CC107 - Review Support for the Community and Voluntary Sector Service

Overview

Outline of Proposal

The council currently commissions infrastructure support for the voluntary and community sector.  This includes training and business development support for community and voluntary sector organisations and the support and co-ordination of volunteers.  The contract will be ending in March 2013 and this gives the council the opportunity to reconsider and redesign the support provided to the sector, as well as making a significant financial saving.  The council will work with the community and voluntary sector to identify its future support needs.

General Impact

The proposal will mean that support services for the community and voluntary sector will be redesigned and re-commissioned in order to meet the future needs of the sector and save money.

Impact on Service Users

This proposal primarily affects community and voluntary sector organisations rather than individual service users.  The current ‘infrastructure support’ contract does provide support for both organisations seeking to use volunteers and volunteers themselves.  As a result individual volunteers could be affected by this proposal.  The support needs of volunteers will be considered during the redesign and re-commissioning of any future community and voluntary sector support services. 

The indicative saving for this proposal is £135,000. 

As the proposal will affect service users, we have undertaken an Equality Impact Assessment to identify likely or actual effects on people with protected characteristics. The Equality Impact Assessment will be reviewed and updated as required, taking account of consultation feedback.

You can find the full proposal document and Equality Impact Assessment below in the related documents section.