Glad I made it on the last day - I've tried several times to register.
As a third sector volunteer, chairman of a CIC and trustee of a voluntary support organisation and director of a social enterprise regional association I'm disturbed at the wastage of funds. Bright new ideas appear, like confetti, a web site, secretariat, and a strategy (of sorts) appear. Some time later the initial team has moved on, the idea dropped, the funding transferred to (yet another) bright idea.
At no stage does anyone ask the micro-provider what they want. Perhaps that's because all the support organisations know what is really wanted - and that's funding that allows sustainable development. We don't need training, we don't need advice - especially when it's provided by people who clearly have little idea of how we operate, and certainly not what we want.
Instead we become just another statistic -another target satisfied. Everyone moves on, outwardly showing smug faces, and those with any conscience feeling concerned that they haven't really helped.
It may be just a story, but I'm told that in the early days of the Notting Hill Carnival all you had to do was say you had a band, and would be in the carnival - nothing more. As a result a cheque appeared and you were left to get on with it.
That produced an internationally respected event. It cost very little, and the money was used by those for whom it was intended.
There should be a central agency where we lodge our Mem & Arts, our policies on myriad range of significant areas that need a policy, perhaps our insurances, details of directors and bank accounts. Once there, and updated with a yearly report, there should be no need to provide all that information, endlessly, to funders, to local authorities, to lenders. It would save millions of wasted hours.
Core funding is an unsupported issue - and we all need such funding. In most cases it is the only funding we require. Once that's in place we can create our own projects - and then seek funding for those. This 'bottom-up' approach is essential.
My county issued a contract to identify the social enterprises in the county. Did it turn to the social enterprise network that already existed? Oh no, instead it went elsewhere to an ACRE who had a vague concept of what an SE was, but didn't know any. Was that £30K wasted in identifying 20-30 social enterprises? It was.
Better to have used that cash in supporting 2-3 organisations that were known, and by diffusion other SEs would have jumped out of the bushes, eager for cash.
We are moving towards public procurement, in a dreamy haze. VCS will need support to do the job properly. Instead they are faced by a mountain of administration. As a result we shall soon see national organisations, quasi-private, getting the contracts, and the effective small organisation squeezed out.
In my county 25% of the workforce are in public employ. Of the remainder 90% work for firms with less than 4 employees - and that goes for VCS as well.
Trouble is government can only think in big lumps.
We can help - give us the allocated funds to manage and we'll ensure we all get value for money.