James,

You need to imake clear the fact that business receives money from central and local government, the NHS, the DWP etc. At the moment you are not representing the multi-billion pound relationship between business and government.

Same with charity. By far the largest donor to charity is central and local government, hence they tend to be under the government's sphere of influence (generally a lot more than they like to admit).

You've also failed to link the Venturers to the RDA, WESP, Business West, the Bristol Partnership, the LSC (which I don't think you've got on there) and the universities (not included but very influential locally too)

Local government directly links to most of them too.

A few years back an academic at UWE (I think, maybe UofB?) did this and produced a flow chart. He used to appear at conferences and events with it and raise quite a laugh because it was hilariously complex. Unfortunately I can't remember his name ... 

The relationship between business and government is an interesting point - in that most of the transactions would still exist without a government intermediary (i.e. , business would still sell stuff to individuals) I don't view a supplier/customer relationship as implicitly "influential". But lobbying organisations and not-for-profit partnerships do represent lines of influence.

That Charity links are tricky - no argument that many of the big brand names are captive organsations. E.g. Oxfam, Friends of the Earth. But locally, I believe the key links are through Voscur and other council-sponsored bodies. 

Possibly I'm ill-informed, but I'm a bit sceptical of the Merchant Venturers' influence. Particular indviduals belonging to the organisation may have powerful positions (and wealth), but the group itself is just another charity with a long history. Isn't it?

It's all Creative Commons, so here's the Visio file . No doubt a "John Savage" oriented view would be different. 

JMB

Are you sure "most of the transactions would still exist without a government intermediary"?

Firstly there's direct subsidies such as First Bus get. Without the subsidy would we get the service?

Then there's PFI. Do you think Bristol would have rebuilt all its secondary schools with no regard for demographics without PFI?

Then there's things like the Export Credit Guarantee Scheme which exists precisely because arms transactions wouldn't happen without this intermediary.

And then there's firms like BaE where it's all but impossible to identify where government ends and the business begins. It's hard to see most of BaE's arms deals happening without government TBH.

On VOSCUR: this is a grant receiving body not a grant-making body. It's a Labour party sphere of influence that doesn't really do anything much at all.

The links to most smaller community and voluntary organisations in Bristol are financial ones through a combination of small city council grants topped up with more substantial money from central government regeneration funds (NR, SRB, New Deal etc.) and large and mysterious pots of money from GOSW that are dolloped out on a secretive and ad hoc basis.

This is the reason why the government stopping NR money is so crucial (to those in the industry). The government to all intents and purposes funds Bristol's voluntary sector as a major arm of New labour's social policy delivery.

With the money gone the organisations will collapse. Despite having, in some cases, been funded for 20 years by government, none of them have thought to diversify their income streams (so they're not solely reliant on government) or set up fundraising departments - like most normal charities have to do.

TBH they all deserve to go under for being so stupid and profligate with our money (and believing they have a right to government money in perpetuity).