Written evidence from the Voluntary Sector
North West (VSNW)
Please find enclosed VSNW's submission outlining
how the Voluntary, Community and Faith sector including social
enterprises (VCS) can and does help build local economic growth
and how this could inform your recommendations about the structure,
function and value for money of future Local Enterprise Partnerships.
VSNW'S RECOMMENDATION
Formal guidance asking LEPs to ensure formal VCS
representation in their constitution
— This guidance should ensure that VCS
representatives are appropriate representatives and accountable
to relevant VCS groups. — Where LEPs do not wish to take
the opportunity to build in VCS knowledge, capacity and potential
(especially in terms of linking in communities, community and
social businesses, capacity to build skills and tackle worklessness,
and support effective strategic decision-making) then LEPs should
be asked to identify VCS incapacity.
— LEPs should ensure that they take advantage
of VCS experience and expertise in developing both social and
environmental capital, both of which underpin successful economic
performance.
CONTENTS
— Introduction including abbreviations
used, VSNW experience, subregional and local emphasis.
— Summary of VCS engagement in economic
agenda.
— VCS activity relevant to LEPs:
1. The VCS makes a significant GVA contribution
to every local economy.
2. VCS is a significant local employer.
3. VCS support social business start-ups and
enterprise culture.
4. VCS organisations are key strategic partners
in building local economies.
5. VCS organisations play a key role in delivery
as Learning & Skills Providers.
6. VCS organisations play a key role in developing
and delivering innovative initiatives to tackle worklessness.
7. VCS, inward investment and scaling up to
sub-regional working: total place by another name?
8. Biggest divide is that between the private
sector and the VCS.
9. Ensure VCS environmental expertise is incorporated
in LEP structures.
INTRODUCTION
We recognise the need for local authorities
and other stakeholders to work collaboratively on strategic issues
that cannot be adequately considered at a solely local level.
It is not in dispute that business has a primary role in building
and driving forward economic prosperity. We believe that the voluntary
and community sector (VCS) also makes a significant contribution
to the local economic agenda.
We support the Government's ambition to release
the potential of individuals and communities to shape their own
futures through the Big Society concept, and believe that LEPs
will be central to achieving this aim and to ensuring that the
Big Society maximises its potential contribution to driving economic
success. For the Big Society concept to be implemented effectively,
it will be vital for leading members of the voluntary and community
and sector, alongside the private sector, to engage closely with
and inform LEPs' strategic-level discussions and decision-making.
This will improve the quality of evidence and breadth and depth
of experience and expertise available to inform decision-making,
enable the genuine participation of local people and those groups
already delivering on the Big Society agenda in the decisions
which will affect their lives, and will help to unlock the greater
effectiveness and efficiency of such groups in their work. It
will also improve transparency and accountability by providing
direct connections back to the local communities and organisations
that are already delivering the Big Society agenda.
To achieve the best quality of decision-making,
stakeholders from the VCS with experience and expertise in the
fields of developing both the social and environmental capital
on which economic success is built will need to be involved at
the heart of Local Enterprise Partnerships.
ABBREVIATIONS USEDVSNW:
Voluntary Sector North West
VCS: Voluntary, Community and Faith sector including
community and social enterprises
LEPs: Local Enterprise Partnerships
VSNW EXPERIENCE
VSNW is one of nine generic regional voluntary
sector networks, previously funded by the Office of the Third
Sector and now, through our national partnership (Regional Voices),
we are a Strategic Partner of Department of Health. Working at
a regional level we have become strong and long-standing advocates
of VCS engagement in economic agenda and this is demonstrated
in our partnerships with Regional Development Agencies, Leaders
Boards, regional DWP, Government Offices, Learning & Skills
Councils and through being involved in European funding streams
and policy issues.
Our partnership work has recently lead to:
— Being a major signatory on the North
West's shared priorities framework, which incorporates the region's
planning, skills, and economic strategies—this was previously
the Regional Strategy.
— Through our Chief Executive, sitting
on the regional Leaders Board as a key partner alongside the region's
local authority representatives.
— Sitting on the regional Joint Economic
Commission (which fed into the previous Government's National
Economic Commission).
— Sitting on the Regional Skills and Employability
Board, through which we played a lead strategic role in the delivery
of the Future Jobs Fund in the North West.
SUB-REGIONAL
AND LOCAL
EMPHASIS
We look to work with all our members and strategic
partners. However, the emphasis on sub-regional and city-region
working—certainly in the North West—is not new and
we seek to work particularly closely with sub-regional VCS partners.
Our regional strategic work, particularly on economic issues,
is relevant to a greater extent only insofar as it supports and
is informed by our sub-regional partners.
VCS ENGAGEMENT IN
ECONOMIC AGENDA
VCS organisations work in every locality to
tackle inequality and poverty, improve health and quality of life,
support long-term regeneration of communities, unlock the potential
of individuals and help generate sustainable economic growth.
Key areas of VCS economic work include:
— Advocacy, information and advice.
— Delivery of services which include:
— Learning and training support for people
that colleges and universities cannot to the same extent reach.
— Supporting people back into employment,
sometimes working in very specialist areas.
— Supporting people to set up social and
community enterprises.
— Providing volunteering support and building
opportunities.
— Building resilient and capable communities.
— Supporting community-focused culture
change.
— Representing specific interest groups.
— Providing infrastructure support services
to local VCS groups, including consortia building.
Voluntary Sector North West believes that Local
Enterprise Partnerships should bring together relevant partners
capable of adding their individual workstreams in a way that add
value and bring extra capacity, resource and strategic vision
for local economic development.
We believe that the strategic engagement of
representative voluntary, community and faith sector (VCS) partners
on LEP structures is vital and should be encouraged. A number
of sources of evidence are testimony to effective VCS representation.
They include:
VSNW has evidence to believe that:
— formal VCS representation on LEPs would
benefit the local economy.
— VCS engagement in economic functions
would benefit the local economy.
— VCS engagement in RDA transitional work
to identify effective local regeneration activity would benefit
the local economy.
— VCS representation in LEPs would support
the further growth in VCS understanding of how it can engage and
support economic agenda and would offer the potential to build
knowledge and expertise that could support further relevant VCS
market growth. There is a strong catch-22 element to this: formal
VCS engagement will grow related VCS capacity, skills and understanding
if formal representation is requested and underwritten.
VCS ACTIVITY RELEVANT
TO LEPS
1. The VCS makes a significant GVA contribution
to every local economy
VCS organisations work in every community of
the UK and:
— VCS organisations make a significant
contribution to GDP.
In terms of expenditure as one measure of GVA, the
VCS contributed over £37 billion in 2007-08 which equated
to 2.26% of GDP.
Evidence source: NCVO's Almanac:
http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/sites/default/files/UploadedFiles/NCVO/Publications/Publications_
Catalogue/Sector_Research/Voluntary_Sector_Total_Income.pdf (using
GuideStar data)
— VCS organisations make an additional,
significant contribution through volunteering.
This contribution to GDP does not factor in VCS support
and contribution to volunteering activity. Formal volunteering[122]
in Great Britain is worth about £38 billion per year.[123]
Evidence source: see footnote.
2. VCS is a significant local employer
VCS organisations employ people in every community
of the UK and:
— There are 668,000 paid employed staff
working in VCS organisations in the UK.
Evidence source: Civil Society Almanac 2010: Workforce
http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=YiR2LT4sR3I%3D&tabid=645
— VCS has significant potential for further
growth aligned to growing local economies: The Future Jobs Fund
demonstrates this. In the North West, Government Office figures
indicate that 18% of the 20,000 Future Jobs Fund created are VCS.
There have been early success stories, but it is too early to
fully outline successes in VCS actions to:
— act as an effective intermediate labour
market; and
— convert placements into longer term jobs.
3. VCS support social business start-ups
and enterprise culture
VCS agencies have supported significant growth
in social and community enterprises. In the North West, recent
research has identified over 8,000 with a turnover in excess of
£3.3bn. (NWDA research not yet published).
Key to LEP success will be their ability to
support community enterprise in deprived communities. Key learning
has been highlighted by the recent IPPR North report, "Growing
the Big Society: Encouraging success in community and social enterprise
in deprived communities" (June 2010):
http://www.vsnw.org.uk/files/Growing%20the%20Big%20Society_web.pdf
4. VCS organisations are key strategic partners
in building local economies
— CLG recently invested much time and expense
researching a new local economic model. It did not receive much
attention as it was published at the wrong time (reactive economic
agenda and the impact of the expenses crisis). This work builds
on the formal work of Defra which looked at `Sustainable development'
and `Sustainable communities'. It identifies a need to support
formal actions to build a thriving local third sector, and to
develop a more conscious understanding of effective local economic
development.
VSNW urges the committee to rediscover this archived
piece of work:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/citiesandregions/transformingplaces
— the strong determination to link economic
development to all communities (ie of geography and interest);
— the recognised necessity to work holistically
on economic issues; and
— and the eagerness to address an agreed
major lesson of the current economic crisis: a lack of community
resilience. Partners wanted to ensure that communities that went
under this time, would be supported to recover. Emphasis came
from the knowledge that the economic crises of the 80s and early
90s were still impacting on many of our communities.
— In partnership with every RDA, every
Regional generic VCS lead body in England has been core funded,
to a greater or lesser extent, to provide an effective voice in
the economic agenda and interface to VCS groups that support local
economic development. RDAs have invested in VCS-focussed programmes
to build economies. Examples include (and there are more): ONE's
funding to support volunteering as a pathway to employment; East's
funding for the Investing in Communities programme and VCS engagement
in the NW's regional strategy consultation processes.
— What successful VCS engagement in economic
agenda at a sub-regional level could look like: Merseyside partners
have been able to support strong VCS engagement in the Future
Jobs Fund on an unrivalled scale.
The reasons for the success are not evidenced as
yet, but key features to note include:
— The right formal strategic relationships
are in place at a sub-regional level.
— A significant number of local authorities
in the sub-region have strong working and strategic partnerships
on economic agenda (eg on Economic Development strand of the Local
Strategic Partnership).
— A history of drawing down funding on
a sub-regional basis.
— A VCS culture geared up to an economic
agenda.
— Public sector use of VCS sub-contractors
and VCS delivery support agencies.
— A local VCS sector geared up to working
on a sub-regional basis.
— Ability of cross-sector partners capable
of working to the strengths of and anticipating the barriers faced
by one another.
5. VCS organisations play a key role in delivery
as Learning & Skills Providers
The importance of VCS learning and skills providers
was recently demonstrated by the Learning and Skills Council's
report Understanding the Contribution of the Third Sector in
Learning & Skills (September 2009):
Analysis of ILR data shows that within the three
funding streams explored (Further Education [FE],Work-Based learning
[WBL] and European Social Fund [ESF]), third sector provision
reaches a distinct learner demographic compared with non-third
sector provision.
Within every funding stream, third sector learners
are more likely to have a learning difficulty or disability, and
in WBL and ESF provision, they are more ethnically diverse and
also more likely to be resident in a deprived area.
Almost half (45%) of WBL third sector learners
live in the bottom 20% of the most deprived areas, compared with
28% of non-third sector WBL learners.
30% of those learners on an FE course with a
non-third sector provider. As well as showing demographic differences,
third sector learners engage with learning and skills from different
backgrounds and less "traditional" routes. In 2007-08,
around two-thirds of WBL third sector learners (67%) were unemployed
when they started their course vs. just 12% of learners in non-third
sector WBL. Here the third sector has a significant role to play
in delivering Entry to Employment (E2E) programmes; over 19,000
E2E programmes were provided in 2007/08,representing just over
one-quarter of all the total E2E aims delivered nationally.
http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/Understanding_the_Contribution_of_the_Third_
Sector_in_LSC_-_Summary_Report.pdf
6. VCS organisations play a key role in developing
and delivering innovative initiatives to tackle worklessness
Recent research by Professor Alan Harding at
the Institute for Political and Economic Growth (Manchester University)
demonstrated that, in the field of tackling worklessness, VCS
groups are innovative key players—certainly in the North
West. There is a need to find ways to scale up delivery but within
the current project focused delivery partners (ie before "total
place") the research finds that:
The third sector plays a central role in the North
West. Of the 32 projects highlighted in the report, 16 (50%) have
strong third sector involvement:
— 12 projects are third sector lead (37%).
— A further 4 projects feature principal
partnerships with third sector organisations, including Mind,
RNID, and RNIB (Routes to Work) and the cross sector partnership
of Wirral's Working for Health project.
The projects, interspersed throughout the report,
were selected because they "represent an overview of innovation
in response to worklessness" (page 24).
Third sector organisations are core to 4 of
the 5 featured first generation case studies:
— two are third sector lead (Breakthrough
UK and Refugee Action); and
— two have principal third sector partners
(CREATE and The Shaw Trust in Bolton's Work Shop project).
The IPEG report also includes outlines of the
work of INTAG (p 8, Preston), GMCVO (p 13), Cumbria CVS (p 41)
Breakthrough UK (p.28) and CREATE (p 29).
Evidence:
— IPEG report: http://www.nwiep.org.uk/media/10833/worklessness_2009.pdf
7. VCS, inward investment and scaling up to
sub-regional working: total place by another name?
Scaling up and getting the most out of sub-regional
working will be key to the success and added value of Local Enterprise
Partnerships. Although focussing on a particular aspect of delivery
Manchester University's report into "Tackling Worklessness
in the North West" raises key issues about how LEPs working
with VCS organisations could:
The IPEG Report identifies VCS delivery strengths
(in the context of tackling worklessness) as the ability to:
— Focus on the needs of particular client
groups: people with impairments, young people not in employment
or training, ex-offenders, refugees and the long-term unemployed.
— Develop "impressive expertise"
and "understand the changes that would be needed to operate
more effectively".
— Demonstrate text-book best practice through
adopting "holistic but personalised" approaches that:
— distinguish between the needs of different
groups;
— build on effective inter-organisational
partnerships;
— take account of employment demand and
labour supply; and
— possess sufficient autonomy and flexibility
to respond to local circumstances.
— Are effective in "joining up"
service delivery without any power to require it.
Evidence:
— IPEG report: http://www.nwiep.org.uk/media/10833/worklessness_2009.pdf
8. Biggest divide is that between the private
sector and the VCS
Previously local connections between these two
sectors have only just begun to develop at regional level and
these must not be lost.
Local authority level partnership work is rare but
does exist.
In the North West, Sefton Council for Voluntary
Service has begun a number of initiatives involving large private
sector employers and this work deserves extremely serious consideration
by the committee.
VCS strategic engagement in LEPs would support
such activity and cross-fertilisation.
9. Ensure VCS environmental expertise is
incorporated in LEP structures
A key component of the work of Leaders' Boards
and before them, Regional Assemblies, has been their ability to
incorporate Environmental VCS expertise into planning, housing,
economic development and transport. We believe that LEPs should
give strong consideration as to how this expertise may be incorporated
into their work and structures. We believe this for two reasons:
Firstly, economic success and prosperity is underpinned
by the ecosystem services provided by a healthy natural environment,[124]
and by strong, just, healthy and resilient communities. LEPs must
therefore drive economic growth in a way that protects and enhances
the natural environment and improves social welfare, ie delivers
greatest public benefit with least public harm. This will need
to be an explicit part of their remit, and they will need to be
informed by those organisations with expertise in those fields.
Secondly, environmental groups have played and
will continue to play a key role in developing and providing "green
jobs".
13 August 2010
122 "Formal volunteering" means unpaid help
given to groups, clubs or organisations to benefit others or the
environment. Back
123
The figure must be treated as a broad estimate since such calculations
are sensitive to the underlying assumptions. The calculation uses
estimates of the hours spent on formal volunteering in combination
with the size of the population and average (employee) wage, and
uses information from the 2005 Citizenship Survey, the
2006 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the Office
of National Statistics. Back
124
See http://www.naturaleconomynorthwest.co.uk for a significant
body of evidence demonstrating the economic benefits of a healthy
natural environment and high environmental quality. Back
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