Advocating for a better deal for Charities and for fundamental system change.
What has the Sutton Charity, Community and Faith Sector said on this?
In our 2025 State of the Sector report you said the following about the role of Community Action Sutton:
Advocacy, rather than mere representation, should be a core function of infrastructure organisations. Infrastructure bodies play a key role in shaping policies and influencing areas that affect the ecosystem. Many participants felt that Community Action Sutton and Volunteer Centre Sutton could do more to represent the charity, community and faith ecosystem in strategic conversations with councils, funders, and healthcare providers. Advocacy on issues such as simplified funding processes and promoting full-cost recovery, advocating for fair contract values and realistic expectations from commissioners and funders and encouraging cross-system collaboration was seen as essential for creating systemic change. This role extends to challenging unethical behaviours within the sector and ensuring that commissioners and funders understand the realities of working within the wider system (p50).
In Summary:
- Promote full-cost recovery and simplified funding processes
- Advocate for fair contract values
- Realistic expectations from commissioners and funders
- Ensure that commissioners and funders understand the realities of working within the wider economy/system
- Encourage cross-system collaboration
- Challenge unethical behaviours within the sector
What have we been doing on this?
Over the past two years we have made the case for the value of charities, better funding and simpler clearer commissioning and contracting procedures at every available for a. These include
- South West London Integrated Care Board 6/11/2022
- Sutton Health and Wellbeing Board 7/7/2025,
- Sutton Local Place Partnership (main decision makers from NHS, Public Health and Sutton Council;
- Sutton Plan (Borough wide partnership meeting)
- We have created the Charity and Public Sector Partners meeting which has the aim of continuing to raise and work on these challenges together.
At these events we raised the risks charities face in the context of the value and support they deliver to local people to ensure that the future of charities is understood as a collective challenge.
We commissioned the recent research on the State of the Sector to ensure that we had a sound local evidence base to direct our support and also to understand how national challenges are expressed in Sutton. This work looked at the size, shape, composition of the charity, community and faith sector and the challenges it faces. As well as this it involved various public sector stakeholders throughout the process to ensure they understand the challenges facing charities. This report is published and will be taken to the Health and Wellbeing Board in the coming weeks.
We have been working with the South West London VCSE ALLIANCE which has been conveying the challenges to the South West London Integrated Care Board (ICB). Before this Alliance was created our CEO sat on the South West London ICB and raised challenges faced by charities (specifically around contracting and commissioning).
We know that these efforts will not change the overall financial and social context in which we as charities will operate. However, they have ensured that senior decision makers in Sutton and beyond are aware of the challenges we face and have created places where candid and collaborative conversations can take place to find solutions where they may exist.
