Tameside 3rd Sector Coalition’s Response to Report of Joint Scrutiny Panel

Review of the Strategic Effectiveness of the Voluntary and Community Sector in Tameside

T3SC welcomes the opportunity to jointly review and scrutinise the strategic effectiveness of the sector and have prepared this response to the recommendations on behalf of the sector.

Executive Summary

T3SC with Change Up are funding a part time post to work with VCS organisations and commissioners to encourage more competitive tendering opportunities for the 3rd sector to deliver public service contracts.

We would welcome opportunities to develop a continuing dialogue and develop joint working with partners particularly in relation to 3rd sector representation in the process of producing the commissioning strategies and promote good practice in flexible procurement approaches.

T3SC feel it would be appropriate for the Cross Policy Review Group to produce a Tameside funding and procurement code of good practice that would ensure transparency and consistency across public agencies and be used as a good practice model to showcase Tameside’s approach.

Detailed Response to Recommendations

13.1 T3SC will continue to support VCS organisations across Tameside and identify appropriate opportunities to secure funding through grants, income generation and contracts to deliver the valuable services provided by the sector. We would welcome baseline data to be collated and used as an indicator to measure and track VCS public service delivery in Tameside.

13.2 T3SC, as with our sub-regional and national colleagues, has identified a gap in support services to assist VCS organisations in becoming more competitive in commissioning with public agencies. To meet this identified need T3SC and ChangeUP have funded a part-time post due to end in June 08 to work with VCS organisations and commissioners to; explore the support needs, opportunities and provide practical help to increase the competitiveness of VCS organisations in tendering to deliver public service contracts. In addition we believe T3SC has a role in providing capacity building support to work with organisations that do not yet have the capacity to deliver contracts but have the aspiration to. To achieve meaningful change this role will need to be endorsed by public service partners and longer term funding identified.

13.3 T3SC is seeking opportunities to work in partnership with commissioners to encourage appropriate 3rd sector representation in developing the commissioning strategy. We appreciate the necessity for all potential suppliers to have equal opportunity to participate in the procurement process. T3SC would like to suggest piloting this over the next few months; T3SC would find appropriate representatives from the relevant community empowerment network and support those reps to participate in the process. Learning could then be cascaded to other directorates / agencies.

13.4 T3SC will signpost VCS organisations to The Chest as a tool to ensure awareness of appropriate tendering opportunities across Tameside. We would encourage VCS organisations and commissioners to develop a relationship of mutual understanding to ensure opportunities to commission to the sector are not missed. T3SC would encourage consistency in the mechanisms used to publicise opportunities across directorates and would wish to work with commissioners to raise awareness and promote transparency. T3SC will aim to develop dialogues with individual commissioning officers within public agencies with the aim of linking them to specific VCO’s with the potential, given some capacity building support, to move towards taking on contracts/sub contracts.

13.5 As part of the pilot project funded through T3SC and Change Up we would welcome further opportunities in partnership with commissioners to increase dialogue and joint working opportunities for the sector. VOLCON (Voluntary Officers Chief Officers meetings) are the current mechanism that will be used as one opportunity. Following on from the successful T3SC conference (funded through Tameside Economic Development Unit) ‘Making 3rd Sector Procurement Happen’ T3SC will be hosting a follow up conference to showcase Tameside’s achievements and good practice in Procurement across Greater Manchester.

13.6 T3SC would welcome dialogue with Commissioners to agree a consistent and appropriate time in which organisations are required to respond to tender opportunities. We would encourage these timescales take into account the environment of the majority of 3rd sector organisations who have limited time capacity and staffing to divert attention to new tender opportunities. T3SC would like to work with commissioners to understand the timings of tender opportunities and enable us to signpost and help organisations prepare for this.

13.7 T3SC would welcome opportunities to develop policies with public agency partners to encourage a more flexible procurement and contracting arrangement that take into account the lack of resources available to VCS organisations and the financial implications of some requirements within the PQQ or tender. T3SC feel it may be appropriate for the Cross Policy Review Group to produce a local funding and procurement code of good practice that would ensure transparency and consistency across public agencies. To assist the sector to develop new opportunities T3SC would like to explore the role that large VCO’s could play as lead contractor with sub-contracting arrangements with smaller organisations within the sector.

13.8 T3SC would provide an opportunity to showcase the innovative work being developed in regard to commissioning and procurement locally through the Adult Joint Commissioning Unit, through the conference due to be held in June 08 and through organising joint events with commissioners and VCS organisations. We also wish to encourage joint learning from good practice from across the country and explore these within a local context.

13.9 Short term funding is an ongoing issue to the third sector and T3SC feel that where possible 3-5 year funding agreements should be encouraged across public agencies. Guidelines in the proposed Cross Policy Group funding and procurement code of good practice would encourage consistency across public service agencies.

13.10 T3SC support the view that a mechanism for shared learning across Tameside’s social enterprise sector is required. In addition any learning form social enterprise support agencies should be shared to ensure consistency in access to support for emerging and developing social enterprises and VCS organisations that want to be more enterprising across Tameside. We would want to explore the potential for establishing a social enterprise advisor network to enable sharing of good practice and joint working opportunities.

13.11 T3SC welcomes this recommendation to move to outcomes focussed monitoring although also recognises the support necessary to achieve this shift. T3SC would welcome opportunities to work with partners to identify appropriate monitoring systems and provide effective support. T3SC also understand the implications of over-monitoring and would encourage flexibility and streamlining of this where appropriate.

13.12 T3SC feel it is crucial that service user involved in monitoring and designing of services is paramount to ensuring effective service delivery. T3SC has an important role in raising awareness of the modernisation of mental health services and the opportunities this brings for the sector and its service users.

13.13 T3SC strongly supports the need to meaningfully engage with service users in reviewing or renewing service provision to ensure best value in terms of the user rather than simply cost is built into future service specifications. The borough-wide community engagement strategy would ensure a consistent approach is adopted within local authority services. T3SC and Tameside VOICE look forward to joint working opportunities with Tameside MBC in developing this engagement strategy.

13.14 T3SC supports the recommendation to review progress with VCS groups and will be an active partner in this process. We would like to involve VCO’s throughout this process and jointly design the outcome measures that would enable us to effectively review progress.

Liz Welsh
T3SC