Judging by the phone calls, emails and tweets I and my colleagues have had, the report in Third Sector of comments by Geoff Little (Deputy CEO of Manchester City Council) addressing the Charity Finance Group conference earlier this week has sent a shockwave around the voluntary and community sector not just in Manchester but the rest of the country too.
Macc is the largest provider of infrastructure services to the voluntary and community sector in Manchester. It works cooperatively with a number of other infrastructure support organisations in the city.
This consultancy forms part of the Big Lottery Transforming Local Infrastructure Project (TLI) co-ordinated by Macc. One of the aims of TLI is to find additional ways of financing local infrastructure support of voluntary and community organisations (VCS).
HM Government have issued a progress report on the growth of the social investment market so far. The report states that there are 13 Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) on-going in 2013 and that Big Society Capital has invested a total of £56 million.
1. In 2012/13 there were 3,093 community and voluntary organisations, co-operatives and social enterprises in Manchester
2. In 2012/13 the total income of the sector was £477 million
3. Medium and large organisations receive 95% of the total sector income
4. 1,987 organisations are micro (with an annual income under £10 thousand)
5. There are 94,300 volunteers in the sector
6. Volunteers give 370,000 hours each week
7. The contribution of volunteers in the sector is valued at £332 million each year
This morning I was in the happy position of being able to present our new research into the state of the voluntary sector in Manchester. It has been a long-held ambition of mine to be able to show the full extent of the enormous contribution which voluntary organisations, community groups, social enterprises and the community work of faith groups make to the city.
The three Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in Manchester are carrying out a review of their funding of third sector organisations. The overall aim is to maximise the value of the third sector contribution. It is not primarily a financial review. The first wider engagement event will be held from 10am to 12am on Thursday 6th June at GMCVO. The event is open to all voluntary and community sector organisation working on health related issues in Manchester.
The Youth and Play Fund is now at the stage of contract negotiation. All successful groups have been informed of how much they have been awarded. Based on reports that Macc has received (from successful organisations) all groups have received less than they applied for, ranging from small cuts of 5% to 33% or more.
To inform the work of Macc’s new Strategic Lead on Commissioning, Nigel Rose, is conducting a short survey to gather a snapshot of what the VCS in Manchester thinks we need to say to commissioners.
Click here to fill in the survey
One way of describing my role as Strategic Lead on Commissioning is that it is “to improve commissioning between public authorities and the voluntary and community sector (VCS) ”. This raises the question “what is a public authority?”
NCVO and Serco have jointly written a code of practice to cover the relationships between the private sector and the voluntary sector. Its scope is wider than sub-contracting but in practice for many voluntary organisations this has been the only time that they have had contact with Prime Contractors. The experience has often not been a positive one.