Thursday, 17 January 2008

This morning, I drove to COVER in Great Chesterton to meet with Paul Ruskin to talk over the ICT strategy for Hertfordshire. When I arrived I learnt that Paul Ruskin has succumbed to a second virus, but has asked his colleague Paul Jefford to come in his place. Paul J and I seemed to get on well and he seemed to grasp each of the points I made about the draft strategy. Hopefully we are now in the final straight on this!

At Great Chesteron I also spoke with those losing their jobs because of the shake up at ChangeUp / Capacitybuilders. It’s not A Good Day for the region’s voluntary sector. So much expertise has been developed within COVER, and now it’s just going to be lost. The whole ChangeUp scheme has suffered from the recurrent problems of every government programme I can ever remember: initially, a large (or sometimes vast) sum of money is released and everyone frantically starts spending with little overall idea of what they are doing or why; then someone identifies that there are problems; then just as the VCS is getting itself together and beginning to develop solid plan, the money is substantially reduced causing major upheaval; next unrealistic targets are imposed on the programme; and finally funding is withdrawn completely a year or two later.

The exact chronology changes sometimes, but the key features will be recognised by anyone who’s been in the voluntary sector for a few years. When will the government learn? When will the voluntary sector learn?

In the afternoon I travelled to St Albans for a meeting of the Herts CVS group. This was well attended and made some solid progress.