THIRD SECTOR SUPPORT – MID & WEST WALES Delivering local support for voluntary action and social enterprise across the region. Trustees and staff of the four County Voluntary Councils (CVCs) from Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Powys recently came together to witness the signing of a Regional Memorandum of Understanding. This event Issue 59 September 2012 signalled the start of closer Rhif 59 Medi 2012 collaborative working between the CVCs in Mid & West Wales for the benefit of the 14,750 voluntary and community groups in the region. Contents Speaking from a Board perspective John Gossage, PAVS Chair, set out the benefits of the new joint working arrangements in the context of having to do Foreword 2 more with less, and explained that the new partnership would not preclude News from the Board 5 other collaborative arrangements if the need arose. He also stressed the ICT 6 commitment of each CVC to local delivery of support to local groups: Social Services 8 Funding Events 9 “In PAVS, our red line has always been the need to retain local delivery of services for Pembrokeshire community groups, voluntary organisations and Funding News 12 social enterprises.” Training & Engagement Gateway 14 The Memorandum of Understanding covers key areas such as quality Funding News & assurance; regional and local service delivery; shared posts and functions; joint Development Support 16 income generation and procurement, shared internal services, and so on. It is Social Enterprise 21 underpinned by a detailed action plan that will be overseen by a Regional Charity Commission 22 Management Team, with progress being reported to Board members. Volunteering 25 Other News 27 Following the signing ceremony, Sue Leonard (PAVS Chief Officer) led a Membership & Diary participative workshop providing trustees and staff with an opportunity to share Dates 28 ideas for regional collaboration across a range of functional and service areas. The event marked a milestone for the four CVCs but in his speech John Gossage was keen to remind those present that this was just the start: “Collaboration is a process and not an event. It does not lend itself to a comprehensive delineation at the outset. Rather we are starting a journey together and as we travel along we will get to know one an- other. This is how trust is built.” FOREWORD Welcome to this edition of Pembrokeshire Voice. As usual, life in the voluntary and community sector continues to be busy and choosing highlights to include in the foreword is not an easy task. We hope you will think we have chosen well. As you will have seen from the front page, PAVS has been working closely with its partner organisations in Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Powys to develop a regional approach to its work, where appropriate. The forthcoming election of the new Police & Crime Commissioners has presented an early opportunity to adopt a regional approach, as the electoral area follows the Dyfed/Powys police authority boundary. Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) is the Welsh lead partner in a UK-wide project called Safer Future Communities. The aim of the project is to support partner- ships of voluntary and community organisations working in the area of community safety/ justice to influence the Police & Crime Commissioner’s priorities and other new local commissioning arrangements in order to access funding, service delivery and collaborative working opportunities. County Voluntary Councils have been asked to nominate a regional lead to work with WCVA to establish regional Safer Future Communities partnerships. CAVO (Ceredigion Association of Voluntary Organisations) is the regional lead in the Mid & West Wales area. A regional awareness raising event was held recently, with keynote speakers from the Home Office and the Dyfed Powys Police Authority. A “World Café” interactive workshop focused on how the third sector could contribute to key priorities including crime and re-offending; anti- social behaviour; violence against women and girls; substance misuse; youth crime; victims of crime and equalities & diversity. Prior to the elections on 15th November, it is planned to hold further regional and local events to give a platform for candidates to set out their priorities and to provide a “show case” for third sector organisations to demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of their services in the area of community justice. The events will also be an opportunity to persuade the Commissioner of the merits of service co-production and the need to engage properly with service users in the design, development and delivery of services. It will be vital to convince candidates of the significant contribution that the third sector can make across all the priority areas of the 5-year Police & Crime Plan, which the Commissioner must publish by April 2013. Working regionally across Mid & West Wales (Dyfed Powys) is the best way to approach this area of work – an early opportunity to put our Regional Memorandum of Understanding into practice! In the previous edition of Pembrokeshire Voice, we told you about changes to the Local Service Board (LSB) and the way that strategic and service delivery planning will be organised in future. The Single Integrated Plan for Pembrokeshire will be out for consultation before the end of the year, and PAVS will be working with partners to hold an open event relating to the work of the LSB and the development of the Plan. We are pleased to welcome Julie Kirk to PAVS as the LSB Link Officer. Julie’s role is to ensure the third sector is fully engaged in the work of the LSB and we hope that her efforts will lead to better outcomes for the sector and for the people who are supported by 2 FOREWORD voluntary and community groups across the County. The LSB will also be developing an engagement strategy to ensure that as many people as possible have a say in the way that public services are designed and delivered. We are pleased to say that PAVS met the submission deadline for the Pembrokeshire Community Voice portfolio thanks to the hard work and commitment of the ten third sector organisations leading on the portfolio projects. The BIG Lottery assessor is due to visit PAVS very shortly and successful applicants will be announced at the end of December. The Pembrokeshire Community Voice portfolio – entitled Stronger Communities : Better Services – would certainly make a significant contribution to the LSB engagement strategy, so let's hope we will have good news to share in the New Year. It is a great shame that the recent report into the failures of AWEMA (All Wales Ethnic Minority Association) has raised concerns at Government level about the state of governance in the wider third sector. This concern has led to the setting up of a working group with representatives of the sector, Welsh Government, BIG Lottery (funder) and the Charity Commission (regulator). There is broad agreement that everyone needs to “do their bit” to ensure that third sector organisations are properly governed by strong, effective and well-informed Boards of Trustees. This means that funders will look for more evidence of good governance through their funding application processes, and the Charity Commission will react more swiftly to reports or signs of weak governance, for example, consistently late returns or a high turnover of trustees on the Board. Third sector organisations identified as having actual or potential governance issues will be encouraged to seek help from appropriate support bodies, such as County Voluntary Councils. From a PAVS perspective, this means that we need to continue to provide support for Trustees through the wide range of services offered by our Learning & Development team. These services include organisational health checks; tailored development support delivered to whole trustee Boards; training courses; events and seminars; newsletters and information bulletins. Joining the Pembrokeshire Trustee Network is an excellent way of keeping up-to-date with everything that is on offer to help Boards function properly and effectively through regular e-bulletins, training and events. The Network is completely free of charge – contact the Development Team at PAVS for more information. The WCVA has recently published a “Good Governance Code of Practice” which lists 6 principles of good governance. This publication is available electronically from the Charity Commission website (www.charitycommission.gov.uk) and is an excellent starting point for Board members to self-assess their performance against a range of governance standards. This enables gaps in knowledge or experience or practice to be identified and addressed. Of course, there are other quality assurance standards that third sector organisations might choose to use. These include PQASSO (Practical Quality Assurance System for Small Organisations); Investing in Volunteers; Investors in People; Standards for Health Services, and so on. WCVA is currently working on guidance for evidence to support the Good Governance Code of Practice, which could in future be developed as a “Good 3 FOREWORD Governance” kitemark. Getting a kitemark is not the end of the story, though – putting theory into practice and embracing a culture of good governance is what will make the difference. In short, good governance is vital to the success and credibility of any third sector organisation – if you want help with any of this, call PAVS! More information relating to good governance can be found later in this newsletter. It feels as if we are in the season of consultations, with a number of important consultations either “live” or about to be launched. We appreciate that it takes time to wade through the documents, but please do what you can to respond to our calls for feedback and comments so that we can make sure your views are properly represented. For example, please let us know what you think about the recently published draft Commissioning Code of Practice for Health & Social Care because this provides a framework for the Health Board and the Local Authority to commission services from the third sector.