Updates from Ivan
It really is hard to believe that February is already here. But, here at The Wheel, we’ve had a very busy start to the year indeed. Below, you’ll find some updates on just a few of our recent developments and plans that may be of interest.
Submissions and Consultations
In collaboration with Charities Institute Ireland (Cii), and with the support of Mason Hayes and Curran solicitors, we have just submitted a joint briefing paper on the Charities Act Amendment to the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands. While we acknowledged many positive aspects of this Bill (such as standardised financial reporting requirements), we nonetheless feel it does not adequately address the potential for avoidable reputational and financial damage to charities associated with regulatory investigations. We also called for sufficient time to fully review the proposed new provisions, and for an opportunity to present more detailed analysis, findings, and proposals to the Committee. You can read our full response here.
Given the potential impact of this kind of legislation, we want to continue to frame our advocacy within the wider regulatory context. To this end, we have also just published a survey on our members’ experience of regulation. Your inputs will support our advocacy in this critical area. Access the survey here (closing 13 February).
For our social enterprise members, the Social Enterprise Member Network hosted a consultation event earlier this month, chaired by Cormac Moloney of Vantastic CLG, on the new Social Enterprise Policy. The submission, with a foreword by Cormac, is available here.
Also, to support our members in engaging with the National Payments Strategy, we recently hosted a session with the Department of Finance on the impact of the proposed strategy on the sector. You can view a recording here and the slides here.
As you know, the local and European elections are scheduled to be held in early June 2024, and a General Election will take place within the next 12-18 months. I’m pleased to report that we held a very productive Member Election Townhall last week, where we heard from our members on a range of issues that we'll be including in our forthcoming campaigning work. You can view the slides from this session here, and we also welcome any further input you may have, so please email our Policy Officer (madeline@wheel.ie) with your comments. In addition, our Advocacy, Research, and Member Engagement team are currently working to deliver useful resources to support you in your own advocacy work.
Section 39/56/10 Pay Deal
The successful campaign by our HSE-, Tusla-, and Housing Act-funded members led to the agreement of an 8% pay increase last October. Since then, work has been ongoing to negotiate with the relevant State agencies and Departments on how this agreement will be delivered, and the recent public sector pay agreement raises the question of maintaining pay parity once again. The Irish Times covered this issue in a recent article, and we will continue to monitor the situation and work with sector colleagues to cement pay parity for Section 39/56/10 charity employees.
We also continue to work with employer organisations on ancillary issues such as employer costs in delivering the pay deal, core funding, and multi-annual agreements.
Summit 2024
Lastly, we're busily preparing for our annual conference, Summit 2024, which will take place on Wednesday, 29 May, in Dublin's Croke Park. This year's theme is "Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future." We'll be opening registration in the coming weeks and sharing details about the agenda soon. We're very excited and hope to see as many of you there as possible, so please do save the date!
My thanks to all our members for your continued support and dedication to our sector’s work. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at our upcoming events.
