Voluntary & Community Sector Assembly

Back at Voluntary Action Leicester (VAL) after lunch, for another last meeting. This time it's the final meeting of the Steering Group for the Voluntary & Community Sector Assembly. This is another group whose early meetings I'd attended (on behalf of REDP), then been unable to do so for the past several months. In that time, the Steering Group has appealed for nominations for election to VCS Assembly Board, then arranged for elections to that Board take place and for those elected to vote for their own officers. The Board of the Voluntary and Community Sector Assembly is made up of representatives from the following bodies:

• Apex
• The Bridge
• CrossRoads Care
• Diversity Hub
• Focus
• Futures Unlocked
• Groundwork Leicester & Leicestershire
• Leicestershire Aids Support SErvice
• MRC Community Action
• RCC Leicestershire & Rutland
• Voluntary Action LeicesterShire
• Voluntary Action South Leicestershire

In the earlier meetings I attended, my continual refrain was that this Assembly should take care not to duplicate or shadow the operations of Leicester Partnership's Host Organisations for the various Communities of Interest, or their appointed representatives. I must have sounded like a one-note piano, I I spoke about this so often. Well, here we are, several months down the road: the VCS Assembly is a reality and Leicester Partnership's Host Organisation system is about to pass into memory.

Those bodies which had been serving as the Host Organisations never made a deliberate, minuted decision to stand aside from nomination and election for the VCS Assembly, but we all had our own business to get on with. The process went ahead and we weren't really able to get involved, but we were glad to see the work being shared out among the many competent and capable organisations in the city and county.

Now the VCS Assembly is the only game in town (and county) and those seven organisations who came to the fore as the most capable bodies to represent the various "protected characteristics" (as identified in legislation) find themselves distant far from the centre of this work. The VCS Assembly did not deliberately set out to represent the various "equality strands" or "protected characteristics" as Leicester Partnership did, with its designation of Communities of Interest and Host Organisations. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that we got a small amount of funding over two years for the work we did. The organisations represented on the board of the VCS Assembly are not getting any such remuneration for their work.

Certainly, those around the table don't seem at all bothered about this - and that's probably quite right too. I'm sure that the organisations elected to the VCS Assembly Board (and the individuals carrying out those responsibilities on behalf of their groups) can represent the Voluntary and Community Sector in city and county perfectly well. I hope that the rest of us can take our place in supporting them.

VCS assembly steering group (2)

At Voluntary Action Leicester this afternoon, for another meeting of the VCS Assembly Steering group. I'd attended an earlier meeting of this group on 22 Jan (see blog entry for that date) then missed one in February which coincided with one of REDP's involvement events. There are seven of us round the table today - fewer than at either of the previous meetings, maybe because our focus today sounds rather mundane: "Governance and Structure". In my earlier blog entry on this subject, I mentioned that this body hasn't got a particularly catchy name. Today that's one of the matters under discussion. At the February meeting, some names had been suggested and today we choose one of them. I'm not giving away here what it is: there's a time for everything, after all! We also considered a variety of models for the assembly's structure and governance and chose one of them to commend for adoption. One of those attending today expressed the hope that this assembly would be able to maximise skills and opportunities for the benefit of everyone working in the voluntary and community sector in the city and county. In the same terms, the assembly also has the chance to be a great leveller.

VCS assembly steering group (1)

At Voluntary Action Leicester (VAL) in Newarke Street this morning, for a meeting of what's being called (for want of a better name) the LeicesterShire Voluntary Sector Assembly Steering Group. Can't see that one featuring on a best-selling t-shirt - and it wouldn't exactly be my choice - but it has to be called something, right? This meeting is following up on a Development Day held at VAL at the end of October last year, when 65 delegates representing the diverse range of voluntary and community sector organisations in the city and county. That was an occasion for disemmination of information, for discussion, for networking and for workshops - all in aid of assisting in the development of a LeicesterShire Voluntary Sector Assembly. The aim of that day was to:

• begin the process of creating a single strong voice for the Voluntary and Community Sector in the city and county;
• enable the Voluntary and Community Sector to feed into the development and future of the Assembly;
• Identify clear priority areas of work for the Voluntary and Community Sector in 2010-11.

At the end of that Development Day, I put my name forward as being interested in sitting on this steering group which would consider practical ways to move this project forward. I'm here on behalf of the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership as much as I'm here for the Council of Faiths. Half a dozen of us from VCS organisations and three VAL staffers spend 90 minutes this morning looking at some basic issues that arose from the Development Day and that lead into possible future work.

There are no formal conclusions at this meeing: it's not that kind of group and it's still early days anyway. However, there are several general areas of agreement - most importantly that the establishment of such an Assembly would be sa good thing. We recognise a number of other important points too. While the VCS is uniquely flexible and responsive, it's become used to surviving on crumbs that fall from the table of the private and public sectors. An Assembly would have to help change that situation and advance the interests and elevate the status of the VCS. The work of any such Assembly should help sustain a thriving VCS; complement Leicester Partnership's system of "Host Organisations" and "communities of interest", rather than attempting to duplicte or rival that structure and service (which is still in its infancy); encourage, enable and support VCS's independence and robustness; facilitate and improve communication and cooperation among VCS organisations and groups.

Next time we meet, we'll have the chance to compare what we might be able to do in Leicester and Leicestershire with what's been done in other parts of the country which are comparable in some ways.