INFRASTRUCTURE PROVIDERS GROUP

At Voluntary Action LeicesterShire (VAL) this morning for a meeting of the Infrastructure Providers Group. Support for this group and attendance at its meetings have declined markedly in recent months. I had attended earlier meetings on behalf of REDP and had decided to make a special effort to get involved again - making me the only example I know of a rat climbing back on board a sinking ship (laughs all round).

I'm here specifically to update attendees on the state of the Good Practice Equality & Diversity Healthcheck that REDP developed in its Mainstreaming Equality project and has been refining for potential use throughout the East Midlands. Some months ago VAL enquired about using thie document and process in the context of this project, so I'm here to make our latest response to that.

Funding for this project expires on 31 March. There's much discussion today about what happens beyond that date - if indeed, anything should happen at all. There was no opposition to the proposal that the Infrastructure Providers Group be wound up when its funding expires. However, there followed in depth and sympathetic discussion of which strands of its work are still live and how they might be kept alive.

• Should this group morph into a strategic group of infrastructure / support service providers?
• Should it change into a focus group for recipients of support services?
• Are there enough bodies still in existence -and for whom infrastructure / support services is high enough on their agenda - to make separate meetings worthwhile?
• Can the functions of this group be incorporated into the work of the recently established VCS Assembly for Leicester and Leicestershire?
• Is there still a need for a focal point which looks at what support services are still out there - who they are, where they are located, who they work with and what they do?
• Should there be an individual, group or meeting with responsibility for surveying the support that frontline organisations in the city and county are getting?

Similarly, no one argued with the view that the Coalition is unlikely to do anything proactive until the national deficit is paid off. Which leaves the Voluntary and Community Sector or Organisations of Civil Society - doesn't much matter what you call them when they're left stranded, unloved and unwanted - in the wilderness, struggling to survive until such time that they're valued again. If that time ever comes.

The final meeting of the Infrastructure Providers Group will be held on 25 March. At that meeting, we'll evaluate the project: what's been done, what remains to be done - and options for continuing its influence. I'm sure that there are still strong and positive things that can be said and done.