Clinks’ state of the sector survey gathers the evidence we need to support the sector and lobby on their behalf. It’s vital that as many organisations respond as possible.

We have launched our latest state of the sector survey. Please click here and take 25 minutes to complete our survey to tell us your story.

How did Clinks respond to what you told us last year?

Our state of the sector reports have consistently highlighted the diverse, resilient and creative work that you do, but they also demonstrate the challenges you face. We have used that information to improve our support and lobby in your behalf.

• We found that organisations were unlikely to achieve full cost recovery on the contracts and that generating income was drawing you away from providing support to your clients. So Clinks offered consultancy support to over 50 Clinks members in support of their sustainability, we also offered legal support to more than 20 small organisations. 
• You told us that charitable trusts and foundations were hesitant to fund resettlement services during the emerging probation reforms. So we brought together officials from the Ministry of Justice and senior leadership from trusts and foundations to work through some of these issues.
• Last year only 35% of you consulted service users about the design and delivery of services. To support better service user involvement we published two resources and brought together a network of service user involvement managers to share their expertise. 
• We have presented the information from the 2016 state of the sector report to Ministers at the MoJ, senior officials at NOMS, at the Office for Civil Society, various submissions to Lords and Commons select committees, and to the Government Relations Team at No.10. 

What are we doing this year?

This year we have partnered with NCVO to develop the survey to make it a lot easier and less time consuming. We ask questions about the services you are delivering, your experiences of partnership working, the needs of your service users and the numbers of staff and volunteers you have.

We are not asking you for financial information, NCVO will be using the accounts you submit to the Charity Commission and/or Companies House to conduct a detailed analysis of your income, use of reserves and where you receive funding from. NCVO will also compare your financial information to that of the voluntary sector as a whole, based on their annual UK Civil Society Almanac analysis. This will be the most robust analysis we have done to date.

Please click here and take 25 minutes to complete our survey to tell us your story