The government must treat civil society as an equal partner alongside businesses to achieve its missions, a new report urges.

The research, published by the think tank Future Governance Forum in partnership with New Philanthropy Capital and the Lloyds Bank Foundation, calls for the government to afford civil society the same status as business.

“Civil society organisations should be seen as an equal partner alongside businesses and trade unions; indeed partnership on missions should be defined by the expertise and practice most relevant to that mission, not the sector it belongs to,” the report says.

The report was based on insights via interviews or roundtables from 42 individuals from the sector, either speaking in a personal capacity or representing one of 25 organisations including the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, Shelter, Crisis, Age UK, Trussell and Pro Bono Economics.

The report says early signs of the government’s approach to partnership with civil society are “promising”, pointing to the government’s work on creating a Civil Society Covenant.

But historically, political hostility towards civil society has “led to a widely held view that civil society organisations should ‘stick to their knitting’ as delivery agents”, the report warns.

Civil society organisations have called instead for a “partnership of equals”, it says, where they are involved in defining shared missions for society and are trusted to work with the government on identifying the best route towards these missions.

The report offers six recommendations for the government to improve its partnership with civil society, including that partnerships should be catalysed from the centre of government to facilitate good practice across Whitehall.

It says: “Relationships with relevant civil society organisations should of course be held across Whitehall within departments, but for the purposes of bringing the expertise of civil society in to help achieve the missions specifically, and on an equal footing with the private sector, a central, transparent and welcoming ‘front door’ would be useful.”

It also urges the government to “make use of the rich evidence and knowledge” of civil society by involving the sector in decision-making in all stages of policy development.

The government should also strengthen Civil Service capabilities and boost interchange with civil society, for example by establishing a civil society lead at director-general level in every government department, the report suggests.

It also calls on the government to involve civil society in a “test and learn” culture of innovation, particularly when it comes to mission delivery.

“Mission-teams seeking new approaches should be given the permission to experiment, iterate and fail forwards,” the report says.

It also recommends that the government should embrace challenge as integral to effective policy and decision-making, saying that the whole system “needs to be better able to cope with differences of opinion”.

The report says that ministers and civil servants must accept the dual role of civil society organisations in both contributing advice and holding the government to account publicly. 

The report’s final recommendation urges the government to create a satellite account for civil society, which is a collection of data sets linked to, but separate from, the national accounts. 

This would allow for the gathering and analysing of data on the sector’s economic impact and allow insights to guide decision-making, the report says.

Grace Wyld, head of policy and research at The Future Governance Forum, said: “Central government cannot deliver its ambitious missions agenda alone.  

“At its best, civil society will be critical to emerging mission partnerships, but organisations must also embrace change in this new way of working.”

James Somerville, policy manager at NPC, added that civil society organisations want to be partners for change and have “unique insights” into their communities’ needs. 

“But working together is a two-way street – government needs to recognise the strengths and insights that charities bring, and the social sector needs to not just lobby for themselves, but engage in mission-driven government.”