Evaluating the Covid 19 VCSE support programme

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The Covid-19 Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector support package, hereby referred to as the funding package, was announced by the Chancellor on 8 April 2021 as an emergency funding package of £750 million to support the VCSE sector through the Covid-19 pandemic.

The funds were distributed by The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and other government departments to a range of organisations. Of the £750m, £360 million was distributed directly from government departments and £370 million was distributed to smaller charities, including a grant to the National Lottery Community Fund.

The government also matched donations to the National Emergencies Trust (NET) as part of the BBC’s ‘Big Night In’ fundraiser. To read the evaluation report in detail click here.

A view from the turret

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Integrated care systems (ICS) will be formalised as a structure from July of 2022. Their reason for being is simple: To create a better system of health and care where the patient or service user receives more timely and efficient care, delivered seamlessly across organisations and sectors. The focus is on reducing health inequality, putting citizens, patients, and carers at the centre, and moving services ‘upstream’ to focus more on prevention.  This policy shift speaks very strongly to the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector (LevPedro Consultants).

The ICS Framework emphasises the need for Health Care Systems to work with the VCSE, in all its component parts:

  • It sets out the benefits of working with the sector, encouraging ICS leaders to value their knowledge and expertise and invest in grassroots groups.
  • It points to the value of local VCSEs, rather than focusing solely on the work of larger providers and refers to some of the challenges the sector faces, including the substantial resource required to engage strategically with the new structures.
  • It requires integrated care boards (ICBs) to have a formal agreement in place for engaging and embedding the VCSE sector in system-level governance by April 2022.
  • It focuses on VCSE alliances as the mechanism to develop this and to build on what already exists, including local VCSE infrastructure (explained below).
  • It notes the importance of the role of the VCSE sector at place and neighbourhood, and the need to join these together across an ICS area, and to work with what already exists.
  • It notes the need for a coordinated system approach to social prescribing and engaging the VCSE in multi-disciplinary working via primary care networks.
  • There is a brief reference to the expectation that provider collaboratives operating at the ICS or supra-ICS level should continue to involve the VCSE sector, noting the innovation the sector brings to the design and delivery of services.

This framework provides the VCSE with a great opportunity but also a huge list of challenges. Ensuring that the VCSE sector is an equal partner is hampered by the sheer width and breadth of what we do, and our number. Unlike the NHS Provider Sector (which is usually a handful of large NHS Foundations Trusts) our sector has thousands of organisations and finding a role for all is going to be difficult. That’s why VIN is hosting 2 workshops on the subject – the first in Northampton on 28 March 2022  and the second in Kettering on 9 May 2022.

The VCSE sector in all 42 ICS areas is currently being supported to develop a VCSE Alliance. This can:

  • provide a unified ‘voice’ for the sector  (I would argue that this is the VCSE Assembly and would urge organisations to join) For more information about the VCSE Assembly, click here.
  • manage competing interests (always difficult given the nature of the Marketplace).
  • provide a ‘front door’ to the sector for external stakeholders (again I would argue the VCSE Assembly construct for this).
  • amplify the voices of the most vulnerable and unheard (The Assembly once again).
  • provide a platform for the sector to work towards being a proactive, independent, and well-organised sector, with its own agenda and strategies.
  • enable the sector to have a stronger voice and more coherent relationship with other stakeholders, such as local and devolved regional government, the corporate sector, and the bigger and more strategic grant funders (LevPedro Consultants).

The main challenge is that, in many of the ICS areas, the VCSE sector has not needed to organise at this geographic level before, and so new relationships and working arrangements are needing to be formed.

Of course, another big challenge is how the sector is resourced to create and maintain leadership and representative structures. These roles, to be done properly, require a significant time commitment. If we truly want a representative and level playing field across our sector then some thought needs to be given to this, quite simply, because the more resource you have the more you can build strength from within. I think the current collaboratives which work with the ICS directly are doing an immense piece of work, but there are only a limited number of organisations from our sector within it. We need to build from this base and ensure that we organise ourselves as best as we can to maximise engagement and networking for all.

Tickboxes and tokenism?

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Shaping Our Lives has today published Tickboxes and Tokenism: Service user involvement report 2022 – exploring deaf and Disabled people’s experiences of being involved in planning and delivering services such as health and social care.

Service user engagement (also referred to as public participation) is increasingly seen as important for shaping and delivering public services, but those running involvement opportunities don’t always have the experience or knowledge to meaningfully and accessibly involve Disabled people.

The report explores some of the barriers people face when it comes to sharing their lived experience and contains recommendations for organisations to make sure the lived experience of deaf and Disabled people is heard and valued.

There are five key findings from the study:

  1. 92% of respondents said they would be interested in finding out about (more) involvement opportunities. 63% said they currently find it difficult to find involvement opportunities.
  2. Only 39% currently have their access requirements recorded. Of those that didn’t, many thought this would be useful so that organisers could find the right people, plan ahead and make necessary adjustments.
  3. We asked people what was important for them to be able to take part in involvement activities. 65% said that they needed their access and support requirements organised in advance. This rose to 100% amongst respondents to the British Sign Language (BSL) survey.
  4. Besides meeting their access requirements and other practicalities, people said they needed to be listened to and for their input to have an impact. They want a meaningful experience and do not want their time wasted.
  5. Over half (56%) of respondents have difficulty getting their access and support needs met (rising to 89% for the BSL survey).

Peter Beresford OBE, Co-Chair of Shaping Our Lives, Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia, said: “There is a lot of talk about the importance of involving disabled people and social care service users. There is more and more recognition of making sure that involvement is inclusive; that is to say, it should include everyone regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, impairment and so on.”

“But we see that too many people aren’t able to get involved with the access and support they need. Many more want to have a voice and be involved. The report offers recommendations and ways forward.” To download a copy of the report please visit our website: Tickboxes and Tokenism? Service User Involvement Report 2022 – Shaping Our Lives

Launching the My Involvement Profile

As a result of the survey findings, Shaping Our Lives is launching a new tool to help people who want to share their lived experiences.

The My Involvement Profile is a resource where people can record their skills, lived experience knowledge and experience of engagement, involvement, co-production and research. Crucially it will also support people to explain their access requirements in advance.

We asked in the survey if people had their access and support requirements, as well as their knowledge and skills, recorded so that they can be easily shared with organisers of involvement activities. The majority of people (61%) said that they didn’t. When asked if it would be helpful to have such a record, many people thought that it would be a great idea and would help organisers find the right people, plan ahead and make necessary adjustments.

Shaping Our Lives can support individuals to complete their My Involvement Profile. Find out more about the My Involvement Profile on our website: Support to Take Part in Involvement – Shaping Our Lives

About Shaping Our Lives

Shaping Our Lives is a user-led, non-profit organisation, specialising in the inclusive involvement of Disabled people and people from other marginalised communities. We have decades of experience in research and inclusive involvement. We draw on the knowledge and expertise of our national network of service users and user-led organisations. Sign up for our ebulletins: http://eepurl.com/gmQUu9

About the study

The survey was promoted through our network and beyond, using the website, e-bulletins, social media, our members and our partners. It was interpreted into British Sign Language and promoted to Deaf organisations. We ran one workshop with people with learning disabilities and have been supported by People First England to disseminate the survey to their members.

We received 126 responses, with 9 from the British Sign Language community, and 12 people attended the workshop.

Integrated Care System moves to July 2022

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In a letter to all health and care systems, NHS England and NHS Improvement have advised that, in order to allow sufficient time for the remaining parliamentary stages of the Health and Care Bill, a revised target date of 1 July 2022 has been agreed for ICS arrangements to take effect and Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to be legally and operationally established.

This replaces the previous target date of 1 April 2022 and means that current statutory arrangements will now remain in place until 1 July. Preparations are continuing in Northamptonshire to be ready for full Integrated Care System status, formalising the joint working arrangements already established for health and care in our county and simplifying partnership working and decision making.

Subject to the passage of the Health and Care Bill through Parliament, NHS Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) will be disestablished at the end of June 2022 and two new statutory bodies will come into effect: an Integrated Care Board (ICB) to oversee local NHS functions and working closely with an Integrated Care Partnership of wider health and care organisations.

The current CCG Chief Executive Toby Sanders has been confirmed as the Designate Chief Executive of the new Northamptonshire ICB, with NHCP Chair Naomi Eisenstadt installed as the ICB Chair Designate. Three designated Non-Executive Directors and a Chief Finance Officer have also been appointed to the ICB, which is our aim to begin operating as a shadow arrangement from 1 April.

Choosing a Legal Structure Route Map

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Balanced Scorecard Basics

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Key highlights from the governments levelling up document

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There is much debate about what the Government mean by Levelling up but are there clues in the White Paper?

Here are some of the key highlights:

  • A review of neighbourhood governance, including looking at the role and functions of parish councils and how to make them quicker and easier to establish.
  • Explore how the existing Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) can be used to support neighbourhood and community activity where parish councils do not exist and continue the neighbourhood portion of CIL as it introduces a new Infrastructure Levy.
  • No top-down restructuring of local government.
  • A new Strategy for Community Spaces and Relationships.
  • Enhance the offer in the Community Ownership Fund, learning lessons from the first bidding round to maximise the impact of the fund.
  • Consider how the existing Community Asset Transfer and Asset of Community Value Schemes can be enhanced.
  • Councils and communities will create new local design codes to shape streets as residents wish, widen the accessibility of neighbourhood planning, encouraging more accessible hybrid models for planning committees in England and look to pilot greater empowerment of communities to shape regeneration and development plans. • The ability to have a meaningful say on individual planning applications will be retained and improved through new digital technologies.
  • Work to build local government capacity and capability through ongoing sector support and funding a programme of improvement covering a range of priorities which is reviewed periodically.
  • Extend centrally designed training, advice and guidance, and market and supplier intelligence to the sector.
  • Introduce an obligation for the UK Government to publish an annual report on delivery against the levelling up mission
  • A new approach to place through Levelling Up Directors, providing a key point of contact for local areas, acting as a bridge between local leaders and central government.
  • Setting up local panels, drawn from a wide range of stakeholders, to serve as a sounding board on levelling up delivery and implementation, working closely with new Levelling Up Directors.
  • Engage with local government and key stakeholders on the simplification of the local growth funding landscape with respect to the publication of further plans later this year. • Explore piloting local votes for funding, putting choices in the hands of local communities to let them decide what matters most
  • Launch the UK Shared Prosperity Fund providing funding of £2.6 billion by March 2025, with all areas of the UK receiving an allocation from the Fund via a funding formula rather than a competition.
  • Establish a body to focus on local data, transparency, and outcomes.

Some of the things we like

The idea that communities can have a say or a voice in their streets and localities is a must. If we truly care about grass roots revival then people must have the right to shape their communities, input their ideas and be listened to. A new debate about the interconnection between public space and people is welcomed, as is an obligation on Government to report progress against transparent outcomes. More funding is always a bonus, although we question the ability of some Town or Parish Councils to be bigger players than they currently are. Levelling Up Directors seems like a good idea in principle, but these people should not be Government minded but community spirited (and there is a difference).

Some of the things we don’t like

Anything that has centralised, or quango written all over it such as centralised training (why?) or a new body to check out outcomes (why?).

I guess there will be more debate over the coming months and VIN is keen to compile a White Paper Working Group – and will keep you all informed on progress. If anyone is interested in joining the debate, contact russell.rolph@voluntaryimpact.org.uk

What is the Data Protection Act?

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Managing key events in the life of a charity

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