Friday, 7 December 2007

I left Jackie at 8:00, collected Jacquie at 8:30 and we arrived at the COVER offices shortly after 9:00.

Immediately on arriving, I had an intense ten minute discussion on ICT with Paul Ruskin. He is the region’s ICT Champion: technically skilled, good strategic overview, an intense ball of energy who makes things happen. But he plays golf apparently without shame; I worry about him sometimes.

Then we parted to attend different meetings. Along with representatives of all the other regional infrastructure consortia, Jacquie and I went into a briefing with Richard Weller of Capacitybuilders. Hertfordshire’s Infrastructure Consortium is generally regarded as a success. In large part this is because we have had sufficient funding to pay for a full-time Development Worker and 10 hours a week of management time bought in from Jacquie at North Herts CVS. Our core funding has now been cut to £32,000 pa. I know Consortia have to move toward sustainability etc, but why are other (frankly less inclusive and less successful) consortia receiving significantly higher funding?

The answer is that the formula is worked out depending entirely on the local government structure and each consortia receives: £25k for each County Council, £22k for each Unitary Authority, and (in two-tier local government areas) £1k for each District Council apart from the first three.

They might just as well have based allocations on the number of vowels in the consortium name, or the number of professional footballers produced in the inter-war period, or the mean annual rainfall across each consortium. Do they really have such little idea?

Then at 11:00 we met with the delightful Jonathan Moore (of SAVO) and Jenny Althorpe (South Beds CVS) to discuss support for trustees. This was useful as we agreed on three needs: to focus on empowerment rather than regulation; to offer more support for trustees in smaller charities; to offer more support for trustee boards rather than for trustees individually. These may seem like small points, but they prompted a very productive discussion, pleasing me greatly. There was talk of a COVER project bid under the Capacitybuilders Improving Reach programme.

After a brief cup of tea with Jacquie I was home before 5:00 pm and I was home at a sensible time. But by the time I had finished three telephone conversations (on IT, training, and volunteering) it was well past 6:00.

And Bryan was off to start a new job - a great end to a good day.