. The sector can add value to service provision, for example through the use of volunteers and donations and from re-investing surpluses.
• It places an emphasis on solutions that work and pilots new ways of working, especially locally - working across silos by joining up funding streams to provide services around individual's multiple needs.

17. In delivering services the sector's particular approach and manner of delivery means the sector is particularly well placed to offer high quality services in circumstances where:

• The needs of the users are highly differentiated
• The service is dedicated to sections of the community who have been excluded from traditional service provision
• The service is targeted at users who are likely to mistrust business or state provision
• Users have multiple disadvantages, requiring a coordinated approach from an experienced provider
• Commissioners of services are uncertain about what service is required and are looking for an innovative approach.

18. In addition, the sector can add value to services by:

• Bringing a distinctive perspective to planning of services in an area through their knowledge and experience of delivery and the particular needs of groups of users.
• Being a vehicle for involvement in local decision-making and community engagement, creating joint ownership for solutions with communities and making the services sustainable over the long-term. Community Planning provides a potentially ideal route for the voluntary sector to engage with a wide range of local service delivery issues: in turn, Community Planning Partnerships can take advantage of the voluntary sector's unique links to local communities of place and interest.
• Being a way of developing trust within communities. The voluntary sector is better able to reach out to alienated groups who would not choose to access statutory services.

19. We are committed to looking at what more we could do to promote the sector's role in delivering services to the public either through partnership with local authorities, their Community Planning partners and other public sector providers or through direct commissioning. However, the Scottish Executive does very little direct commissioning of services and to achieve better service delivery and design the sector needs to be involved in strategic planning of services locally, particularly through direct involvement in Community Planning. A priority for the Executive then will be to support local authorities and other public bodies in building strong partnerships with the voluntary sector locally. Some work is already being progressed via local compacts but there is a growing case that a strategic approach is both desirable and necessary.

20. Most public funding of the sector comes from local government and other arms length statutory agencies. The Executive needs to develop a strategy about how to streamline funding across the whole of the public sector in order to deliver better outcomes. This is a huge challenge and we will consider how this might best be achieved over time.

21. Work we are doing to promote the sector's role in service delivery includes:

Funding the sector

• The Strategic Funding Review aims to improve the availability, sustainability and effectiveness of funding. At the heart of this review is a commitment to full cost recovery to ensure that the sector is paid fully for the service provided. The intention is to move away from the distinction between core and project funding towards an investment approach where the sector is resourced to deliver a package of work which includes a fair share of 'core' costs. The Executive has agreed an Action Plan for the SFR which contains a number of actions to improve funding practice. This plan will be implemented over the next year to 18 months.
• Futurebuilders Scotland provides support for the sector in accessing finance by:
• • Making loan finance available to the sector - including establishing a
    £6 million Futurebuilders Plus fund - through Social Investment Scotland ( SIS).
  • Through the support programme, funding SIS to investigate the prospects for the creation of a sustainable social venture fund in Scotland.
  • Providing direct funding to social economy organisations for projects that ensure the delivery of better services that also contribute to the financial sustainability of the organisation.

Promoting Role

• The development of a guide, published in June 2004, "Tendering for public sector contracts: a practical guide for social economy organisations in Scotland".
• The mirror to this, a guide for purchasers of public services highlighting the benefits of contracting with the social economy will be published in early 2006.
• A guide to Social Added Value to help social economy organisations assess and quantify the added value that they provide which is due to be published in early 2006.
• The establishment of a Social Economy Unit within Communities Scotland and implementation of the Social Economy Review.

Building the relationship

• Promoting local compacts between public bodies and the voluntary sector to improve partnership working at a local level. Research is being undertaken to identify best practice for establishing local compacts and to identify any barriers to their development.
• The development of National Standards for Community Engagement aimed at developing and supporting better working relationships between communities and agencies, to provide better opportunities for people to influence the provision of local services.

NEXT STEPS IN REALISING THE ROLE OF THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR IN SERVICE DELIVERY

22. There are a number of barriers and challenges to enabling the sector to play its role in service delivery. The tables below highlights future work, some possible challenges and possible options moving forward.

1. 23. Looking towards the future, in 10 or 15 years time a narrow focus on the sector's role as a deliverer of services may exacerbate a trend of big organisations growing bigger as large, well-resourced organisations may have competitive advantage in this type of environment. The Executive is keen to ensure that there is a balance which enables a diverse sector (particularly at local level) to continue to play a role.

ENCOURAGING THE SECTOR'S ROLE IN BUILDING STRONG COMMUNITIES

24. The Scottish Executive is committed to building safe, strong communities and tackling poverty and we are working across Scotland to build skills and confidence so that people can access opportunities by supporting employment programmes, increasing literacy and numeracy and working to tackle service failures and other barriers to opportunity. Neighbourhoods are more than just houses. Tackling inequalities and discrimination, building community confidence and participation, tackling poverty and facilitating community engagement at a local level - are all important aspects of building stronger communities. In the main it is the smaller, locally based voluntary sector groups which have a distinctive role to play in communities. We would like to see a continued growth of community focused organisations, which bring people together to take part in arts and sports, to learn new skills, to support our children and young people and care for our older people.

25. The voluntary sector has an important role to play in this agenda for the following reasons:

• By tackling discrimination, inequality and prejudice in many forms and also providing arenas for people from diverse backgrounds to come together.
• By supporting communities and empowering them to play a full role in planning and delivering services.
• Using innovating approaches to regeneration by meeting the needs of marginalised groups, the sector spreads opportunity and deepens aspiration.
• It is a route to participation and voluntary action for socially excluded groups. Voluntary sector organisations can increase community wellbeing and reduce isolation for people living in rural and urban areas through its involvement of local volunteers. Community transport organisations give people access to shared facilities, pre-school and after school clubs, support groups for people with long term medical conditions, befriending networks, community drama groups - in a vast diversity of ways voluntary organisations nurture the informal social contacts which sustain communities.
• It builds trust and a positive outlook within society through volunteering (giving time freely for others is often rooted in an optimistic view that the world can be changed for the better).
• It can act as a vehicle and a way an individual can express themselves creatively and participate in the cultural life of community.

26. The voluntary sector has a role to play in developing strong communities which can perhaps be built though a distinct initiative or separate project but very often building community cohesion is something that is created as a by-product of the way a particular organisation carries out a service or activity for example by:

• Building community 'ownership' through participation
• Building skills and experience through volunteering
• Building a sense of wellbeing.

27. Government has a key role to play in smoothing the waters to allow local voluntary organisations to play their role for instance through:

• Recognition of the wider social benefit of the voluntary sector in public service delivery
• Reducing bureaucracy for grassroots and fledgling organisations, most particularly around regulation requirements proportionate to the size and scope of organisations and increasing joined-up working between regulators to reduce duplication of information provision and form-filling by individual grassroots organisations.
• Support for volunteering
• Ensuring that local organisations can access appropriate support services

28. Work we are doing to promote the sector's role in building strong communities includes:

Funding

• The Futurebuilders Scotland Programme directs funding to extend and strengthen the role of the sector in delivering better public services.

Promoting the role

• The Scottish Executive's volunteering strategy aims to promote a culture of volunteering in Scotland. The volunteering strategy aims to remove barriers to volunteering for particular groups of people, especially those from lower social-economic backgrounds, the unemployed and the long-term sick and disabled. We have also encouraged more active involvement of young people in their communities through the introduction of Project Scotland and the reshaped Millennium volunteers' programme.
• Community Planning in Scotland is an over-arching partnership framework which helps to co-ordinate other initiatives and partnerships and, where necessary, acts to rationalise and simplify partnership arrangements. Community Planning is intended to improve the connection between national priorities and those at regional, local and neighbourhood levels. The aim is to make sure people and communities are genuinely engaged in the decisions made on public services which affect them.

Building the relationship

• Promoting local compacts between public bodies and the voluntary sector to improve partnership working at a local level, frequently as an integral part of local Community Planning activities.
• The development of National Standards for Community Engagement aimed at developing and supporting better working relationships between communities and agencies, to provide better opportunities for people to influence provision of local services.

NEXT STEPS IN ENCOURAGING THE SECTOR'S ROLE IN BUILDING STRONG COMMUNITIES

29. There are a number of barriers and challenges to enabling the sector to play its role in building strong communities. The tables below highlights future work, some possible challenges and possible options moving forward.

HELPING THE SECTOR DEVELOP ITS ROLE IN ADVOCACY AND CONTRIBUTING TO POLICY MAKING

30. The sector plays an important role in contributing to policy development, where its unique position in society often gives it special insight into the needs of local communities and individuals. It also has a role as an advocate to enable communities and individuals who find it difficult to articulate their needs and views, to communicate with decision-makers.

31. We value this role because the sector:

• Is uniquely positioned and motivated to articulate alternative visions and solutions to some of Scotland's biggest challenges from climate change to health improvement.
• Campaigns for public provision for unmet, social needs or for better or alternative provision where public services already exist.
• Contributes its knowledge and experience to policy formulation, through dialogue with government at different levels. Through its frontline activities, the voluntary sector gains valuable insights into how policies and programmes are actually working.

32. Whilst the Scottish Executive values the role of the sector in delivering policies and services, the key role of the sector from the perspective of decision-makers is to provide insights into service-user need, which could help design better policy (see Annex C) . The sector's role in policy development is vital to the success of the policy and the sector's key contribution is its detailed knowledge of the problem, closeness to service users, and expertise in delivery. However difficulties include:

• Identifying key partners (particularly the case if there are a number of overlapping groups, or organisations with slightly different objectives).
• Supporting the relationship yet maintaining an organisation's independence.
• Ensuring the sector's access to policy making processes and involving the sector at a late stage in the policy making cycle.

33. The work we are currently doing in this area is concentrated mainly on developing the relationship between the sectors:

Building relationships

• The Compact has been updated in 2004 to reflect renewed commitment to achieving an open and participative working relationship between the Executive and the voluntary sector. The Compact commitments have also been strengthened for all parties to reflect the current climate since devolution. In addition it is now supported by an Implementation Strategy and good practice guidance covering funding, partnership working, consultation and policy proofing. A Compact Working Group made up of Scottish Executive and voluntary sector representatives monitors Compact implementation across the Executive, Non-Departmental Public Bodies and agencies as well as the voluntary sector.
• A network of Liaison Officers has been appointed within each Executive Department, 13 Non-Departmental Public Bodies and 8 within the voluntary sector in order to improve communication with the sector.
• A corporate change programme for the Scottish Executive, ' Changing to Deliver' was developed and launched in 2003. It seeks to make the Scottish Executive an organisation that is outward and outcome focused, better equipped to work in partnership with stakeholders, including the voluntary sector.
• The promotion of secondments to and from the voluntary sector through the Scottish Executive's Interchange Programme.

NEXT STEPS IN REALISING THE ROLE OF THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR IN ADVOCACY AND DEVELOPING POLICY THINKING

34. There are a number of barriers and challenges to enabling the sector to play its role in policy making and advocacy. The tables below highlights future work, some challenges and possible options moving forward.

ENCOURAGING THE SECTOR'S ROLE AS AN AGENT OF CHANGE

35. Voluntary organisations often act as an agent of change within communities as well as influencing individual behavioural change. Collective action is an effective force for promoting and bringing about social, political and community change and can, at its best, lead to a re-focusing or re-structuring of policies, public services, communities and society as a whole.

36. We value the voluntary sector's role as an agent of change because:

It can help build individual responsibility and encourage positive lifestyles and social attitudes by promoting healthy living, persuading people to take care of the environment or by tackling discrimination or destructive behaviour.

• Voluntary organisations help communities take pride in their own environment and services, e.g. reducing petty crime such as graffiti.
• Voluntary organisations by involving the very people they seek to reach, take people where they are and help them to move on - i.e. the exercise clubs run from pubs and clubs.
• The sector can help communities to be active contributors to solutions - often through local Community Planning activities - and can locate and bolster local community leaders.
• It has the potential to regenerate society at the national and the international level; it builds shared solidarity and shared visions for systematic change, putting pressure on public institutions and social norms to modernise and refocus.
• The sector picks up trends happening in society and deploys needs-based methodologies readily - for example the youth centres using computer gaming to teach basic literacy and numeracy.
• It raises issues and prompts debate in the public arena - but do not wait to start addressing these issues themselves.

37. We are committed to helping organisations maximise their contribution to making our society better. We believe there is much more the sector can do as an agent of change in society:-

• Changing attitudes and behaviours through health promotion and the voluntary sector's wellbeing agenda and by building bridges across age, gender, class, sectarian and ethnic divides.
• Increasing active participation in society, motivating people to take control of the quality of their own lives and the communities in which they live.
• Helping Scotland to redefine our public and social institutions to better reflect society's emerging needs.
• On joint agendas, for example around poverty and inequality, building a 'progressive consensus' for change within society.

NEXT STEPS IN ENCOURAGING THE ROLE OF THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR AS AN AGENT OF CHANGE

38. The Executive does not have specific policies in place to support the sector's role as a change agent. Much of the support is about creating an environment where the sector can flourish, providing the sector with the freedom to innovate and being responsive to change ourselves. We have included some ideas below about how the Executive may support the sector's role as a change agent.

CONCLUSION

This paper outlines the Scottish Executive's approach towards supporting the broad contribution of the voluntary sector to Scottish life. Our conclusion is that we support the sector in 4 key areas:

This paper has also identified 3 main challenges which the Executive considers are priorities moving forward which are:

What Next?

To take forward the concrete steps identified and break down internal barriers to a coherent approach to supporting the sector, the Executive will establish a Scottish Executive high level Cross Departmental Group on the Voluntary Sector.

This group will have a key role to play in implementing the vision by:

• Engaging Scottish Executive Departments directly. The group will work to develop individual department strategies, particularly in those areas which have the potential to develop an engagement with the sector to meet emerging needs and where the sector could usefully play a role i.e. alternatives to custody, recycling, public health and community transport.
• Working to create awareness across the Scottish Executive about what the sector is able to do.
• Driving to coordinate consistent messages around national and local priorities and the voluntary sector.
• Overseeing the work of the Voluntary Issue Unit's Lead Funder Programme which seeks to streamline funding and monitoring arrangements within Scottish Executive funding.
• Exploring options for mainstreaming the vision directly into the Scottish Executive's 'Changing to Deliver' corporate programme and into corporate business planning processes and strategies.

The Group will also explore appropriate indicators to monitor the success of the different initiatives and the Group will be asked to report back annually to the Communities Minister. The Voluntary Issues Unit will report back to the Voluntary Sector on progress in the summer of 2007.

The Scottish Executive is interested in continuing to discuss with the sector how to take forward the vision, and so ensure that the voluntary sector realises its full potential as a provider of services to the public, as a change agent and in its role in community cohesion and policy thinking. We would welcome comments and input on our analysis and ask the sector to consider the following questions:

1. Have we identified the right roles for the sector?
2. Given the benefits and roles of the sector that have been identified, in which specific policy areas should the Scottish Executive, local authorities and other public bodies be examining the greater role/use of the voluntary sector?
3. In terms of the sector's service delivery role. Have we identified the right steps to tackle the barriers to allow the voluntary sector to compete on level terms with other providers in all service areas? What other steps are necessary?
4. What more could be done to reduce the barriers for the sector to play out their roles?
5. What other measures should the Scottish Executive, local authorities and other public bodies take to promote the role of the voluntary sector and its value to society?

This is not a formal consultation process; rather it is the continuation of a debate on how to help the sector develop its roles. There is therefore no date by which views are sought, but any comments and suggestions can be sent to: viu@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

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