Charities In England Research Articles

Recommendations for developing accessible patient information leaflets for clinical trials to address English language literacy as a barrier to research participation

BackgroundLow English language literacy is a common barrier to participation in clinical trials. Patient information leaflets (PILs) used in clinical trials are often lengthy, complex and have poor readability; this is a persistent and prevalent problem common to trials across the world. Simplifying the information provided in PILs can lead to improved understanding, comprehension and knowledge.The aim of this project was to develop recommendations for developing accessible PILs for clinical trials through a literature review of published and grey literature and co-working with marginalised communities, patients, and health and social care charities.MethodsA literature review of MEDLINE, Embase and online resources was conducted, and recommendations for developing accessible PILs were extracted from eligible published and grey literature. Grey literature which contained insights into more inclusive forms of communication was also identified and summarised. Meetings were held with two racially marginalised community groups, two groups involving autistic adults and/or adults with learning difficulties and a patient advisory group. Examples of accessible PILs were shared and discussions held about the content and format of the PILs and suggestions for changes/improvements. National Voices, a coalition of health and social care charities in England, held a national online workshop with charities and lived experience partners. Recommendations identified from the multiple sources were coded, collated and refined to develop an overarching framework of recommendations.ResultsThe framework consists of 74 recommendations for developing accessible PILs for clinical trials. Recommendations cover the five topics of formatting, information presentation, writing style, content and accessibility.ConclusionsThis project has developed a comprehensive framework of recommendations to guide researchers in the development of accessible PILs for clinical trials. Findings from previous research and from co-working with marginalised communities, patients and health and social care charities were collated to ensure that a diverse range of voices and experiences informed the framework. These recommendations aim to support researchers to develop better study information to reduce English language literacy as a barrier to participation in clinical trials.

Gender inequalities in unpaid public work: Retention, stratification and segmentation in the volunteer leadership of charities in England and Wales.

While gender inequalities in employment (paid public work) and domestic and reproductive labour (unpaid private work) are a prominent focus within the sociological literature, gender inequalities in volunteering (unpaid public work) have received much less scholarly attention. We analyse a unique longitudinal dataset of volunteer leaders, that follows through time every individual to have served as a board member (trustee) for a charity in England and Wales between 2010 and 2023, to make three foundational contributions to our understanding of gender inequalities in unpaid public work. First, the salience of vertical gender stratification and horizontal gender segmentation in trusteeship shows that gendered inequalities in work extend to public work in general-encompassing unpaid public work, and not only paid public work. In terms of gender segmentation, we find that women are over-represented as trustees in a small number of fields of charitable activity but under-represented across the majority of fields. In terms of gender stratification, we find that women are under-represented on the boards of the largest charities; under-represented as chairs of trustee boards; and particularly under-represented as chairs of the largest charities. Second, the dynamics underlying gendered differences in unpaid public work, which show higher rates of resignation for women trustees, resonate with research on paid employment which emphasises the importance of attrition to an understanding of how gendered inequalities in work are reproduced. This means that increasing the retention of women, not only the recruitment of women, becomes central to the policy agenda. Third, we show that there has been a decline in gender stratification and gender segmentation in trusteeship since 2010. This decline over time in gendered inequalities in unpaid public work provides an interesting counterpoint to influential research documenting a 'stall' in the reduction of gendered inequalities in paid employment.

Strategic distinctiveness: awakening the ‘sleeping giants’ of England and Wales’s NHS charities

Building on remarkable and sudden fundraising success during the Covid-19 pandemic, many National Health Service (NHS) charities in England and Wales have undergone a period of rapid organisational transformation and growth. This article explores these developments by considering how claims to distinction contribute to new organisational identities and allow access to valuable resources and funding opportunities. After situating recent developments within the policy background and key changes in governance and regulation since the 1990s, we report on interviews with directors and trustees of NHS Charities Together (NHSCT), the national membership organisation of NHS charities. These offer new insight into strategic shifts and the desire to form a distinct and unified identity for NHS charities. Highlighting ongoing tensions and debates within the sector, findings raise important questions over the role of NHS charities and their position in relation to the NHS and the state.

Charities’ income during the COVID-19 pandemic: administrative evidence for England and Wales

Abstract This paper provides a detailed overview of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the income of charitable organisations – an under-researched theme within social policy, which thus far has largely focused on the impact of the pandemic on individuals’ and households’ wellbeing. It analyses a unique longitudinal dataset that follows through time c.90,000 charities in England and Wales. The results, for the first time, illustrate the scale of the pandemic’s financial impact on the charitable sector: the median charity experienced a 13% real decline in annual income, while a charity at the 25th percentile of the annual relative growth distribution experienced an income decline of 43%. Importantly these annual declines are much more sizeable than those associated with the Great Recession and subsequent period of public spending austerity. Smaller charities, particularly those with an income under £100k, have been most significantly affected. The declines have been pervasive, extending across most fields of charitable activity, though certain charitable fields have seen particularly acute declines. While there has rightly been considerable emphasis on the important role of voluntary action in responding to the pandemic, this new empirical evidence helps to communicate the extent of the recent challenges faced by the charitable sector.

Governance and the prevention of fraud in charities in England and Wales

Governance and the prevention of fraud in charities in England and Wales

Charity trustees: governance duties and conflicts of interest

Abstract This article reports the results of an extensive survey of charity trustees in England and Wales in relation to governance duties and conflicts of interest. The results help discern trustees’ understanding of, and confidence with, their governance duties, their enthusiasm for practical assistance with these duties, the strength of their conflict management procedures, as well as compliance motivations and perceived barriers to enhanced governance and compliance. This in turn assists in critical evaluation of the effectiveness of the governance and regulatory system of charities in England and Wales.

Governance and the prevention of fraud in charities in England and Wales

Governance and the prevention of fraud in charities in England and Wales

The relationship between state funding and volunteer levels in voluntary sector organisations: a quantitative analysis of regulatory data

There is a long-standing debate within voluntary sector studies concerning the relationship between state funding and volunteer levels within voluntary sector organisations (VSOs). Due to a lack of suitable data, this debate has previously suffered from a lack of aggregate, quantitative evidence at the sector level. This article helps to fill this gap by exploring the relationship among larger charities in England and Wales (those with an annual income over £500,000), using a relatively new regulatory dataset on charity funding sources. The findings reveal a complicated relationship, with some small to moderate associations between the key variables. Among VSOs with at least some state funding, state income is correlated with smaller proportions of volunteers, even after controlling for size and industry. However, those with no state funding at all appear less likely to use volunteers, and to use them in lower average numbers, than those with at least some state income.

Income Concentration Trends and Competition in the Charitable Sector: An Analysis of Jewish Charities in England and Wales

Jewish charities are a subgroup of about two thousand, five hundred organizations, accounting for 1.5% of the total number of main charities in England and Wales. The increasing total income of general charities has prompted considerable debate about the perceived concentration of income and the perceived dominance of bigger charities over smaller ones. Meanwhile, the implications of competition for charitable behavior have remained underappreciated. Building on these assumptions and aiming to test how far the results of research carried out in the charitable sector in general apply to the Jewish charitable sector in particular, the research investigates the trends in concentration of income of a sample of 1301 Jewish charities operating between 1995 and 2015, using common measures of concentration to describe the competitiveness of the Jewish charitable sector in England and Wales. The findings suggest that the sector, in line with the wider UK charitable sector, experienced high levels of growth in terms of both aggregate total income and the number of charities operating, along with decreasing levels of income concentration. These findings allow one to hypothesize that, other things being constant, the increasing numbers of entrant charities may well have increased the size distribution of charities providing the same products or services, therefore exacerbating the competition for charitable funding in the Jewish charitable sector. This, in turn, on the one hand is likely to have exacerbated the competition for donations especially among charities pursuing similar causes, reducing the total amount of charitable money devoted to particular causes. On the other hand, the increasing numbers of charities providing the same products or services and the resultant increasing competition for funding may have impacted on the costs and efforts Jewish charities were able to divert to fundraising at the expense of resources that could be devoted, instead, to service provision.

Dickens and Wills: Voices from the Past

Dickens and Wills:Voices from the Past David Paroissien (bio) 'There is just one other [instruction to take], and no more,' [Mr. Boffin said to his lawyer]. 'Make me as compact a little will as can be reconciled with tightness, leaving the whole property to "my beloved wife, Henerietty Boffin, sole executrix." Make it as short as you can, using those words; but make it tight.' (Our Mutual Friend, Bk. 1, ch. 8, 92) Thus Noddy Boffin to Mortimer Lightwood, when their conversation takes a new turn. The "Golden Dustman" and the idle young barrister had met by appointment soon after the body of young Mr. John Harmon had been discovered, "floating in the Thames" (31). Before them lay a will removed from an iron box labeled "HARMON ESTATE" (88). By its provisions, Nicodemus Boffin, old John Harmon's former servant, had come into possession "of upwards of one hundred thousand pounds" as residuary legatee.1 Now, with all the forms of law having at length been complied with and the Harmon will proved and "moved, &c., and so forth," nothing remained except for the "eminent solicitor" to offer his congratulations. "'There are no estates to manage,'" Mortimer Lightwood, continued, "'no rents to return so much per cent. upon in bad times […], no agents to take the cream off the milk before it comes to the table.'" Without codicils and trusts the lucky legatee could run off with the money "'and take it […] to – say, to the Rocky Mountains," an unlikely option for Mr. Boffin, perceived by some as "an old fellow of rare simplicity." "'I beg your pardon,'" Lightwood hesitated, and felt his way, at some loss to fathom his client's notion, "'but professional profundity must be exact. When you say tight – '" To which Boffin swiftly responded: "'What I want is, to make it all hers so tight as that her hold of it can't be loosed'" (Bk. 1, ch. 8, 92–3). [End Page 7] As this exchange illustrates, the making and administering of wills have different uses. In real life, people engage solicitors, make wills and die and legatees inherit; in novels, characters follow suit although with generally more dramatic results, offering authors from Sir Walter Scott to E. M. Forster a range of narrative and thematic opportunities. Howard's End (1904) in fact serves as a coda for the genre. Howard's End, the house gifted to Margaret Schlegel by Henry Wilcox's first wife, Ruth, bestows neither wealth nor influence. "It is a retreat," writes John R. Reed, "a salvaged piece of England that is less real estate than it is homestead of the soul." With inheritance redefined as something "strictly internal," it becomes its own reward. "Ownership is in the heart of the beholder," Reed concludes, arguing that Forster's novel is the culmination of the inheritance convention. It avoids "the more wooden details associated with lost wills and laboriously traced genealogies," while making "the grand point that novels like Our Mutual Friend, Felix Holt and others sought to confirm" (287). Dickens knew the will business intimately, perhaps better than most Victorian novelists.2 Indeed, we might characterize his viewpoint as unique, an insider's familiarity with wills as the voice of troubled testators. A remark he made about the lack of public support for charities in England illustrates this. While such philanthropic institutions in the United States "are either supported by the State or assisted by the State," the Government in England offers "very little shelter or relief" beyond the jail or the workhouse. What little aid reached the poor came indirectly, primarily from wills capriciously made and badly executed. To support that contention – "The maxim that out of evil cometh good"3 – turn to "the records of the Prerogative Office in Doctors' Commons,"4 Dickens advised. Drawing on knowledge gained as a freelance shorthand reporter working at the Wills office, Dickens put the following case in American Notes. Suppose an immensely rich old gentleman or lady. Both are surrounded by [End Page 8] "needy relatives" and both vent their displeasure by making, "upon a low average, a will a-week." For the old gentleman, naming legatees presents an opportunity to...

Peer support critical elements and experiences in supporting the homeless: A qualitative study

AbstractPeer supporters are individuals with lived experience and are an integral part of health care systems, providing support to those affected by various phenomena such as homelessness and addictions. However, little is known about the critical elements that underpin peer support interventions. This qualitative study sought to understand the critical elements of intentional peer support with a homeless population, voiced by those who provide and/or receive this support. Twenty‐nine participants from 4 different homeless charities in England were interviewed about their experiences of providing/receiving peer support and what they felt were critical factors to its success. Participants defined peer support as an experience‐based relationship, built upon mutual understanding, empathy, and support. Thematic analysis was utilised to in developing 6 themes. Results identified peers' persistence in developing unique experience‐based relationships, providing social support, role modelling recovery, and peers' motivations were perceived as important factors involved in peer support. It was also found that peers described benefitting from helping, such as, undergoing transformative identity developments that helped them to escape homelessness. Through the retelling of their stories, they create meaning and restructure their autobiography, attributing experiences of homelessness as a catalyst for positive changes in their lives. Limitations and future research are discussed.

Person-centred care: what nurses can learn from the patient perspective.

Janet Scammell, Associate Professor (Nursing), Bournemouth University, considers evidence from National Voices, a coalition of health and social care charities in England.

Transforming the world and themselves: the learning experiences of volunteers being trained within health and social care charities in England

This paper presents early findings from research that aims to explore the learning experiences of volunteers being trained within health and social care charities in England. An approach to training based on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) is proposed, which conceptualises learning as a form of transformation, for both volunteers and their wider environments.

A critical analysis of the development of the public benefit requirement of charitable purposes under English and Welsh charity law, from Re Compton [1945] 1 Ch 123 to R (Independent School Council) v Charity Commission [2012] Ch 214

The enactment of the Charities Act 2006 in November 2006 introduced the first statutory definition of charity into English and Welsh law. Under the provisions of the Act, charitable status requires that an institution must be established for charitable purposes only and that the charitable purposes must be of public benefit. Although, generally, well received the Charities Act 2006 has been criticised as ‘flawed’ on the public benefit requirement of charitable purposes. The Charities Act 2006 was passed with the principle aim of modernising existing charity law, which was considered outdated and unclear. However, unlike charitable purposes, which are set down within the provisions of the Act, a definition of public benefit is not provided. Section 3(3) of the Charities Act 2006 merely provides that ‘reference to public benefit is a reference to the public benefit as that term is understood for the purposes of the law relating to charities in England and Wales’. This lack of a definition as to what constitutes public benefit and statutory reliance upon the charities’ regulator, the Charity Commission, to interpret and provide guidance on the public benefit requirement for charitable purposes has led to criticism that the Charities Act 2006 has raised as many uncertainties as it sought to clarify. In critically evaluating the impact of the Charities Act 2006, and its successor, the Charities Act 2011, upon English charity law, this assessment places the legal definition of charity within its complex and, at times, vague historical context. Thus, providing an ideal backdrop in which to explore the policy objectives behind the Charities Acts and assess the effectiveness of the Charities Acts in achieving those objectives.

The Sources of Income of English and Welsh Charities: An Organisation-Level Perspective

Despite the prominence of voluntary organisations in public life and their high policy profile, there is a need for improved evidence regarding the funding base of individual voluntary organisations. This is relevant to theoretical debates about the role of such organisations in a mixed economy of welfare as well as to substantive questions about the balance between public and voluntary initiative. Using unique data for a sample of 7000 charities in England and Wales, for the first time we describe the distribution of charities according to the composition of their income. Importantly, the results illustrate the diversity of organisations with charitable status. They therefore serve to illustrate the different roles that charities play in a mixed economy. They also provide empirical context for substantive discussions relating to the identity of the charitable sector, including the notion of its “hybridity”—the extent to which an individual organisation draws upon a plurality of financial sources.

Regulatory shifts: developing sector participation in regulation for charities in England and Wales

Cuts in the Charity Commission's budget have caused it to retrench in its regulatory activity and re-prioritise its core functions. As a consequence, the Commission has promoted greater trustee self-reliance and charity-sector provision of regulatory services. This paper analyses these regulatory developments alongside a broader analysis of self-regulation in the charity sector. This paper argues that while self-reliance and self-regulation offer opportunities to the charity sector to create nuanced, sector-sensitive regulation, they could also compromise the credibility and quality of charity regulation. This paper further argues that the charity sector needs to address as a matter of priority the drivers for regulatory reform, the purposes and priority of charity regulation, and the shift in the balance of power that results.

Involving people.

A suite of resources from National Voices, the leading coalition of health and social care charities in England, aims to support commissioners and providers to access, understand and make use of the best evidence for various approaches to involving people in their own health and health care.

The Marketisation of Charities in England and Wales

Much has been written about the reasons for and impact of marketisation on charities, their clients, and wider civil society. A central component of the marketisation thesis is that charities are substituting grants and donations with commercial revenue. However, there is no consensus in the existing literature as to whether the two sources of revenue are substitutes or complementary. This paper shows that between 2003 and 2007 there was a significant increase in the proportion of overall revenue attracted from commercial sources by charities in England and Wales. Using our preferred generalised method of moments estimation model we show that the annual persistence of commercial revenue overtime was 44 %. In particular, a +10 % change in grants and donations was associated with a −3.1 % change in commercial revenue.

Lord Hodgson's Charities Act review

The Charities Act 2006, which applies to charities in England and Wales, contained a provision requiring a five-year review. Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, appointed to undertake that review, presented his findings in July 2012. His review considers the impact of the Act in the context of the regulatory framework for charities in England and Wales and sets out over 100 recommendations to take the legal framework forward. Lord Hodgson's recommendations and the principles that underpin them are considered in this article.

The promotion of children's health and wellbeing: the contributions of England's charity sector.

BackgroundSports and arts based services for children have positive impacts on their mental and physical health. The charity sector provides such services, often set up in response to local communities expressing a need. The present study maps resilience promoting services provided by children's charities in England. Specifically, the prominence of sports and arts activities, and types of mental health provisions including telephone help-lines, are investigated.FindingsThe study was a cross-sectional web-based survey of chief executives, senior mangers, directors and chairs of charities providing services for children under the age of 16. The aims, objectives and activities of participating children's charities and those providing mental health services were described overall. In total 167 chief executives, senior managers, directors and chairs of charities in England agreed to complete the survey. From our sample of charities, arts activities were the most frequently provided services (58/167, 35%), followed by counselling (55/167, 33%) and sports activities (36/167, 22%). Only 13% (22/167) of charities expected their work to contribute to the health legacy of the 2012 London Olympics. Telephone help lines were provided by 16% of the charities that promote mental health.ConclusionsCounselling and arts activities were relatively common. Sports activities were limited despite the evidence base that sport and physical activity are effective interventions for well-being and health gain. Few of the charities we surveyed expected a health legacy from the 2012 London Olympics.