Agenda item

REVIEW AND REFRESH OF THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR STRATEGY

Report and appendices attached

Minutes:

The Council’s Head of Policy and Performance presented a report which detailed the end of Year 1 review of the Voluntary Sector Strategy and action plan.  It had been agreed by Cabinet in June 2015 that the strategy and action plan would be reviewed by the Overview and Scrutiny Board on an annual basis. The report set out the main achievements to date and those actions where further work was still needed.

 

The report set out the key achievements in delivering the Voluntary Sector Strategy and Action Plan 2015/16 and the joint working arrangements between the Council and the sector.

 

Members noted that the revised Havering Compact had been launched in November 2015 and that the Havering Compact Steering Group had also been established to continue to work with partners across Havering to address future training needs and develop partnership working.

 

The establishment of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) (a consortium with a robust governance structure) was being explored with participation from a number of agencies. 

 

The next step regarding the proposed initiative was final sign off from the Tapestry Board Meeting in August to establish a subsidiary to run the SPV. 

 

The report also outlined steps being taken to improve communications, access to information, commissioning processes and market positioning.

 

The report also set out the voluntary sector infrastructure support which would be provided by additional staff resources were had been built into the internal Community Development Team.

 

Appended to the report was the refresh of the Voluntary Sector Strategy and Action Plan 2016/17.

 

The report concluded by setting out the financial savings that would be achieved by reducing the Council’s spending within the voluntary and community sector.

 

During discussions Members commented on the number of times the Compact had been reviewed and re-launched. Officers confirmed that this had featured heavily as a priority in the feedback from the sector in response to the consultation on the original strategy and that this was being led by the sector itself, as was its prerogative.

 

Members also commented that the Council should be helping the sector to centralise its procurement, access support services etc.  Officers advised that this support had been offered to the sector as part of the delivery of the year 1 action plan but that there had been no appetite from the sector to take up the assistance.

 

The Council needed to be much clearer on what it wanted to achieve and how it would measure its progress against this e.g. how many volunteers does the Council need to attract, across all services.

 

Members expressed concern about the amount of paperwork required to access the £1,000 grant available to “Friends of Parks” groups. Officers advised that one of the objectives of developing a new process for grant monitoring within the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) was to ensure that this was proportional, as well as to ensure that the Council was securing best value from these arrangements.

 

Members also had concerns that volunteers’ attendance was not monitored.  It was recognised that volunteering was not a compulsory activity, but that this meant volunteers could be unreliable and as such the Council couldn’t really be sure what value they were adding.  With this in mind, some Members urged caution in putting volunteers into critical roles.

 

Members felt that the level of detail contained within the report was insufficient, especially around use of volunteers in libraries. It requested that a report go to a future meeting of the Towns and Communities OSC, and then regularly thereafter, detailing not just how many volunteers had been recruited, but how many were actively and regularly volunteering, what roles they were fulfilling and how many hours they had contributed.

 

In response to a question relating to whether a list of all relevant VCS groups commissioned by the Council could be provided to each O&S Committee. Officers advised that there was little point in doing this until the VCS review had been concluded and the £1.1m savings identified, as the groups commissioned now would not necessarily be the same groups commissioned going forward.

 

It was RESOLVED that the Board:

 

1.    Noted progress made to date in delivering the Voluntary Sector Strategy and action plan, and

 

2.    Endorsed the refreshed Voluntary Sector Strategy and action plan for 2016/17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supporting documents: