Summary of event

The following summary was supplied by Frances McCandless of the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA).  Summary is provided in 'theme' format.

Sector needs to build new relationships with councils (and recognise the historic issues of poor relationships in some areas), with new statutory bodies and new funders.

Some existing funders are disappearing.

There might be familiar faces in the new organisations, so there may be some continuity of relationships and knowledge.

There will now be a split between policy and service delivery.  In the past many organisations dealt with a central department that had responsibility for both, but now policy and service delivery will reside in different places, in many cases.

New relationships will be difficult to build within so much uncertainty e.g. internal issues for government, no clarity on the number of councils, etc.  Who to build relationships with?

Need to be built on mutual respect – some organisations feel they have not often received this or had their role recognised.

Need to recognise imbalances in power and resources – sector will never be the stronger partner – valuable lessons on this were learned from partnerships.

What about continuity in ongoing programmes that will transfer eg Neighbourhood Renewal? Will we still be dealing with the same people?

Issues of trust – the sector has had promises made and broken before eg Positive Steps.

Barriers already perceived in, for example, the criteria for Local Commissioning Groups which required clinical experience for lay members.  The sector is worried over proposals for Community Commissioning Associations which were not part of the original RPA consultation and seem to be being driven by GPs, but will require community participation – now need clear guidelines and consultation.

Communication is key when change is happening so fast.

The separation of commissioning from provision is a challenge for the voluntary and community sector organisations which provide services.

More structured interaction between sector and statutory bodies:
- sector already has fairly good sub-sectoral and area structures
- need to resource and support those through new DSD support services strategy
- these structures will be an essential part of enabling the sector to work and act in a collective way in the community planning process.

Social Partners Forum was not stressed as part of the presentation on new structures for local government change.

The sector also needs a formal role in the policy development panel dealing with community planning and in pilots.

Participation will require resources and support.

Much of the focus of new structures is on localities, while much of the sector is organised on a thematic basis.

Every department/agency/statutory body needs to consult with communities – don’t do it separately.

The sector must retain its independence – we reserve the right to select our own representatives.

The sector must not appear to be challenging the democratic mandate of politicians – we represent different kinds of expertise and experience, not whole communities.

Loss of co-terminosity would be a disaster – we will have ended up worse off than when we began the RPA.

Need to realise there might be substantial delays in RPA processes and possibly more changes – need to manage this process and accompanying expectations, while retaining enthusiasm.

Delay has serious implications for voluntary and community sector funding – many are already on very short-term interim contracts awaiting changes taking place.

We must not lose what we have learned from LSPs about partnership structures, imbalances of power and confidence, time needed to form relationships and trust, etc.

In order for community planning to work it must be part of a two-way process in which regional strategies and policies inform local plans and vice versa.

There was recognition in some of the presentations that the community and voluntary sector subsidises government e.g. 22,000 volunteers making the work of the youth service possible.

The sector favours real joining up of services through RPA e.g. public service centres or one-stop shops.

Themes of equality, A Shared Future, poverty, sustainable development etc seemed to be absent from all the presentations.  These aren’t policy issues to be dealt with later, but issues intimately related to the structures that enable participation and the workings of new organisations.

We welcome the focus on health and wellbeing – mustn’t lose gains made in recognising the social model of health and addressing the social gradient in health which so much evidence now points to.

Need a service that focuses on wellness and quality of life, not just an illness service – this would have a major impact on the communities in which we work.

Offers a way to join health to other areas of service provision.