Kirsty McNeill: The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations
Source: gov.uk (2025-02-07)

UK Government Scotland Office Minister Kirsty McNeill in conversation at the The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), the Gathering event.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here, back among friends devoting their lives to a social purpose.

As some of you might know, I spent much of my life in the voluntary and community sector, both on staff and as a volunteer.

And I’m still a proud member and supporter of a lot of organisations I was involved with before I became an MP.

As a minister too I’ve had the chance to visit organisations like Greener Kirkcaldy, Bairn’s Hoose in Dundee, Macaulay College in the Western Isles, Barnardos Nurture Service Inverclyde and Bravehound to name but a few.

And I want to reassure people who do the mail outs to MPs that yes, there really is someone who reads every single bit of bumpf they are sent or handed and that’s me! That’s how I know stuff like the people in the War Memorial Trust diligently cleaning and protecting these sacred places, or about the 850 people involved in Scottish Mountain Rescue who go out in all weathers to save the lives of perfect strangers.

So I will always want to hear from and spend time with you.

Because we are pals. But because we are pals I want us to have a really honest conversation today. You are busy people - nobody here has time to beat around the bush.

So I wanted to come here today to say I think we are both punching below our weight right now - both civil society and government - because we haven’t yet found the right way to work together.

When we do, we are going to be unstoppable. But right now, we are still finding our way.

Let me give you some examples. The UK Government’s budget delivered nearly £5 billion extra for Scotland’s public services - money which, if well spent, could take pressure off of everyone here who works in health, education, transport, poverty or community development. We should be talking to each other and the Scottish Government about how to make that money have the maximum impact for Scots.

Instead almost all of our conversation has been about the changes to employer national insurance contributions. I get that this decision is unpopular in this room and we need to get into it in the Q and A. I’m not trying to shy away from the fact that we had to make tough choices and that has in turn created tough choices in your board rooms and senior management meetings. Let’s talk about it.

But I hope you can also see that we are missing out on a major chance to transform Scotland together if we aren’t collaborating on how this truly game-changing amount of money should be spent.

Or here is another example - the New Deal for Working People. Now I am a proud trade unionist and the UK Ggovernment is indebted to the trade union movement for all of their support on the development of this package. But why are the only people lobbying for it in the trade union movement itself? Because if people are better paid and better protected at work then the missions of every organisation in this room becomes easier to achieve.

The Child Poverty Taskforce on which I am proud to sit has received a lot of input and evidence on welfare questions and rightly so, but we are at risk of having lots of narrow, disjointed conversations about individual policy areas when nobody lives their lives in policy silos. No policy tweak is a substitute for creating an economy that works for working people and that’s the biggest prize on offer. Let’s all keep our eyes on it.

So I do think there are some areas where we could have worked together better in these first few months of a new government. There are national conversations you should be not just a part of but leading.

And I know what some of you will be thinking. That you don’t want to be co-opted or politicised and I understand that risk.

So I want to be really clear about this: the UK Government will never compromise your independence.

Not just because it would be improper, but because it would make you less effective, because one of your most important roles is to challenge us.

And I want to stress how much I really mean this. Not in a mealy-mouthed way to say of course there is a ‘right’ to protest and to speak out in this country.

No, I’m saying something bigger than that - that you have not just the right but the duty to challenge us when you think we’re getting it wrong.

It’s not an accident that the members of charity boards are called ‘trustees’, because they are indeed entrusted with something very important. It is their job to steward an institution on behalf of all society at large but in particular on behalf of the beneficiaries the organisation exists to support. Those beneficiaries need you to bring their perspective right to the heart of the national debate - even if, especially if, they are marginalised or traditionally shut out of power.

In my old life I often used to say to the teams I worked with that ‘campaigners make things possible, politicians make things happen’.

Civil society’s job is to inform conversations, challenge assumptions, pioneer new practice and give support that the state is unable, unwilling or not best placed to give.

Government’s job is to pass laws, devise budgets, enact policies and, above all, to reconcile competing interests for the common good. In the end, we make decisions about how best to get things done and it’s our jobs on the line if we get things wrong.

These roles in our democracy are distinct, but mutually reinforcing. Both sides need each other.

But if we are to each play our parts well then we need to have a proper dialogue. Yes you should tell us when you think we’re getting it wrong. But you should also let us know when you think we’re getting it right and, crucially, when we are not focusing on something that really matters.

Because there are some things that civil society is simply best placed to know.

One of the great privileges of my job as a minister is getting to spend so much time with civil society. From a farm supporting children with disabilities to an arts project helping people to walk the long hard road to recovery after addiction, from an organisation helping women get smart clothes for job interviews after seeking asylum or fleeing domestic abuse to community allotments that give people in mental health crisis a safe place to go, I have seen Scottish civil society at its very best when the times people face are at their very worst.

And because of this special role you have, deep in the heart of communities, you see things we in government just can’t see from where we are sitting. As you know, 36% of Scottish voluntary organisations are based in remote or rural locations. You know every nook and cranny of Scotland and wrestle with questions about how to change lives every day.

What is the best way to provide food for hungry folk, without compromising their dignity? How can we best fight loneliness so everyone feels that they matter and that they belong? Just what kind of Christmas support might make the biggest difference for the care experienced kid, not sure whether they’ll be in the same placement this time next year?

This is your expertise and we need to hear it.

Now I said earlier that we’ve both been punching below our weight. On your side I think that’s because you’ve shied away from the biggest debates about how to rewire our economy, on our side I think it’s because we’ve not yet been able to rewire government to become more open to outside expertise like yours.

You’ll have heard the Prime Minister talk about mission based government.

I am such a nerd for this, because it’s a completely different way of thinking about how this change can happen - one where the job of government is to coordinate and collaborate, not direct and dictate - and one where you have the power to make the difference for the people and places you love.

That’s why the UK Government is creating a new Civil Society Covenant, based on four principles: recognition for your contribution, partnership rooted in respect, participation so you can be heard and transparency, so that both civil society and government have the information we need to come to shared diagnosis and prescriptions.

We are doing that to unleash your extraordinary potential. There are more than 46 thousand organisations in the Scottish sector, employing 5% of Scotland’s workers and mobilising 300 million hours of volunteering every year.

Those are enormous figures.

Just imagine if those efforts could be aligned with investment from the private sector, policy ambition from UK Government and proper support from the Scottish Government.

Implementing the Covenant is where we will start, but it won’t be where we will end.

I want to see a new deal for the third sector in Scotland. That should start with multi-year funding for the sector.

Too many of you face the annual anguish of issuing redundancy notices to your own staff because there are question marks over whether your funding will be renewed and the money delivered on time.

I know many of you face significant bureaucracy and feel like you are jumping through hoops and getting tangled in red tape to access funding.

That places unfair stress on you and your staff when you want to be laser focused on helping others.

I know you’ll have a lot of questions about how the UK Government can make your lives easier and I know we will get into them in the discussion. So just let me underline that today is just the next stage in our discussions - with SCVO and its members.

As long as I am there, you will always have an open door to the Scotland Office. And when you walk through it we will sit around the table as equals and have a proper debate about how we all can play a part in creating the better Scotland we both - civil society and politicians alike - come to work every day to build.