Charities set to fight lobbying bill

Matthew Downie, head of campaigns and public affairs at Action for Children, is worried about what is going on in Parliament. But his fears do not concern the Children and Families Bill, the government's flagship piece of legislation on children's policy.

Instead, Downie is worried by another bill, one that at first glance might seem to have little bearing on children's policy: the Transparency of Lobbying Bill.

It is designed to get a grip on the influence lobbyists have in the political process by restricting how much they can spend during elections and requiring them to be more open about their activities. But it turns out that charities may find that their campaigning work and efforts to engage young people in politics could fall foul of the proposed law.

The situation, says Downie, is nothing short of "insane". "We speak out on behalf of vulnerable children, young people and families across the UK to ensure their voices are heard, especially at election time," he says. "The new guidelines set out in this bill could seriously affect our ability to do this."

Electoral purposes

He highlights Action for Children's plans for the Scottish independence referendum. The charity wants to run training events to engage disadvantaged first-time voters in the ballot. But as it stands, the new bill threatens to force the charity to abandon that work.

"The work would be limited by the proposed changes to the lobbying bill as the project is deemed 'for election purposes' and therefore the amount of money and staff time we can dedicate to it is capped," he says.

The definition of 'for electoral purposes' used in the bill is broad - so broad that it seems to include non-party political campaigns for causes that have the explicit backing of certain parties.

On activities deemed to be 'for electoral purposes', the financial cap is tight. Downie calculates that in the 12 months to polling day, Action for Children would not be able to spend more than £381,000 in England, £35,400 in Scotland, £24,000 in Wales and £10,800 in Northern Ireland. However, those figures are not just about the cash spent - the cost of staff time also counts towards the total, as does joint campaigns with other charities.

"The bill would also mean that we may not be able to participate in coalition working across the charity sector on issues like child poverty and disability," he adds. "This is because the spending of the whole coalition is applied to each member of it, and would likely take us over the allowed spending for an election year."

He says that if the bill does not change, Action for Children could find itself forced to curtail its campaigning work, scrap electoral engagement projects and withdraw from campaigns such as End Child Poverty.

"Ambiguous" bill

Action for Children's concerns are shared by others. "We're worried about it," says James Cathcart, chief executive of the British Youth Council. "The government is saying informally that the bill isn't intended to affect us, but we're getting legal advice that the bill is ambiguous. We're planning to target the general election in a big way and plan to spend more than the £391,000 limit. We're also worried by the degree of bureaucracy and form filling that the new rules would entail."

The bill also clashes with what the government itself is doing, he adds. "The government has given us a grant towards work to encourage young people to vote. It's contradictory to give out these grants if we're not supposed to campaign."

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), the body that represents the charity sector, has taken up the battle with the Cabinet Office, but says it has yet to be convinced that the government will remedy the situation.

But the Cabinet Office insists that charities are not the target of the law. "We are keen to work constructively with the NCVO to achieve the objectives of this bill," says a spokesman. "The intention is to bring greater transparency where third parties campaign in a way which supports a particular political party or its candidates. This bill does not include campaigning by third parties - charities or other organisations - that is not intended to promote or could not reasonably be considered to promote the electoral success of any particular party."

Cathcart is hopeful the wording of the bill will change. But until the detail of any revisions are known, the risk remains that the law could be about to gag children's charities.

Children and families bill reaches final stages

While children's charities prepare to battle the lobbying bill, this autumn is also likely to see the Children and Families Bill become law.

The bill packs in numerous reforms. There are measures designed to speed up the family courts and adoption process. Councils will be required to appoint virtual heads for looked-after children's education and publish details of what support is available to children with special educational needs. The bill will also give England's children's commissioner more independence and power.

Action for Children's Matthew Downie says most of the debates about the bill are over, but two key issues remain for his charity. The first is to enshrine the right of young carers to be assessed for support by local authorities. The Care Bill has already widened the definition of carers to include young people - now the right to an assessment needs to be added to the Children and Families Bill.

Downie is confident this will happen, but is less sure about the charity's bid to introduce a measure that would let young people stay in foster care after the age of 18 if both the carer and child want the arrangement to continue.

The idea was rejected by the House of Commons, but, says Downie, the Lords are more supportive so there is still hope. "Most young people leave home in their mid-20s now," he notes, "so why should those in foster care have to leave at 18?"