Dear colleagues,
I have been asked to forward this message from the delegation of the Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe - should you wish to help inform them about participation/engagement/civic space in the UK, for their report. Responses due by 31 August 2018.
The Conference of INGOs delegation visited London in May, where they met with a wide range of NGOs, government officials and MPs to discuss civil society and democratic participation in the UK. They will write an official report on the visit, which will be presented to the Council of Europe in April.
Considering that they would like to provide an opportunity for more NGOs to inform the content of the report, they are interested in gathering more evidence from UK NGOs on their experience of engaging with the government through formal channels (such as public consultations or calls for evidence) and the effect of legal and regulatory requirements (such as anti-advocacy clauses) on organisations that receive government funding.
If you would like to provide additional evidence for the report, please send answers to the below questions via email directly to Anna Rurka [Anna.RURKA@coe.int] by Friday 31 August 2018. All responses will be treated anonymously.
Please find below the three questions:
1… Does your organisation engage in both advocacy and service provision? If your organisation both promotes the rights of your beneficiaries through engaging in public policy making and provides services to them, are there any legal or regulatory requirements that you must comply with?
2… What are the main ways in which your organisation engages in the public policy making processes? Please provide examples where possible.
3… Has your organisation engaged with policy or decision makers through a formal consultation mechanism in the last five years (this could be a public consultation launched by a government department e.g. the recent consultation on the Civil Society Strategy, a call for evidence made by a parliamentary committee, or a closed consultation mechanism e.g. the Foreign Secretary’s Human Rights Advisory group, for example)?
3.a… If so, could you please provide an example or examples of any recent formal consultations that you have participated in and tell us what you liked about the process and what you thought could be improved?
3.b… If not, could you please tell us why?
Thank you!
Andreas