Maximising influence

"Our time has come"! The recent edition of ACEVO's acclaimed leadership magazine has 2 fascinating articles about the third sector and our potential to use the next Parliament to effect.

Darren Murphy is managing director of Global Political Strategies (part of APCO worldwide) one of the world's top political consultancies. He has written a fascinating article on the power we will have to influence.

It is not just that we may have a hung parliament. He makes the point that the next parliament will have a huge influx of new MPs. " They will be younger, with far less political experience than perhaps any other Parliament in the last 100 years"....and this new Parliament will be more powerful than any since the Second World war ".

He says that we now need to be thinking how we influence MPs in the same way we have done with Ministers in the past.

And he points out, "this will be a wholly different sort of Parliament. More interesting. More exciting and with more opportunities for those who wish to influence policy to do so. Expect corporate Britain and the trade unions to seek to maximise their influence. The third sector must maximise its impact too ".

He argues we start with a comparative advantage as we are "natural coalition builders. In many ways, your very existence is becuase of the determination to bring people from diverse backgrounds together around a common casue".

Read his full article here.

ACEVO is organising a briefing on the election result next week by Darren and his talented team at APCO and we will be preparing that for wider dissemination to our members.

Then we also have an article from Anna Turley , the deputy director of the New Local Government Network who warns that the protection of health budgets and schools will mean that local councils face potential cuts of 20% or more from 2011." In this difficult and highly politically charged climate , if the third sector can show strong leadership and real,tangible solutions through efficient, demonstrable local delivery, then its time could really be about to come".