2011-11-30T14:27:00.003Z

Don’t blame my dad

In 1993, at the tender age of 22 and having just graduated from University, I attended the retirement party for my dad. A grand affair at a local venue with a couple of hundred colleagues and friends whom my dad had built relationships with over his 35ish years in public sector employment. He was 52.

To me, at that time, 52 seemed a long way off and his years were beginning to show. To me now, it seems very young to be hanging up the gloves on the social housing market to take up the challenges and opportunities of retirement.

Today I was late for work due to the passing of two consecutive full buses past my stop – each packed with people holding strike placards and sporting ‘save my pension’ badges.

So what’s my point?

In 1993 early retirement was commonplace in the public sector. It was seen as a way to reduce the salary bill by transferring that cost for a later day and future generations (you and I). This trend continued into the later Labour government and despite feeble tinkering to try to improve the situation this was still never fully addressed; the pension crisis just kept growing. Before 1993 I’m sure the situation had been developing for sometime, but I was young and had a life then - one that didn’t involve having to consider this stuff.

I am no economist, but this sort of time bomb is not easily overlooked. I have much sympathy with public sector workers, many of whom I have seen treated badly during recent cutbacks. BUT can you honestly say you didn’t see it coming?

And what does this mean for the VCS? Open public services, personalisation and localism bring the opportunity to really get the right providers and services in place at the right levels of delivery – many of which may be VCOs. But issues like TUPE rights and transfer of pension liability place an unwieldy risk to making this work. I also see VCOs admitted to public pension schemes left in crisis as the size of their pension liability becomes apparent. All this in a sector where overall pension take-up is probably the lowest and where overall terms of employment are risky and insecure for the individual.

This pension crisis is the consequence of successive government failings to address the long term impact of poor decision making; the impact of being comfortable in the now at the expense of the future. This is the polar opposite of altruism.

We have to stop this damaging culture of ‘save it for our children to pay’ and take it on the chin. If the only reason you honestly came into public service was because of the pension rights and conditions then quite honestly I’m not sure I want you teaching my children / nursing my relatives / maintaining our public places. I want you to be doing it because it is a privilege to work on behalf of society.

So do I blame dad for his early retirement package – not really, he’s a nice guy. But now I thoroughly expect him, as a local elected member, not to make the same mistakes as his predecessors.

2011-11-24T12:09:00.000Z

Community Organisers - opportunity or threat?

Earlier this week I was asked to speak on the subject of Community Organisers at the NAVCA conference in London; giving a voluntary sector and infrastructure perspective. The presentation was purely a personal opinion but here are my thoughts on the issue for those that were unable to attend.

Risk – what are the pros and cons of the approach?

There are a number of risks, threats and challenges posed by the Community Organiser (CO) programme – some of these include:

This is fundamentally a trial – a social experiment. Is this wise during a period of deficit and cuts and when much existing successful local activity is struggling?
The approach will duplicate the work of some community based organisations
There is insufficient funding for the CO programme – with little reimbursement for hosts, little salary for Organisers and no real plan for future sustainability.
There is no clear mechanism to link COs with existing and complimentary local activity.
Power cannot be just given away by Government, it has to be handed over using a process of transition – with the removal of infrastructure to enable this to happen (such as Government Offices) how can this be done well?
The timing is unlikely to work – most COs will be employed for 12 months once leaving their training programme whereas most local authority commissioning cycles are set on three year cycles. This will make the right to challenge a difficult one.
There are clear indicators that Big Society thinking is drawn from naïve concepts and understanding of the ability and capacity of communities to animate in the way they are expected to.
Locality are training 500 senior COs who will then recruit and support further volunteers – this will not cover the country so what about everywhere else?

But there are also some really positive aspects to this programme that we should not forget…

More animation of communities and individuals into social action is not a bad thing.
Locality are a well placed organisation to make the best of this programme and are using well established and researched techniques in order to do so.
Not everything we have tried as a sector to influence decision makers has been a resounding success – maybe trying a new approach is the right thing to do?
There are gatekeepers – both within the VCS and within communities – if this provides a way to circumnavigate them then it will be a welcomed addition to the toolkit.

So what’s my view?

I believe this is a social experiment.
I believe it is about raising lots of individual voices as opposed to the common VCS model of raising collective voice through a hierarchical structure.
I believe this is about stimulating local action rather than supporting and growing local action once the animators have already emerged.
I believe that the principles are sound and fit well with the need that develops under the Big Society approach BUT the timing is poor.
I believe that both good and poor infrastructure exists – this could work better than the poor but will compliment the good if mechanisms to link them are developed.

Some questions to consider

In summary, it is important that each infrastructure organisation evaluates how COs will impact on their work. As a starting point consider:

How could COs contribute to helping you achieve your objectives and in achieving greater influence

Through improved reach into local intelligence
By providing new means to exert and achieve influence

If you are worried about the impact COs may have then are you:

Clear about your role and purpose?
Building strong two-way member engagement?
Ensuring openness and transparency in your work?

If so, then what are you worried about!?

To read Rachel Quinn's full comments on community organisers visit www.oneeastmidlands.org.uk/viewpage.php?page_id=100.

2011-10-21T14:55:00.000+01:00

Is leading economic thinking really a VCS role?

I am delighted to announce that I have been recently appointed to the role of Deputy Chair (and therefore East Midlands local lead) for ERDF. This large European funding programme seeks to address economic disadvantage and underperformance across the East Midlands. This region is unique in being the first to appoint a VCS leader to the role of Deputy Chair; a programme traditionally led by business leaders or local authorities.

But so what???

ERDF has been the domain of local authorities, universities and economic development partnerships across the patch. Match funding was required and previously found in abundance through RDA single programme funds. However, with the demise of RDAs and the drop in economic performance across the whole country maybe it’s time to think differently about how a sustainable economy looks and performs in the future.

European funding streams have never been first choice for the VCS – they are complex, bureaucratic and use a language that is inaccessible to vast chunks of the living, breathing world. However, they have true and simple aims to support economic disadvantage, build jobs and enterprise and local resilience. I believe third sector organisation have a lot to offer this agenda now and would encourage my colleagues to bite the bullet and take a closer look. I will spend some of my time trying to make the whole programme a bit more accessible – don’t discount it yet.

For more information see http://www.communities.gov.uk/regeneration/regenerationfunding/europeanregionaldevelopment/eastmidlands/

2011-10-13T09:09:00.000+01:00

Integrated – I think not

Earlier this week One EM hosted a phase two listening event on the future of the NHS – focussing specifically on the area of integrated services and service user / care pathways.

In preparing for the event I stumbled across the ‘Caring for our future’ consultation on the future of social care and support services.

On examining the detailed questions I was not shocked at all to see another raft of questions about ‘ensuring service are better integrated’. It doesn’t take a genius to work out how we might respond…………

2011-10-12T16:44:00.005+01:00

Public services; open, closed or just a thing of the past

The beautifully entitled Open Public Services White Paper has proved to be the basis for much heated debate in the East Midlands. I have spent a great deal of time over the last few weeks huddled around tables trying to really understand why anyone would think that creating mass competition in the public service market place is, in itself, going to create better quality and why another layer of local government is really what we need in this period of cuts.

Never before have I found myself publicly advocating for a revisit and strengthening of the role of district authorities. But when we are faced with the idea of Neighbourhood Councils (bigger than parish / smaller than district) then a redistribution across the status quo suddenly becomes pretty appealing.

The headlines from our response to the paper were:

In general the devolution of power is positive but this is costly and difficult to achieve during a period of national austerity. Devolving services mustn’t be a cover for budget cuts and service loss.
In a climate of reduced spending, most people would rather see investment and consistent delivery quality by existing service providers than expensive investment in untested models. For example, a parent would rather know that their local school performs just as well as the others in the vicinity rather than have the choice and complex decision between 4 or 5.
Choice of services and availability are finite – where many service users choose the same provider, e.g. an excellent day care service, will Government stop it becoming a ‘rich man's’ choice for those that can afford to top up budgets?
The thought of Neighbourhood Councils is pretty scary; expensive to develop and in addition to an already confusing system we would be better to sort out the upper tier / district complexities than invest further resource into more layers.
There is no evidence that competition for competition’s sake drives down cost and increases quality.
Taking Southern Cross as an example, who will protect vulnerable people from market failure in a future where the market is much more diverse and fragmented than at present?

Finally – the biggest worry for me is the idea that ‘Payment by results’ leads to better outcomes. There is shared concern about whether this will need intervention to help ‘level the playing field’.

This could be interpreted as ‘a bit of an understatement’. In my experience PBR actively ploughs up the playing field and then installs electric fencing, armed guards and watch towers!

At least on this basis the PBR model will work well for Serco’s latest venture into the world of public service delivery…….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-12920474

2011-07-01T11:36:00.000+01:00

Im-personal budgets

Following my previous blog on irony and the practical implications of localism, I have received a mixture of both applause and rebuke from partners and our members. On balance I think the post tackled some serious concerns which were always going to be hard to stomach, but isn’t that the point of a blog? I’ll try venting my spleen on a different issue today, another which is causing me much personal angst.

In 2006 the health white paper ‘Our Health, Our Care, Our Say’ formalised a commitment to expand existing trials of direct payment schemes. The paper heralded the opening up of public services, in this case health, and paved the way for a vast array of potential micro providers from a range of sectors to provide direct services to budget holders.

At the time there was much excitement within the VCS about the opportunities and potential challenges that PB brought. Transition was the biggest issue; how do we move from a funded service to a service dependent on demand without putting existing delivery at risk and having to put employees at risk of redundancy. How do we ensure that budget holders are aware of our services and informed and most importantly who will do the signposting to those services to ensure that providers are given equal and fair access to market.

Overtime all these concerns have become reality at one point or other but it is the impact of cuts and how this has affected service signposting that is now of the gravest concern.

Across the East Midlands I now have two reliable examples of local authorities controlling PB services to protect their own budgets and interests.

In example 1, the authority has employed only authority staff to manage all signposting and due to budget cuts to the adult social care budgets their priority is to ensure that customers use LA services first as without this level of reinvestment the services and whole department will become unsustainable. This is the most basic manifestation of the problem.
However in example 2, an authority has cut access to PBs from those with moderate to severe needs to just severe and where budget holders do not procure mainstream services in a 12 month period their budget is being judged as not required and is cut. This is happening regardless of whether services are being accessed outside the authority by other providers.

Do I blame the authorities? To be honest no! In a context of falling budgets and massive change, the desire to protect the ‘self’ will undoubtedly be high. This is in fact a national issue where a clear lack of foresight in policy development and the failure to embed policy across more than one Whitehall department has resulted in a closed model which protects the few when times are bad.

It would be helpful to inform future action on this issue if members could provide information on their own experience of personal budgets and direct payments. Please email to me at rachelquinn@one-em.org.uk.

2011-05-27T12:53:00.002+01:00

Drowning in the irony of it all

In summer of 2010 in an open letter from the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government firmly nailed the lid on the coffin for Government Offices. His letter declared that there is no such thing as regions, neither for planning nor any other purpose, and that there must be an end to what he described as "the command and control apparatus of England's over-centralised state".

Now, as we all channel ourselves towards the new language of localism I do still find it hard not to wince occasionally at the surging irony creeping up behind us.

Cabinet Office realised pretty quickly that real intelligence was pretty hard to gather from Whitehall without eyes and ears on the ground so we now have the ‘Big Society Outreach team’ making those links – co located with other remaining government outposts they continue to provide useful linkage to the centre at a scale designed for effectiveness and efficiency purposes.

BIS quickly followed suit but took the cunning approach of calling their outreach team ‘BIS Local’.

In contrast however some departments have taken a more radical approach to the problems of Government outreach and one which may be of distinct benefit to the VCS. DEFRA, for example, obtain much of their rural intelligence through the network of Rural Community Councils across the country, in a contract held nationally by ACRE.

Department of Health have also procured outreach by reinvesting in each of the nine regional VCS networks in a contract which guarantees reach into the sector, intelligence and information and the opportunity to firmly embed the VCS in developing local arrangements.

These are just some examples and there are more and all are welcome in the East Midlands – whichever the model we believe that national policy cannot be developed without robust local reach and informed perspectives. We are 100% committed to working with these outreach teams and services and continue to believe in the efficacy of doing some things at the regional level. (I am however intrigued by the latest rumour that CLG itself has appointed ‘Locality Managers’ to replace the intelligence they lost from the decline of the Government Offices……….)

So how is this new empowerment panning out in our communities? Well maybe we should look to the plight of residents in East Northamptonshire who recently campaigned against the approval of a site for storage and recycling of low level radioactive waste. In a poll of the first 11 affected villages in the Corby area an overwhelming 98% voted against the proposal which was also rejected unanimously by County Councillors. Were they empowered to affect the outcome – absolutely not. The decision was approved by the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP on the basis of ‘expert advice and assurances that it would not be harmful to the local community’

On the up side all is not lost – on browsing the CLG website I was heartened to see that they have invested our hard earned tax in developing a CLG guide on how to organise a street party. (I kid you not – see http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/streetpartyguide )

I secretly hope that this will be followed shortly by a range of guides in the ‘how to be local’ series – titles could include ‘how to go to the local shop’, ‘how to collect your children from the local school’ ‘how to suck local eggs’ and ‘how to wipe you’re local ar……’; it could be a big hit

Unfortunately I am pretty certain that the last guide on ‘how to save your local day-care services from cuts’ will inevitably be delayed due to budget restrictions.

So as I throw a glance over my shoulder and catch sight of the irony tsunami surging towards us I conclude that it time to once again take to the higher ground for a while. I’ll take with me some paper and a pencil and make notes on how the VCS can continue to provide reach, intelligence and valuable insight to government, how we can work better with our dispersed government colleagues and finally whether One East Midlands is now sub-national, regional or just plain supra-local!!

2011-05-17T14:28:00.002+01:00

Are they listening but not hearing?

There appears to be growing disquiet across the country about the NHS Listening Exercise – the ‘natural pause’ in the progress towards NHS reform in the UK.

On Wednesday 18^th May One EM will be hosting one of these listening events at Leicester AIDS Support Service (LASS) and will be joined by Jeremy Taylor from National Voices, a member of the NHS Futures Forum, to undertake that ‘active listening’.

Nationally there have been accusations that these listening events are purely that – without any indication that responding or adapting the proposals will take place as a result.

At this stage One EM will do as much as possible to ensure that the messages from our members in the East Midlands are heard and understood. Please be assured that we will be clear on the changes that are expected, why they are required and will ask for a response to our views and comments.

If you have views that you would like to feed into our response please see the Listening Event questions at http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/category/conversations/listening-exercise-conversations/ and email your comments to us at information@one-em.org.uk by Monday 23 May for inclusion in our One EM response

2011-03-31T14:24:00.003+01:00

51 organisation report £6.5m cuts to communities in the East Midlands

Today, 31^st March 2011, marks the cut off for many existing funding streams that support voluntary and community activity across the East Midlands.

Many groups have already felt the pain of spending cuts through ‘in-year’ reductions in their funding. However, the 1^st April 2011 will signal the harsh reality of national austerity for many others.

One EM has been working with national colleagues to raise the plight of those worst affected. http://www.voluntarysectorcuts.org.uk/ lists some of those organisations hardest hit.

Of the 51 organisations listed from the East Midlands the total reported loss is in excess of £6.5 million. Services for young people, disabilities, financial inclusion, support services, hostels and volunteering support are all reported amongst the casualties.

Today, on the last day of March 2011 take a stand and add your own situation to the site.

2011-03-02T10:41:00.003Z

Big Society Unlocked!

The Government has finally published their strategy for Growing the social investment market: a vision and strategy. This document explains the role of the Big Society Bank in supporting a thriving social investment market that would help build a stronger and bigger society. For sometime there has been a vacuum between the broad concepts that define Big Society and the need for more information to shape how the Big Society will work. We had been wondering if the Government was reconsidering this concept following the weight of public criticism however recent statements by David Cameron confirming commitment to Big Society and this document now suggest not.

Growing the Social Investment Market sheds some light on future aspirations held by Government for the VCS and in particular it’s role in public service delivery. Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude has pledged to unlock £78bn in charitable assets for Big Society and handover 25% of public service contracts to private and voluntary sector organisations.

More details about the £250m Big Society Bank are expected shortly. The timing for the bank to ’open for business’ by the third quarter of the year is of obvious concern given that this was originally set for the beginning of the financial year 2011. The Government has pitched the Bank as a major source of funding for most social enterprises that will be delivering public services. However many established organisations will struggle to remain afloat before the bank begins to give; due to spending cuts and loss of statutory funding.

There also appears to be some uncertainty about the use of dormant bank accounts in this way. The Government has taken an innovative approach to generating the capital required to make the Big Society Bank an effective wholesale bank. The 2008 Dormant Bank and Building Society Act, passed by the previous administration, give the Government the right to collect and redistribute unclaimed money from dormant accounts after 15 years and is expected to generate up to £400m of funding eventually. However there is a hurdle to overcome: the European Commission must agree that the scheme does not break rules designed to prevent governments giving undue advantage to a particular business sector. Approval from the EC isn’t expected until end of 2011 so, with the first money from dormant bank accounts coming available in the summer, the Government is making arrangements for the Big Lottery Fund to help Big Society Bank launch while the approval is being sought.

One EM will continue to watch developments closely and will ensure that updates are available as and when they are released.

Rachel Quinn
Chief Executive
One East Midlands

2010-10-06T15:29:00.000+01:00

Inequality in Child Wellbeing

It’s taken me some time to get around to reading ‘The Spirit Level; why equality is better for everyone’ by Wilkinson and Pickett, but now I am mid-way through I have to say that it elicits strong emotions.

So far the hardest hitting element for me has been the UNICEF index of Child Wellbeing. This index is formed from a complex dataset of over 40 indicators of child wellbeing. The data presented clearly identifies the UK as having the worst index of all the rich nations, which includes comparisons against countries such as Greece, Norway and the Czech Republic. The index takes into consideration 6 different dimensions of overall child wellbeing:

1. Material wellbeing

2. Health and safety

3. Educational wellbeing

4. Family and peer relationships

5. Behaviours and risks

6. Subjective wellbeing

The question for me is why does the UK rank so poorly on this scale; falling behind other nations with even greater levels of inequality such as the USA. Is this really about the level of inequality and risk within our society, is it merely the result of very different methods of data collection by different nations or are there other factor at play in the UK that make our young people more vulnerable than elsewhere in the world?

Any views and comments on this issue are welcomed.

For more information on UNICEFs work on child wellbeing please see follow this link to the UNICEF report ‘An overview of Child Wellbeing in rich countries’ http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf

Rachel Quinn
Chief Executive
One East Midlands

2010-08-04T11:15:00.001+01:00

Coordinating Big Society 2

Having been asked to organise a 'What does the Big Society mean for the VCS' meeting, I sigh at the complexities of trying to obtain a consistent view from the sector that reflects everyone's perspective. I also shudder at the thought that such a response would resemble 'War and Peace' (in more ways than one) and that almost no-one, except maybe a lone policy officer in the remaining civil service will read it.

So our conclusion is simple, bite size chunks are the way forward.

I am working on a series of questions that can be used to frame responses from the huge range of specialisms that exist within the VCS. We are asking that any local events that are happening to discuss Big Society can also consider incorporating these questions. As a starting point here is the first attempt at covering all the bases:

Service delivery - how can local involvement in public service delivery improve outcomes?
Support - what practical support will be needed for local / community groups?
Volunteers - what are the challenges and opportunities for volunteers in the Big Society?
Local public sector - when have local authorities / PCTs etc and the community worked well together and how can this be improved?
Funding and resources - will Big Society improve or reduce sustainability of groups and how?
Equality - can everyone participate?
Timescales - are there timing issues that need to be considered?

Any comments will be gratefully received.

2010-07-27T14:47:00.004+01:00

Coordinating Big Society
The Big Society agenda seems to be engulfing workload at One East Midlands at the minute and in discussions with colleagues, locally and across the UK, we’re’ not the only ones!!

Most support organisations (those organisations formerly known as infrastructure) are undertaking some kind of event or activity around the VCs contribution to Big Society and how the pieces of the jigsaw fit together.

In October 2010 we are hoping to host a joint Partnership conference with Local Authorities across the East Midlands, focussing on the Big Society debate. We hope that by then we will have a much clearer understanding of what it means and how we work together with public sector bodies to achieve it. I say this however in the full and honest belief that the VCS is already doing, and in fact already is, the Big Society in action.

We would like to work across the region to find out the sorts of issues being drawn out from local conversations that might then inform a bigger cross sector event in the Autumn. If you have any views on how this might best be done we’d be happy to hear from you. In the meantime we are listing Big Society activities on our Coalition Government policy page at the One EM website www.oneeastmidlands.org.uk

But in the meantime I will continue to piece together the jigsaw pieces that I have. I am left, however, with the feeling that buying the jigsaw from a BIG car boot sale was possibly a mistake….

Rachel Quinn
Chief Executive
One East Midlands

2010-07-23T14:50:00.001+01:00

BME Funding Expo
The Regional BME Network held its first BME Funding Expo yesterday at the Albert Hall in Nottingham. Funders and support organisations gave advice and practical support to organisations seeking to improve their longer term sustainability through income generation, developing enterprising solutions and considering mergers and closer collaboration with others.

The network is hoping to host similar events in Northampton and Derby in the future. If you weren’t able to make the event you can still contact One East Midlands for more information and guides from any of the workshops.

Rachel Quinn

Chief Executive

One East Midlands