Office of the Third Sector Homepage
Last updated: 23 November 2008
The Office of the Third Sector is committed to ensuring a thriving third sector. In addition to carrying out specific evaluations of policy initiatives, we propose to measure our success through the Public Service Agreements, the Local Government Performance Framework and the Cabinet Office Departmental Strategic Objectives.
Alongside the work of the Office of the Third Sector, the third sector review also set out how Government departments will take forward work with the third sector over the years of the Comprehensive Spending Review. Building on these commitments, the new Public Service Agreement (PSA) framework highlights the contribution of the third sector in the delivery of key priority outcomes across Government. Each PSA is underpinned by a single Delivery Agreement shared across all contributing departments and developed in consultation with delivery partners and frontline workers. PSA 21 which aims to ‘build more cohesive, empowered and active communities’ includes an indicator to measure a thriving third sector, focussing on:
a) Levels of formal volunteering
b) The number of people employed by the sector
In addition to this indicator, the contribution of the third sector to other delivery outcomes is reflected in the majority of PSAs across the set of 30.
As part of the new Local Government Performance Framework from Communities and Local Government (CLG), there are two indicators specifically relating to the third sector:
The levels of volunteering will be measured through a new Place Survey being developed by CLG and the thriving third sector via the National Survey of Third Sector Organisations (NSTSO). The Office of the Third Sector has published a briefing note to provide more information on NI7. This note can be found in the Partnership Working section of this website, together with further information on the Local Government Performance Framework. Further details on the national survey can be found from the NSTSO website [external website].
The third sector will also play a crucial role in delivering against a number of other indicators within the performance framework set such as civic participation in the local area and the number of vulnerable people achieving independent living.
One of the Cabinet Office’s Departmental Strategic Objectives is to ‘enable a thriving third sector’. The indicators for this are: