A View From the Turret – The Budget 2024

There were several key announcements within the budget which took place on the 30th of October 2024. Overall, it was characterised by increases in spending, taxation and borrowing, the largest recipients of increased funding being appeared to be the NHS and schools, although the detail is far from clear and we all need to see the Spending Review, due for publication in the spring of 2025. Some of the positive news includes:

  • Increased local government funding: A 3.2% rise in core local government spending, with at least £600 million in new funding for social care.
  • Support for individuals and carers: Reduce Universal Credit debt deductions (from 25% to 15%). Raise the weekly earnings limit on Carer’s Allowance. Conduct an independent review of Carer’s Allowance overpayments.
  • SEND support: £1 billion (a 6% real-terms rise) to support children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
  • Funding for hardship support: £1 billion next year to extend the Household Support Fund and hardship payments.
  • Education funding: An additional £30 million for free breakfast clubs.
  • Funding for Holocaust education: An additional £2 million to support Holocaust education charities.

The less positive news for charities struggling on the precipice of sustainability is the 6.7% rise in the national living wage and the increase in employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) to 15%, both effective from 1 April 2025.

As NCVO remark:

While fair wages are essential, these rising costs will intensify the “triple squeeze” charities face from increasing costs, reduced funding, and higher demand.

Smaller charities may need to shift already limited resources away from essential services, putting the communities they support at risk.

Given this, it’s essential that VCSE organisations practice excellent housekeeping which includes ensuring that the projects they deliver make sense financially and are not loss leaders. In addition, every VCSE leader should be standing up and discussing non-inflationary contracts (usually provided by the Local Authority but not exhaustively) and detailing the extra costs that organisations must bear because of this budget.

Part of this is about a true and granular understanding of what works for your organisation and how much it costs. Once people know this, it’s easier to understand what you need when an offer comes your way.

Without it, you’re guessing and in this new world that’s a mistake that no VCSE organisation can afford to make.

A View from the Turret- Connect Northamptonshire enters its final year

For those of you who don’t know, Connect Northamptonshire is a VIN managed programme funded by the Lottery Community Fund. The principal aim of Connect Northamptonshire is to embed the VCSE into the Integrated Care System, the biggest transformation in health and social care for decades: And why is that so important?

Apart from it being prescribed in the NHS Long Term Plan and every other piece of guidance issued since, the use of the VCSE in Health and in Place is compelling. The VCSE lives, works, and invests in local communities, can deploy rapidly and intuitively around health inequalities whilst costing less. The idea that prescription is required to work with the VCSE I find strangely perplexing. Both Health and Local Authorities cannot deliver the change that the Integrated Care System demands without us. As someone once said: It’s as plain as the nose on your face.

Connect Northamptonshire has moved mountains to ensure that the VCSE is involved with statutory partners, has built relationships across all sectors and is now running a series of Pilot Projects on Health Inequalities which puts the VCSE at centre stage. These Pilot Projects will demonstrate that commissions can be dealt with differently and are more engaging and targeted as a result. The programme has adopted a Test and Learn Approach, and in the final months of the contract VIN will be vocalising what they have achieved and why placing the VCSE at the heart of commissions is vital.

I cannot commend my Alliances Manager, Claire Neilson, highly enough for her tireless work and enthusiasm in this regard, across a complex and difficult landscape.

My question (and indeed it should be everybody’s question) is what happens when the contract ceases in August of 2025?

Will it be another case of a legacy so hard gained so easily lost?

I have run and attended several conferences or partnership forums on Health Inequalities throughout 2024. What I hear consistently is a lack of legacy within the County, a lack of learning from what’s been achieved.  I have a simple solution:

Retain the Alliances Manager Post past August of 2025 and continue with the programme of embedding the VCSE at System and at Place. I am not precious where that post sits, but to lose it would create a hiatus which could undermine the momentum that Connect Northamptonshire has built. If the Integrated Care System is predicated upon the 10-year NHS plan, then embedding the VCSE could take a further 2- 4 years. The cost of continuing the post is unlikely to be met from the Community Fund but it could easily be achieved within Health and Public Health, or a combination of both, and the value of a bespoke and focussed resource would be worth the investment.

Think about how we commission services. If learning is important, then commission differently. The Kings Fund report on how to tackle Health Inequlaities says exactly that. Top slice commissions to include the right and correct level of market intelligence and use the Insights Library to land bank the data. In this, the VCSE becomes an assured independent broker, and that journey could be delivered through the Alliances Manager if they remain in post.

My plea is always the same. If the Integrated Care System is about anything, its an opportunity to do things differently. Let’s not miss the chance.

 

A View from the Turret

I was recently invited to our Connect Northamptonshire mid term review which has held at the Waterside Connect Hub, home of SCCYC. Our Connect Northamptonshire Programme has made major strides over the past 10 months and has shone a light on how to do things differently at a point of place, using the skills and knowledge of the VCSE. The meeting enabled me to revisit the Kings Fund Report entitled Understanding Integration (How to listen and learn from communities) which was first written in 2021. At the time, I remember thinking that whilst there was nothing radical contained within its pages, it was an excellent summary of how to do things well. Revisiting recently, I still think the same.

Whilst there are some excellent pockets of work taking place across Northamptonshire (including the work of Claire Neilson within Connect Northamptonshire) I still think there’s some way to go, and I think that’s natural given that the Integrated Care System is a relatively new kid on the block.

VIN has held several Health Inequality Events this year, and the same issue appears to persist, and it’s all about the Legacy of Service Delivery Commissions. People across all sectors tend to say the same thing which equates to:

  • We do just as much as we can to push commissions through the door.
  • Condensed timelines mean that we never truly undertake market intelligence effectively.
  • How much do we really learn from the Commissions we deliver.

The Kings Fund Report highlights this friction, stating clearly that both time and resources should be given to talking to and listening to communities. And it makes sense. The more we listen the better our Commissions become and ultimately that saves the system time and money in the long term.

And I have a simple solution , but that solution requires Commissioners to think differently and turn this conundrum on its head.

Each Commission should top slice a small amount of funding which should be given to a local VCSE organisation to undertake that market intelligence. As Independent brokers the VCSE comes without the baggage of statutory partners and can talk in a different way about what Commissions are ultimately expected to deliver and achieve. I can hear the challenges now – Top Slicing means less to spend – Yes – But the Spend will be so much more effective and will provide a better Return on Investment for Local Authorities and Health Providers, and that’s the game we are in and part of.

I would welcome a discussion on this. It seems logical, rational, sensible and can be piloted simply.

I know that Commissioners are under pressure to deliver, and that in general it’s a risk averse business (for a whole raft of differing reasons). But the Integrated Care System is about opportunity and the LAPS are about trialling things in a new and improved way. And I now have Connect Northamptonshire as my evidence base.

The Kings Fund state:

The advent of the ICS and place-based working offers a real opportunity to ensure people and communities are at the heart of health and care. Done well, this work can bring partners together around a shared purpose, one that is set by the communities they serve.

 

A View From The Turret On Sustainability

The New Normal in Sustainability.

I tend to read a lot. Being a CEO it’s hard not to notice some of the content which arrives at your Inbox.

There have been copious amounts recently about Charity Sustainability and what’s called the New Normal.

I like IVARS definition the best which is: A complex mix of surviving cuts and finding new sources of funding. If ever there was an understatement I think that’s it.

In 25 years of working in the Charity Sector I have never seen an environment quite so tough and challenging. A few years ago, a CEO with any form of game plan could hope to bring a Charity into Sustainability within 2-3 years. My own personal view now is that the time period has been extended to 4-8, such is the upheaval not only within Local Authority Finances but with our UK wide Economy.

And unfortunately, there is no one thing or no one person that can bring about Sustainability (unless you have a multimillion-pound donor in your back pocket).

But here are some threads to think about:

  • Compile, Establish and Promote your Strategic Plan. If you haven’t got one then you need one.
  • Position and Influence Map – Work out who your key Stakeholders and Partners are or could be.
  • Demonstrate and Evidence Impact and Expertise. If you don’t know how to do this contact VIN and we can try and assist. It’s not easy but keep it simple and offer something.
  • Diversify the Income Portfolio – Easier said than done but look to nontraditional partners and new influencers as part of your organisational Effective Risk Management.
  • Identify Opportunities – Health Inequalities/ICS/Place/Poverty/CYP – There’s lots on offer but you might need to look at your original constitution and see if its still relevant for today’s world.
  • Stretch the Brand and Project Reach – The More for More Approach. Can you be more, or do more, and how?
  • Demonstrate Excellent Cost Control – Don’t be Part of the 38% (apparently it’s been identified that 38% of Charities do not have a granular understanding of their Finances).
  • Reduce the Cost of Provision – A Positive approach to Good Housekeeping. Its not a negative, it’s a way of thinking effectively about how you run your business.
  • Be true to your Mission, Vision, and Beneficiaries – The Culture War. Don’t Mission Drift and Chase Cash – it’s a recipe for disaster.
  • Lead pragmatically to intuit the Landscape – Dare to Dream. Think about what good looks like and chase it.

Another definition of Sustainability is Perseverance, and we are all going to need bucketloads of this over the next 2 years. VIN is here to help smaller community-based organisations grapple with some of these issues. Remember, you are not alone. If it keeps you awake at night, it will be keeping someone else awake too…..

A View from the Turret On The Future Of Infrastructure Support

The Future of Infrastructure Support

Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire, South Northants Volunteer Bureau and Daventry Volunteers have been in discussion with West Northamptonshire Council about the future of Infrastructure Support for the sector.Like most other areas of community-related work, a new contract will be open for Expressions of Interest in March of 2024, and again, like most other areas of VSCE support it’s likely to be financially less than is needed.This means that the way in which Infrastructure Support is delivered will probably need to change.The key areas of focus are:Ensuring that the Local Infrastructure Organisations remain a credible and reliable conduit of Representation and Voice for the sector.Ensuring that Local Infrastructure focuses on the support needs of micro and smaller organisations.Ensuring that Infrastructure focuses on Funding and Fundraising for micro and smaller organisations.Ensuring that Placed Based Volunteering remains a viable option for individuals.Whilst we at VIN have yet to think through the full ramifications of these changes, it does mean that we will focus all of our efforts on supporting the Power of Small Network that we began last year. And here’s the rub, on the funding available supporting an entire sector is nigh on impossible.Our training and resources will have to focus on Funding and Fundraising, and there is likely to be less subject choice available within our programme.It also means that the traditional form of Face to Face training might be replaced with Webinars and Podcasts, for viewing when smaller organisations have the time. VIN is aware of the capacity and resource issues faced by micro or smaller groups, so this might not necessarily be a negative change-point.And on volunteering, we will continue to broker as best as we can, but our emphasis will be on Local Area Partnerships and the Volunteering issues which derive from Place Based Solutions.VIN is entering into its next Strategic Planning Phase, simply because we have to. In these rapidly changing times, no organisation can afford to sit on its laurels. We are engaging with as many stakeholders as possible about how we can best support our sector, so please take 10 minutes to complete our survey which you can access byclicking here

A View from the Turret – Its Christmas 2023

It’s about 10 days to Christmas, and can I take this opportunity to wish you all well. I hope you are all looking forward to a well-earned rest over the festivities.

I find this period is nearly always about reflection: Looking back on the year to date with three months after as everyone moves towards their financial year end.

Once again, it’s been a tough and challenging year. I dare say I am not alone in that.

The financial landscape in which we are part of is unsettling, and 2024/25 is likely to be equally so.

Despite this, the VCSE is extremely resilient and capable, and some of the transformation pieces within Unitary Development and the Integrated Care System offer a raft of opportunity.

I think my ultimate Christmas message is about Partnership. The VCSE talks about this all the time, and we know that the practice of Partnership varies wildly from the Theoretical. We also know that Partnership is an easy term to use, but not so easy to deliver.

Partnerships work best with organisations that have a Trustee Board willing to change, have synergy with likeminded organisations and a complementary Governance and Delivery Programme.

Part of the issue around Partnership stems from the piecemeal funding which the VCSE receives in Northamptonshire. But in reality, we are not alone in this. Speaking to CEO colleagues beyond our boundaries reveals a mixed picture of funding and sustainability. Some Places fund their VCSE extremely well and capably, and as a result their communities and community organisations are more resolute and more able to Partner.

In other places not so. Partnerships are harder to build with little funding. A lack of funding increases territoriality and a culture of mine not ours.

And my final thoughts on Partnership comes from our Power of Small Conference in October 2023. There, some 50 smaller VCSE organisations stated that Partnerships could be key to their survival, but the Practice and Governance of Partnership and how it works best is a skill which needs to be nurtured and developed.

I am therefore committed to supporting smaller organisations through 2024/2025, if I can and have the funding to do so. My driver will be Partnerships, and how VIN can best help achieve them.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my Trustees, Staff and Volunteers for their commitment to the cause which has been unwavering in difficult circumstances.

I merely steer the ship, the Trustees, Staff and Volunteers provide the engine room.

Have a Great Christmas everyone..!!!

A View From The Turret On VINs AGM

VINs Annual General Meeting 2023

VINs Annual General Meeting took place on the 9th of November 2023.

The AGM PowerPoint can be seen here

The AGM Minutes can be seen here

Our Annual Snapshot can be seen here

Our certified Accounts will be posted in due course

So why you ask is an Annual General Meeting worthy of a view from the Turret: Simply that on 5 separate occasions the word challenging, VIN and our future direction was mentioned: All these comments are based on a stark reality. Every year VIN (like hundreds of other charities) forecasts its deficit and works tirelessly to reduce that deficit against a landscape of short-term grants and reducing contracts.  We know it’s a tough world for Local Authorities, under pressure from Central Government and with a w hole host of transformational pieces of work to conclude.

 

I would still class VIN as a smaller organisation in the grand scheme of things: We recently held a Roundtable for small and micro VCSE organisations. Nearly all agreed that partnering up and sharing resources was the future, in recognition of a reality that collaboratives and coalitions are best able to flex and bid for funding streams in a new world. However, there is always this inbuilt assumption that the mechanics of Partnering, from how it works to what implications it has on Governance Models, Mission Positions and Delivery Provision is somehow self-taught. These skills must be acquired, and Infrastructure has the ability when well-funded to provide this. I do not know of any other existing mechanism that does or could.

What impressed me and scared me in equal measure was the amount of work these smaller organisations undertake. Many are on the precipice. If they close, communities will be so much the poorer, but the future for many looks dim.

These organisations are going to be vital in working to the Local Area Partnership Agenda on local health inequality: They are going to be vital in engaging with communities over the wider determinants of health (a principal plank of any Integrated Care System) and crucial in finding local preventative solutions to long standing health inequality issues. To give them a chance requires giving Infrastructure a chance: Fund Infrastructure to a suitable level and there’s every possibility that more organisations can join the party. The best parties are where the audience is mixed and varied.

A View from the Turret On The Future Of Volunteering

The case for volunteering

I was recently directed to this article by a member of staff.

Is Volunteering Dying? – Dominic Pinkney’s World of Volunteering

In it, the writer cites that whilst volunteering is far from dead, its injured. He then defines why it’s injured, and what people can do to resuscitate it. It’s worth a read.

We all know that the nature of volunteering has changed exponentially over the past 5 years. Even before COVID19, people were looking to volunteer in a different way, and for a whole host of new and differing reasons. The pandemic gave rise to an immediate concern, an immediate cause for help, and people responded in their thousands. Where the sector wholly failed was in not marshalling this enthusiasm and using it to build new bridges with a whole host of people who had never volunteered before: But there should be no surprise in that. Volunteering as a viable income stream for organisations has been reduced year on year to the point where volunteering bureaus can no longer stand by volunteering alone. Many have become hybrid, delivering front line projects as a way of surviving and supplementing their income. Pinkney is right in that National Infrastructure Organisations have singularly failed in convincing Government that volunteering is a worthwhile and valuable end game in its own right, much in the way that Infrastructure per see is poorly funded across much of the UK, including here in Northamptonshire. Government across the piece is consistently looking for quick fixes or sticking plaster solutions to problems, and volunteering is simply not that. What volunteering does do though is build individuals, empower communities, and connect society. It’s almost a defining rod of where we stand as a civic society. So, what’s the future?

Its unclear. There will still be volunteers who want to access roles in a traditional manner, and there will be others who want to micro volunteer or volunteer where its pressingly urgent. All the voluntary sector can do is make sure that volunteering is a worthwhile pursuit for the individual to undertake, and wherever possible extol the virtues of volunteering and report on it accordingly. As Pinkney suggests, its not dead just injured.

A Christmas Message from the Turret

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everybody a festive Christmas and a peaceful and bright 2023.
It’s been another year of dramatic change across the UK and in Northamptonshire, but I don’t want to focus on COVID, the cost of living crisis or the sustainability of the sector, all of which we know much about – and you don’t need to hear it again from me.
This message is to reinforce on a very human level the fantastic individuals and organisations I come across every day. One of the privileges of being an Infrastructure CEO is I get to scan the horizon and talk to lots of different people – and the breadth and depth of the sector is amazing.
It seems to me that in difficult times, our projects and programmes become more inventive, and that’s a testament to the quality of the people within the sector, their drive and determination.
Whilst 2023 might be another year of change and transformation, keep heart in the work the sector does and its impact on communities. Every piece of support, however small or seemingly imperfect makes a difference.
As Vince Lombardi once said:
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.

A View from the Turret On VIN’s Lifetime Achievement Award

Northamptonshire Community Foundation – Lifetime Achievement

I had the good fortune to attend the Northamptonshire Community Foundation Annual Awards Ceremony on the 8th of December 2022. Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire won a Lifetime Achievement Award, which I was honoured to accept on behalf of my staff team and the volunteers who support the organisation, including our capable Trustee Board. VIN has been around for 30 years, which is hardly a lifetime, but in terms of Infrastructure Support in Northamptonshire it shows a certain longevity against a backcloth of austerity and sporadic funding from our Local Authority Partners. I have said this on many occasions previously, but I will say it again: There is a direct link between Infrastructure and resilient VCSE organisations and communities. It is no surprise that where Infrastructure is well funded, VCSE organisations derive the benefit: Where these organisations derive the benefit, so do communities.

The Ceremony itself was fantastic. It was amazing to see the depth and breadth of our sector, and the work that people do. It seems to continue despite COVID and a Cost-of-Living Crisis, and if anything, projects are becoming more insightful and inventive: But, and there is a but, people cannot do this forever without support or capacity, and the grant programmes that the Foundation give are in many cases a lifeline. VIN has worked with the Foundation for many years, and I thank them for their past and future support: It has helped us to deliver projects and support communities.

Its nearly Christmas, and despite what’s going on in the external landscape, last night opened my eyes once again to the quality that exists within our sector. That motivates us at VIN to continue to advocate and represent where we can. The sector will be needed more than ever over the next few years, and my pledge to that sector is to continue to work, challenge and support for the best deal possible.