Representation in the city

The Macc Policy and Influence Team has been looking at issues around sector representation in the city. By representation, we mean situations in which organisations don’t just put forward their own views but those of others. This can be in forums, consultation meetings, decision making boards, panels and so on. We want to:

• Get a better picture of the representation work organisations are doing
• Find out about opportunities for VCSE representation, both now and in the future
• Identify the barriers for organisations that would like to be involved in representation work and aren’t
• Look at the support Macc can offer to organisations, e.g. with training, briefing sessions, or helping with consultation and communication

As part of this work, we sent out a survey via our general emailing list to over 5,000 individual addresses. We had 65 responses, and would like to thank everyone who took the time to send us their information.  We have already found some new-to-us areas of work, and have already started to meet with organisations to find out more about these. We have updated the representation page on our website with key contacts for the representation bodies where Macc is involved, and will be adding new information from the survey and meetings. 60% of the organisations that said they would like to do representation work said they haven’t so far either because they don’t know about the opportunities or they don’t feel they have the skills and knowledge. We’ll be looking at ways to change this, including improving our communications via social media, bulletins and newsletters, and working with our capacity building team to look at providing training and other support. 

If you weren’t able to complete the survey but want to tell us about your representation work, or you want to discuss anything further, please contact [email protected]