LOCAL COMMITTEE FOR BARROW Paper No. 28 th February 2005 Meeting - PDF document

LOCAL COMMITTEE FOR BARROW Paper No. 28 th February 2005 Meeting date: From: CORPORATE DIRECTOR OF 21 COMMUNITY, ECONOMY & ENVIRONMENT B ARROW & DISTRICT COUNCIL FOR VOLUNTARY SERVICE E XECUTIVE S UMMARY 1.0 This report gives an update of the support that Cumbria County Council is providing to the Barrow & District Council for Voluntary Service (BCVS) and BCVS’s funding proposal to the Council’s Voluntary / Community Sector Infrastructure Development fund is included in this report. P OLICY P OSITION , B UDGETARY AND E QUALITY I MPLICATIONS , 2.0 AND L INKS TO C ORPORATE S TRATEGY 2.1 In Cumbria there is a long history of partnership working between the County Council and the voluntary sector. One of the Council’s key objectives is to “work closely with the voluntary sector to help us achieve our joint aims”. The Corporate Strategy specifies that this will be achieved by “listening to their needs and providing additional support”. During the three year period 03/04 – 05/06 the Council will be investing a total of £1,020,000 in the Cumbria voluntary sector. A detailed action plan has been developed with all the voluntary organisations receiving funding; the Community Division will work with each voluntary organisation to ensure action plans can be delivered. 2.2 The County Council has made an extra £100,000 available in 2003-04 in its Voluntary / Community Infrastructure Development fund to provide additional support to the voluntary sector in Cumbria, in line with the Corporate Strategy and will continue this as indicated above until 2005/06. This recognises the administrations commitment to supporting the voluntary sector and responds to needs identified by the voluntary sector. Demands are increasingly being placed on the Cumbrian voluntary sector to participate in the planning of and delivery of Page 1 of 13 E:\Member Services\COMMITTEE\Barrow Local Committee\2005\280205\Reports\Item No.21 Barrow & District Council for Voluntary Service.doc

services. The administration recognises that the voluntary sector needs to be supported and developed to be able to carry out this role successfully. 2.3 The services delivered by BCVS are available to all. This project will continue to improve accessibility of those services. R ECOMMENDATION 3.0 3.1 Members note the information provided, about the support Cumbria County Council provides to BCVS. B ACKGROUND 4.0 4.1 Cumbria County Council provides financial support to BCVS through a three year contract (April 2003 – March 2006). CVASL receives £34,515 per year plus inflation, in long term core funding, (£106,153 over the next 3 years). 4.2 The County Council made £100,000 available in 2003-04 to provide additional support to the voluntary sector in Cumbria through its Voluntary / Community sector Infrastructure development fund. BCVS is eligible to submit bids to the fund of up to £10,000 a year for a project that can last for a maximum of three years. 4.3 BCVS submitted a one year proposal; the project cost £9850 and to run from April 2004 – March 2005. The proposal was to set up three Action Learning sets of 6 – 8 people with similar roles in different organisations, Chief Officers, Volunteer Coordinators and Trustees. Benefits to individuals and organisations include mutual support and learning from each other, chance to offload/share experiences, extending networking opportunities, good introduction to advanced learning, strong relationships and networks are developed which are sustainable beyond the life of the programme. 4.4 BCVS has now submitted a two year follow on proposal; the project will cost £31,300 and run from April 2005 – March 2007. The proposal is to further develop the project to offer opportunities to a wider range of organisations and individuals. O PTIONS 5.0 5.1 Comments on the BCVS bid for additional funding from the Council’s Voluntary / Community sector Infrastructure Development fund may or may not be made. C ONCLUSION 6.0 6.1 The Corporate Director – C,E&E (Ralph Howard) will take Local Committee’s views into consideration when using his delegated powers to consider this grant application expenditure in consultation with the Cabinet portfolio holder (Mike Ash). Page 2 of 13 E:\Member Services\COMMITTEE\Barrow Local Committee\2005\280205\Reports\Item No.21 Barrow & District Council for Voluntary Service.doc

Georgina Ternent Programme Manager–Voluntary&Parish Sector, Community,Economy&Environment 14 th January 2005 Please ensure that every part of this section where there is an asterisk* is completed in accordance with the instructions before sending the report to Member Services, following which please delete this sentence. APPENDICES 1. Barrow & District Council for Voluntary Service – Action Learning Sets Project Proposal 2. Barrow & District Council for Voluntary Service – Action Learning Skills for Life IMPLICATIONS Staffing: None Financial: Voluntary/Community Sector Infrastructure Development fund. 2005-06 £10,000, 2006-07 £10,000 Electoral Division(s): Dalton North, Dalton South, Hawcoat, Hindpool, Newbarns, Old Barns, Ormsgill, Parkside, Risedale, Roosecote, Walney North, Walney South Executive Decision No Key Decision No* If a Key Decision, is the proposal published in the current Forward Plan? N/A* Is the decision exempt from call-in on grounds of urgency? No* If exempt from call-in, has the agreement of the Chair of the relevant N/A* Overview and Scrutiny Committee been sought or obtained? N.B. If an executive decision is made, then a decision cannot be implemented until the expiry of the eighth working day after the date of the meeting - unless the decision is urgent and exempt from call-in and the Head of Member Services has obtained the necessary approvals. PREVIOUS RELEVANT COUNCIL OR EXECUTIVE DECISIONS [including Local Committees] Local Committee for Barrow 27 th January 2004 BACKGROUND PAPERS The following information is available from Georgina Ternent on request: Page 3 of 13 E:\Member Services\COMMITTEE\Barrow Local Committee\2005\280205\Reports\Item No.21 Barrow & District Council for Voluntary Service.doc

• Voluntary / Community sector Infrastructure Development fund: guidance notes for use of fund 2003/04; [Where reports concern Invest to Save and Improve projects, relevant papers for the Invest to Save and Improve Working Group should be listed as background papers. However, where such reports contain exempt information, this should also be noted here] RESPONSIBLE CABINET MEMBER Mike Ash, Voluntary and Community Portfolio holder Contact: Georgina Ternent, 01768 242365, georgina.ternent@cumbriacc.gov.uk Page 4 of 13 E:\Member Services\COMMITTEE\Barrow Local Committee\2005\280205\Reports\Item No.21 Barrow & District Council for Voluntary Service.doc

APPENDIX 1 BARROW COUNCIL FOR VOLUNTARY SERVICE – PROJECT PROPOSAL Project Aim To provide support to a wider range of individuals and organisations in the Voluntary & Community sector in the Barrow-in-Furness area by further developing the Actions Learning Sets Project, funded by Cumbria County Council’s Infrastructure Development Fund in 2004/05. This project aims to use the successful methodologies of the existing Action Learning project and use lessons learnt to improve the performance of the project as a whole. By supporting individuals’ needs the project highlights the organisations needs, which can then be addressed by the wider Barrow CVS Organisational Development Project. This report gives details of the project’s progress to January 2005 and requests continued support for 2005/06 and 2006/07 Objectives The project will support the overall capacity of Barrow CVS to provide capacity building to voluntary organisations. It will achieve this by: o Continuing to provide a programme of Action Learning Sets for Chief Officers/Managers, Managers of Volunteers, and Trustees. o Developing and promoting a new programme of Action Learning Sets which focus on recruiting Information Officers, Advice and Guidance Workers, Administrative/Finance Workers in the VCS. o Using the lessons learned from the first year of this project to improve the recruitment and retention of individual learners. o Extending the ability for VCS organisations to become more sustainable in their funding strategies by setting up an Action Learning Set around a single ‘issue’, for example, Sustainable Funding. This will recruit from, and build upon the April 2005 Barrow ‘Sustainable Funding’ conference event being organised by Barrow CVS in partnership with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) Detail Action Learning Sets are one discrete activity delivered within a much larger project of Organisation Development for Voluntary and Community Organisations in Barrow-in-Furness. Three Action Learning sets have been organised for different professional groups namely, Chief Officers, Volunteer Co-Coordinators and Trustees. Page 5 of 13 E:\Member Services\COMMITTEE\Barrow Local Committee\2005\280205\Reports\Item No.21 Barrow & District Council for Voluntary Service.doc