Remove Red Tape

Civil Society

This theme is now closed for comment. An announcement on Red Tape Challenge plans will be made in due course.

The civil society sector is central to the Government’s ambition for a stronger society. But we know that red tape can make it extremely difficult and frustrating to start and run a charity, social enterprise or voluntary organisation.

Much has already been done. In May 2011 the Civil Society Red Tape Task Force made 17 major recommendations to cut red tape. Unshackling Good Neighbours – One Year On, shows what you’ve told us so far and how Government has responded. Other reviews and their engagement activities – for example, the Open Public Services White Paper, the Giving White Paper, and the Review of the Charities Act 2006 have also identified ways to cut red tape for civil society organisations.

But we know there is more to be done and we continue to need your help. We’d like to hear from you if you have any more ideas for changes to regulations that would make it easier to run a charity, social enterprise or voluntary organisation.

• Is there red tape that stops you giving your time or money?
• If you run a civil society organisation are there rules and regulations that stop you making it more successful?
• Should it be easier to invest in social ventures?

If you think we can do things better please comment on the links below or email us at redtapechallenge@cabinet-office.gsi.gov.uk. We are interested in all your comments and, if they are relevant to another theme we are running, will pass them to that theme as well. If you have previously contributed to a Government consultation on any of these issues then there is no need to do so again, but you are welcome to feed your comments into the Red Tape Challenge if you wish. You can make comments on this theme until September 2012. To find out more about how your comments will be acted upon, click here.

Sometimes the regulations are not the problem, but rather the way they are enforced. If you are a volunteer who has been involved in organising or running a volunteer-based event such as a street party or a one-off event to raise money for good causes and you have received really helpful advice from a regulator, or suffered from really unhelpful red tape and requirements, you might also want to feed into the Focus on Enforcement review. We would value your views – positive or negative – on what it was like working with regulatory authorities at either local or national level, at the Focus on Enforcement website , if you have experienced this.