Wednesday, 24 October 2007

I arrived early at the office to finish off the filing from yesterday and by 9:00 my new office looked pretty good. After dealing with some correspondence, I met with Anne Boyd (our Funding Advisor) to draft our half-yearly monitoring report to Watford Borough Council and with Maria to catch up on lots of projects and to prepare papers for the forthcoming trustees meeting.

In the nature of things, I work more closely with Maria than with anyone else in the office: she is young and clever and is a very quick learner. She also knows my weaknesses and foibles and endures them with a good grace that sometimes seems to border on affection. Or it might just be exasperation.

The Mother of all Parliaments

At 4:00 pm, I donned my suit (a rare occasion) for a trip down to Westminster to meet with Phil Hope, the Minister for the Third Sector. This meeting had been arranged by our MP Claire Ward at the suggestion of Mike Smith - the new CEO of the New Hope Trust.

Watford CVS only got involved ten days or so before, helping to make sure that as many Watford groups as possible took advantage of the opportunity.

Apart from myself and Mike Smith, Watford’s delegation comprised Pam Handley (of WCVS, 9 Lives Furniture and Watford Charity Centres Ltd), Anne Gallacher (of the Watford Palace Theatre), David Fitzpatrick (of the Hertfordshire Community Foundation), Lincoln Beckford and two colleagues (from Street Stars), Jane Pattinson and colleague from Watford Mencap, and a good team from the Peace Hospice led by their Chair Stuart Nagler.

Phil Hope talked through the Government’s strategy for the Third Sector and then fielded some well-informed questions on a wide-range of subjects including support for migrant workers, the future of the Compact, taxation for social enterprises, the Quirk report, Audit Commission assessments of local government, the promotion of volunteering, voluntary sector engagement in LSPs, the distribution of funds to regions using statistics from ward and super output levels, and the possibility of there being a standing committee on the Third Sector.

I think everyone was struck with how Phil Hope understood the voluntary sector. Although his CV makes his background clear, I think we all feared that this was just spin and that before becoming a MP he had really spent his life in an one of those Ivory Towers we keep hearing about. But he did understand and he did a good (politician's) job of responding to the points we raised.

After, Claire Ward spoke with us further and took us to the House of Commons chamber. Surely this is one of the most irksome duties for an MP, but Claire Ward conducted the tour with humour and patience.

After returning to Watford and dropping by the office to collect papers and check a few things, it was nearly midnight before I arrived home.