Thursday, 23 April 2009

The Hertfordshire Infrastructure Consortium was originally set up to deliver the government’s Change-up programme for the voluntary sector. I don’t have time to comment again on the purpose, performance and management of the Change-up initiative. The point is that the Hertfordshire Infrastructure Consortium was established so that infrastructure organisations could co-ordinate funded activities. Willy-nilly, the Consortium has taken on other roles and aspires to even more. So today I wrote around to fellow Consortium members suggesting that a new county-wide group is established to represent the voluntary sector and that the new group is more open and should work to:
1. strengthen the sector’s influence over strategic planning;
2. ensure that individual voluntary organisations have access to appropriate networks, information and support;
3. provide accredited representatives to be credible partners in planning discussions etc;
4. champion and promote the voluntary sector as a whole, and campaign on key issues;
5. influence policy decisions, including over the allocation of resources (including PRG);
6. ensure that Hertfordshire’s groups can compete on an equal footing for public service contracts;
7. provide a voice for marginalised and “seldom heard” groups;
8. hold the statutory sector to account for its performance under NI7.

Discussions of this nature have been going on over the past year so I know some people will be supportive, but I am interested to see the general reaction.

In the evening I attended a meeting of the Holywell Community Centre users’ group to outline my thinking on the CVS’s possible relocation to the site. Most groups remain wary of our intentions and I suppose this is inevitable. From some viewpoints, the relocation proposal positively shimmers with promise and potential. From other viewpoints, the whole thing looks fraught with financial difficulties and the certainty of future conflicts.

At the end of the day, I forwarded our first annual monitoring report on the “Fit for Purpose” project to the Big Lottery. Hopefully all will be well.