Are we listening?

Somerset has a vibrant and successful voluntary and community sector, which delivers services, promotes developments and advocates for groups and individuals. There are organisations big and small and thousands of people who give their time freely as volunteers.

The County Council, District Councils and Primary Care Trusts are committed to working together with the Voluntary and Community Sector to ensure it goes from strength to strength. These bodies, including representatives from the Voluntary Sector, have come together in a Policy Commission to consider how this can best be achieved, how local policy and actions currently impact on the sector and what improvements can be put in place.

The Policy Commission undertook it's work between April and September 2006. It researched the current position of the voluntary sector and looked at best practice elsewhere. We invited the views of the Voluntary and Community Sector through a series of meetings during June - the results of these events can be viewed here. VCS Listening Event results [ 43.5k]

The final report with recommendations for action has been produced and can be viewed here Final VCS policy Report

or select the link at the top of the page to be directed to the "key documents" page.

What the Policy Commission was asked to do:

Look at the impact of local public policy on the Voluntary and Community Sector
Understand the things that are working well and identify problems where they exist
Map the size, coverage, funding, number of volunteers and current levels of service delivery
Identify the total amount of funding provided by statutory organisations in Somerset
Gauge how far this finance brings in “matched funding"
Understand the main priorities, themes and outcomes achieved
Identify current sources and type of infrastructure support available locally, regionally and nationally
Explore alternative approaches to the provision of infrastructure capacity that would enable the voluntary and community sector within Somerset to increase their role in public service delivery on a sustainable basis
Map the range of forums and committees that include voluntary and community sector representation
Consider how far the present arrangements for representation and consultation are appropriate and whether there are alternatives that would be more sustainable in the long term
Explore and recommend ways in which the local statutory funding organisations can change their approach in order to best promote and strengthen the voluntary and community sector

What now?

The final report showing the recommendations made by the policy commission members has been sent to all interested parties and is being widely distributed by the commission members. Hard copies of the report are also avaliable, please contact Claire on the details below to request a copy.

The members of the policy commission will meet again in December 2006 in order to review the recommendations and to look at any progress already made.

The multi-agencies that form the policy commission will be taking the recommendations to their formal board meetings. A list of when these meeting will take place will be available here shortly.

Further Information

For further information on the work of the policy commission please contact the commission administrator, Claire Daly Chalk, on 01823 355582 or cdalychalk@somerset.gov.uk

Somerset Voluntary Sector Network can be contacted on 01823 338782 and their website address is http://www.svsn.org.uk/