Simon Hebditch's keynote address focused on the way in which Capacitybuilders are trying to help front-line voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) to become more effective.
Capacitybuilders was established by the government in April 2006, initially to manage the £70 million ChangeUp programme up to 2008, but with scope to expand their work and draw in further funding (from a variety of sources) in the future.
Simon began by reflecting on the government's interest in the voluntary and community sector (VCS); there's growing recognition that people's needs cannot be met by one sector alone - there needs to be collaboration across sectors. The government wants to see the sector do more, and provide more services. They also recognise the ability of VCOs to engage with people & communities. Bearing in mind the ever diminishing turnout at local elections, can VCOs play a part in increasing participation & involvement amongst individuals and communities?
So Capacitybuilders aims to help VCOs to be better at what they do. Through ChangeUp, around 120 -130 local ChangeUp consortia have been established across England, each offering capacity building around 6 themes: - Governance, Workforce Development, Performance Improvement, ICT, Finance and Volunteering. There are also 6 National Hubs, replicating these themes, providing training, advice and information to benefit both local consortia and front-line VCOs.
Capacitybuilders' function is to deliver £70m of investment to sector. The challenge is
to ensure that this investment benefits front-line organisations, and not simply strengthens infrastructure organisations themselves. Capacitybuilders also aims to influence funders, including government departments, helping to create a coherent approach to capacity building initiatives.
Simon's commitment to ensuring that front-line VCOs benefit from this investment is clear - he emphasised the point several times. To date the majority of funding has gone to local ChangeUp consortia and the national Hubs. However, Capacitybuilders recognise that around the country there are people supporting front-line organisations' work who are not part of these existing consortia. To address this, an Improving Reach programme is currently being piloted amongst organisations supporting BME, rural, faith and refugees & migrant communities, and if successful will opened up to all organisations.
The proof of the pudding, of course, lies in whether front-line VCOs and those they serve do really feel the benefit. Evaluation will not only look at whether infrastructure organisations have achieved their objectives, but will also measure the impact amongst VCOs delivering front-line services.
Criticisms have been raised against Capacitybuilders - do they have the right to comment about the sector since they are not of the sector, but of government? As Simon points out, the government launched Capacitybuilders precisely because it wanted an independent "arms length" body to make decisions & implement policy. Capacitybuilders is operationally independent of government, with a remit much wider than public service delivery, and a commitment to increase effectiveness & efficiency across the sector...even if this means helping campaigning groups, such as Greenpeace, to be more active in lobbying government!
Simon is only too aware of the responsibility that goes with managing £70 million of tax payers' money; a considerable sum. He's committed to using it in a sensible and prudent way to strengthen the sector.
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