State of the SectorAutumn 2014

01604 637522 | www.voluntaryimpact.org.uk | 15 St Giles Street, Northampton, NN1 1JA

CONTENTS

Foreword

01 Business Support for the Sector

02 Northamptonshire Community Foundation

03 Social Enterprise in Northamptonshire

04 Value and Innovation

05 Northamptonshire Commsortia

06 Consortium Partnerships

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The overall size of the voluntary and community sector in Northamptonshire has grown in income terms to £178m, a 13% growth (15% increase in expenditure).

FOREWORD

This has been achieved in an economic environment of significant change, as the pressures on the finances of national and local government have led to a reduction in their funding for voluntary and community organisations and a shift away from traditional grants towards contracts and seed funding for organisations to build sustainability.

The 2014 Almanac from NCVO states that the main sources of funding for charities come from trading activity, which represents about 54% of their income and income from local or national government represents between 4%, and 29% of their income. The larger end of this range of income percentage comes mainly in the form of contracts for service delivery to the medium by larger voluntary and community sector organisations.

In addition to services and support for individuals and communities, the sector supports volunteering which adds an estimated £400m equivalent to the GDP of Northamptonshire.

But measuring volunteering in simple monetary value does not recognise the time and commitment of those who volunteer for no personal gain. This ethos is reflected in the sector’s low operational cost base, staff remuneration and not-for-profit structures that have been shown to deliver a gross value added GVA of between £6.25 and £8.35 for every pound of public money spent, well above the average of £3.75, across all markets.

The added value created by volunteers and voluntary and community sector organisations and groups, through their community activities, community events and individual support, builds the strength and depth of communities, community cohesion, community identity and creates a community capital that cannot be measured in financial terms.

This presents a challenge for the sector and commissioners to recognise and demonstrate the real outcomes from the sector, as it works alongside the private and statutory sectors, to deliver its unique contribution to community activity and in building the county as a place to live and work.

The pressures on funding for local government have led to a change in the way business support is delivered for the sector in Northamptonshire, with a single county wide contract for the 1426 registered charities and estimated additional 1,000 informal groups and organisations that make up the sector.

The new contract brings together a new/closer partnership of experienced organisations with different skills, knowledge and expertise in localities, social enterprise, contract and grant management, under the lead of Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire (formerly known as Northampton Volunteering Centre) to support voluntary and community sector organisations.

In another new development a consortium has been created for organisations and groups in the sector to enable different partnerships to be built to meet the changing demands of service contracts that require a cross section of services to be delivered. The new consortium will grow as new members join and are supported to ensure they are able to be part of bids which, in turn, will build the consortium’s capacity.

This interim state of the sector report will focus on the innovative, practical and forward thinking approaches that are part of the sector’s ability to adapt and continue making a difference. A full end of year state of the sector report will cover volunteering and a sector overview later this year.

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4 Charity Financials data extract http://data.ncvo.org.uk/category/almanac/ http://www.nvconline.org.uk/images/NVCOnline/documents/State_of_the_Sector_2013_ Exec_Summary.pdf http://www.sibgroup.org.uk/fileadmin/tsib_users/docs/SIB_Group_Local_Impact_Fund_ prospectus.pdf

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01 BUSINESS SUPPORT FOR THE SECTOR

From July 2014 support for voluntary and community organisations and groups across Northamptonshire will be delivered by Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire (formerly known as Northampton Volunteering Centre) through a three year contract from Northamptonshire County Council.

The support will be provided in partnership with a group of organisations that provide elements of volunteer and infrastructure support locally, working together with two other support and development organisations who bring specific expertise and knowledge.

As part of the partnership, Northamptonshire Community Foundation provides procurement and grant management and support for grant/funded projects through monitoring processes, impact assessment and quality assurance, and the levering-in of external match funding.

Enterprise Solutions Northamptonshire provides support for, and encourages the creation and development, of social enterprises to promote and enable local sustainable development through initiatives including local economic regeneration and the development of small businesses, in particular by those in areas of some disadvantage. They may also support voluntary and community organisations looking to develop trading activities and to become ‘sustainable successful enterprises’.

Together these organisations are able to provide a range of infrastructure services to support the sustainability of the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector across the county through information, advice and training services for ‘start up’ and more mature organisations who wish to build their capacity to deliver more and improved services to increase their sustainability.

The collective expertise that will be provided will be:

• Building capacity and providing a “knowledge gateway” for local voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, including advice on appropriate business models, governance arrangements and support with financial and strategic planning

• Building social capital with volunteers, crucial for local involvement and providing proven long-term health benefits

• Access to established structures for engagement with local communities and organisations

• Expert brokerage experience with voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, public bodies and private sector businesses

• In-depth knowledge of the local market ; specialist knowledge of voluntary, community and social enterprise providers including those who work with “hard to reach” communities with complex ongoing needs and those with a proven track record of early intervention and prevention work

• Expertise in due probity processes and procedures

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Local Infrastructure ReportNeeds analysis Market anaylsis

Up-to-date provider informationPartners

Daventry Volunteer CentreGroundwork Northamptonshire

Corby CVS

Capacity building for social enterprise including

expertise in procurement readiness.

Tendering and procurement support.

Accredited monitoring and evaluation systems and

impact assessment.

External finance leverage.

Delivery model under three year contract from Northamptonshire County Council

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02 NORTHAMPTONSHIRE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

VOLUNTARY IMPACT NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

Since 2011 Northamptonshire Community Foundation (NCF) has been directly involved in developing and piloting an impact assessment tool on behalf of UKCF, the national network of Community Foundations.

The results of 3 years development work is a framework for providing compelling evidence of the impact of donor investment in community grant making. From taking a ‘bottom up’ approach NCF have also been able to create an impact tool that better enables small and grassroots community groups and charities to build their monitoring and evaluation skills.

NCF have an impact committee which enables the Foundation to reflect on the performance of grant making delivery to educate, celebrate achievements and identify challenges.

NCF provide impact case studies across individual awards and donor programmes. The themes, outcomes and indicators of the framework enable the staff team to capture the kind of change that groups are achieving and make it better able to track transformation and communicate this to current and potential donors and the wider community.

The information is based on completed end of grant reports from funded groups and charities. The impact measurement tool used enables the Foundation to capture and to demonstrate the value of the broad range of awards given out.

It covers six key themes each of which is measured by a set of outcomes and indicators – Communities, Health and Wellbeing, Tackling Disadvantage and Exclusion, Environment, Education and Skills and Arts, Culture and Heritage.

Based on projects completed in 2013 submitted to the Foundation by the end of the recent financial year we have supported 134,976 people at an average cost of £3.80 per beneficiary.

In 2014 onwards NCF will be working in partnership with Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire to better support the groundwork for voluntary and community activity to thrive in local communities. This will create opportunities for new groups and projects to help provide local solutions to the issues that affect our communities.

Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire leads the Countywide contract that provides a wide range of support and services for voluntary and community groups, helping those that are starting up, as well as organisations already established.

We offer support to maximise their effectiveness and become more flexible in approach to meet the demands of the current and changing operating environment. This is delivered through advice, information and training on key areas such as governance, business planning, funding, collaboration, social enterprise, quality assurance, policies and procedures.

We have an intermediary role, supporting and facilitating joint working between voluntary and community groups and with statutory bodies and keep the sector informed and involved with the developments at local, national and European levels to ensure that the interests and concerns of the Voluntary and Community Sector and the communities they support, are properly represented.

In addition to support for groups, we support volunteering providing a brokerage service where organisations can place vacancies and volunteers can look for opportunities.

Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire provides expertise in volunteering with information, advice and training to organisations, the statutory sector and business sector on how to improve their volunteering and management of volunteers. Specialist support is available to help those who have more difficulty or challenges in volunteering, and we manage two community schemes, the Northampton Volunteer Car Scheme and Age Span.

The Volunteer Car Scheme is a community transport service covering the borough of Northampton. Our 30 volunteer drivers take elderly or disabled people to medically related appointments, both within Northamptonshire and, on occasions, further afield.

Age Span helps people who cannot manage their gardens any more, due to age or disability This project offers a one off service to help make gardens more manageable and low maintenance.

The work is carried out by a team of mainly young volunteers aged between 14 and 25, who themselves have a variety of additional needs, and require additional support to enable

them to volunteer. They do this alongside volunteers from the wider community.

The University of Northampton is recognised as the UK’s leading Higher Education Institution (HEI) for social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, and social impact. Uniquely it has an institution-wide strategy for social enterprise, led by the Vice Chancellor, and embedded in the University’s ‘Raising the Bar’ strategic plan. http://www.northampton.ac.uk/business-and-enterprise/enterprise.

Inspire2Enterprise (I2E) CIC (http://www.inspire2enterprise.org/), a social enterprise and a joint-venture between the University of Northampton and Exemplas, provides information, specialist advice, training, consulting, coaching and mentoring to new and existing social enterprises, social entrepreneurs, public sector bodies considering social enterprise ‘spin-outs’, voluntary

and community sector organisations looking to trade by way of social enterprise, and corporate organisations seeking to create further social value through corporate social responsibility.

The University has invested £8.5 million in a new ‘Innovation Centre’ for entrepreneurs and social ventures seeking to deliver social impact, value and change, which will open in 2015 as part of the Northampton Waterside Enterprise Zone.

There are also national and regional players including Pro Help (pro bono professional advice from Business in the Community) Co-operatives UK, The Co-operative Enterprise Hub and Locality. These are strong bases to build upon to assist in the further development of social enterprise in the county.

03 SOCIAL ENTERPRISE IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

Social enterprises are businesses that trade for a social and/or environmental purpose with the profits being reinvested to further the aims rather than being distributed to shareholders (other than at levels limited to secure investment).

Social enterprises adopt a variety of legal forms and many voluntary and community organisations are enterprising using a business ‘trading’ model to further a social aim. Many social enterprises, however, start as social enterprises and are committed to social enterprise as a model.

Support for social enterprises in Northamptonshire under the new county wide contract is provided by Enterprise Solutions Northamptonshire (ESN), an independent Social Enterprise and Co-operative Development Agency.

Daily Bread is a worker co-operative that was set up in 1976 to buy, pack and sell wholefoods with a high nutritional value. They have a large shop on the outskirts of Northampton and also arrange deliveries to Northamptonshire and neighbouring counties. Their shop stocks in the region of 3,500 different products, one third of them organic. These include dried fruit, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, beans, pulses, grains, flours, pastas, spreads, oils, drinks, mueslis and gluten free products. One thing they do not sell is bread! Turnover £1-2m; 25+staff. (Case study supplied by ESN).

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DISTRICT Nos. of Social Enterprises 2012

Nos. of Social Enterprises 2013

Corby 48 63Daventry 22 25East Northants 16 18Kettering 46 67Northampton 163 189South Northants 10 13Wellingborough 41 52TOTAL 346 404

Table 2: Social enterprise activity in Northamptonshire

Daily Bread Case Study

Originally set up in January 1983 as the ‘Northamptonshire CDA’ (Cooperative Development Agency, the term social enterprise was not around at that time) ESN’s professional advisers support people who are thinking of setting up, or developing a co-operative or social enterprise in Northamptonshire and they support voluntary and community organisations who are looking to develop their trading activities through a social enterprise model.

Phoenix Furniture Ltd Case Study

Phoenix Furniture (Kettering) Ltd are a company limited by guarantee and charity that collects unwanted furniture and household goods of a good standard and makes them available at low or no cost to people on low incomes to help enable them to ‘make their house a home’. Phoenix has the additional aims to reduce the amount going into the waste stream, remove people’s unwanted furniture and electrical goods cheaply and offers worthwhile volunteering opportunities to help people who need support in their lives or need rehabilitation of some form (case study supplied by ESN).

Information provided by Enterprise Solutions Northamptonshire (ESN)11

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04 VALUE AND INNOVATION

INNOVATION, THE COMMUNITY MARKET AND COMMUNITY CAPITAL

The voluntary and community sector has always been creative in its approach to managing and adapting to the changing economic and community environment in which it works.

Organisations such as Age UK have traded for many years, to generate income, and supply services under contract to earn income to deliver its aims and objectives, utilising any surplus to provide additional support to individuals and the community.

Another longstanding charity, the Citizens Advice Bureau, has embarked on a joint venture with Age UK in a new enterprise aimed at creating sustainable support for both organisations and developing a different model of service delivery for communities.

Age UK recruits and places trained volunteers in individual GP surgeries to make ‘Welcome Home’ welfare telephone calls to any older person who has had an emergency hospital admission or attended A&E during the previous weeks. By asking a set of carefully scripted questions, the volunteers are able to establish if an older person’s unexpected admission to hospital has led to an unrecognised need for extra care and support and ensure that if a problem is identified, timely and appropriate support can be put in place.

Action Support delivers services aimed at supporting young people and marginalised individuals, through a retail outlet: selling antiques and collectables plus art, jewellery and crafts all made by Northamptonshire professionals.

Their respected Train4Work programme provides instruction in antique restoration and repair, gardening, retail and admin, online sales and general DIY, before supporting the individual to move into paid mainstream employment.

One day training in mental health and mental capacity, diversity and equality and beginners cognitive behavioural therapy is also provided to community groups and corporate bodies.

A new dual branded Age UK/CAB charity shop opened in Corby in 2014, incorporating a walk in advice centre. Operating as a usual charity shop selling goods and products, this shop contains a ‘mini advice hub’ promoting early intervention and improved, longer access to advice provision- first time that advice is available 10am – 4pm on a Saturday. The profit from the shop will be invested back into delivering front line advice services in both organisations (taking a 50/50 share of any profit) thus increasing longer term sustainability.

Age UK Action Support

Citizens Advice Bureau & Age UK Shop

The development of trading as a route to generate income to support not for profit organisations is a longstanding activity undertaken by charities, and has in recent years often taken the legal form of a not for profit social enterprise.

In Northamptonshire support for social enterprises has, for the last 30 years been available from Enterprise Solutions Northamptonshire which provides local support for start ups and developing social enterprise organisations. Articles that follow cover social enterprise and the role of Enterprise Solutions Northamptonshire including their role in the business support partnership for voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations in the county.

Social enterprises are a growing part of Northamptonshire’s vibrant economy, an economy which naturally looks for opportunities to grow and develop new services, products and markets. The focus for growth is often in developing markets in Europe, Asia and Africa, but the potential for the development of local markets within our own communities also gives opportunities for people to build small local businesses, particularly around community support and services in health, social care and wellbeing.

There is a significant number of community organisations and groups across the county, with structures including voluntary, charitable, not for profit and social enterprise who provide activities, support and services, but there is the capacity within the local economy to sustain many more.

The opportunity to develop more groups, organisations and small ‘not for profit’ businesses also provides opportunities for local people to support themselves and to give to their communities by building a network of local services and support for local people.

Building the number and range of local businesses in the county supports the move of Healthier Northamptonshire and the prevention strategy towards community based services, enabling people to be supported at home, as well as the broader coalition strategy of building community resilience.

The activity of groups, organisations and small enterprises brings social value and added value that cannot simply be measured in financial terms, such as the amount of financial activity, social return on investment or equivalent hours value of volunteers giving their time.

Value is also created in the support for individuals to be independent, to feel part of the community and to feel valued, achieved through the activity of volunteers and support and services delivered by community groups and organisations. The community organisations also provide the structure to support the volunteers to do their volunteering. The work done creates real impact that can be measured in terms of the impact on the health and wellbeing of the individual and communities.

The voluntary and community sector provides support and activities for individuals and communities. This encourages communities to integrate, engage with each other and develop a network.

The voluntary and community sector’s value therefore needs to be defined in ways that demonstrate its impact on the strength, depth and identity of communities that leads to development of community capital that makes the county the place to choose to live and work.

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In South Northamptonshire the Volunteer Bureau runs the Village Networks project which makes use of a minibus and a mobile display vehicle, the Rural Information Centre (RIC), to enable access to information, advice, support and activities for people primarily within isolated rural locations in the district.

Open Stage provides paid for performing arts and dance classes for children age 2 - 18 years at weekends. This pays the rent on a building, which is then used for community activities during the week, at reduced rates and low cost, such as music, art, sensory babies activities and a ‘Singing for Fun’ group . Other income to support the building comes from hire of rooms for events, yoga, practice and rehearsal space for a ‘Samba band’ that receive free storage space. Local schools can also have access to their premises and secure garden.

Village Networks Project

Open Stage

05 NORTHAMPTONSHIRECONSORTIUM

A Northamptonshire Consortium for the Voluntary and Community Sector.

2014 sees the launch of the voluntary and community sector consortium called ‘Commsortia’.

This new collaborative partnership will enable large and small organisations in the sector to come together to deliver larger and more complex services and contracts, providing a means to combine their expertise, knowledge and experience.

The founder members of the consortium come from a broad range of sector organisations, who have a proven track record with service delivery, business and strategic expertise.

This is not an exclusive consortium, but one that is open to all sector groups and organisations to become members. For those organisations wishing to join, who are not yet ‘contract ready’, there will be an associate member scheme, for organisations getting ready to meet the requirements set out in contracts and tenders.

Commsortia will work on behalf of, and is equally ‘owned’ by, its membership and provides a ‘single point of contacting’ for commissioners who want to contract out services to local voluntary, community and social enterprise provider organisations.

Commsortia will operate as a charitable company, providing a hub to work on behalf of the members and the sector to identify opportunities to tender, developing partnerships of different groupings of organisations to bid for contracts and coordinating the delivery of contracted services once primary contracts have been won.

• Age UK Northamptonshire• Central and East Northamptonshire Citizens

Advice Bureau• Enterprise Solutions Northamptonshire• Nene Valley Community Action• Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire• Northamptonshire Carers

• Northamptonshire Credit Union• Northamptonshire Rights and Equality

Council• South Northamptonshire Volunteer Bureau• Groundwork Northamptonshire• Northamptonshire ACRE • Northamptonshire Community Foundation

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This new collaborative partnership will enable large and small organisations in the sector to come together ...

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At the TNL launch event Nick Walkley, CEO of Haringey Council, observed:

“Undoubtedly this innovative and ambitious consortium will be important in strengthening and developing the presence of the voluntary and community organisations in an increasingly competitive environment. I am confident that commissioning in this way, through a range of grassroots organisations, will be an excellent way of securing the right high quality services for our residents.”

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06 CONSORTIUM PARTNERSHIPS

There are some examples where voluntary and community sector organisations have come together to form consortiums.

Sheffield Cubed

This collaborative approach has enabled Sheffield Cubed to secure larger contracts centrally and deliver them through member organisations. Some of the current contracts they have involve different groups of organisations

• Health Champions service – involving 12 organisations• Carers project – involving 7 organisations• The Work Programme – one lead organisation• Youth workforce – a Sheffield Cubed employee working with 7 organisations

Sheffield Cubed is perhaps the best known, which has been working for some time, and has established effective ways of working. It currently has around 90 members, to which it offers project management and development services to develop collaborative services/tenders, enabling them to access contract and funding opportunities they could not access alone.

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In Cumbria, Age UK developed a successful model for engagement between GP surgeries and the Voluntary Sector to support older people in accessing support to help them

• live independently • stay healthy and recover quickly from illness • have as much control over their own lives as possible • live with, or look after, their family • participate as active and equal citizens • have the best possible quality of life.

The Cockermouth Centre for the Third Age takes referrals from GP surgeries, and delivers support through to Age UK services or makes referrals to voluntary and community sector partners. For those with more complex needs it has support workers.

Age UK West Cumbria

Together North London

Another consortium ‘Together North London’ , launched in May 2013, has 150 members, 20 of whom have successfully bid for 7 contracts which they deliver.

The consortium model is often referred to as a hub and spoke arrangement, with a central ‘hub’ which is the collective consortium and the ‘spokes’ being the members.

This working arrangement is successfully used elsewhere, often when the needs of individuals need to be met through multiple different services delivered by organisations or agencies with different areas of expertise and knowledge.

2 4The Kings Fund report on the ‘Sandwell Esteem team’ describes a hub team of six workers providing care co-ordination for ‘complex’ patients. The hub team act as the patients’ navigators through the health and social care system, referring patients to a wide variety of statutory and voluntary sector services such as social services, debt advice agencies, substance abuse counselling, therapeutic services and peer support groups. The report states that a statistical analysis carried out by the commissioner shows significant levels of improvement on a clinical and a wellbeing scoring tool and a reduction in the percentage of patients with a diagnosis of clinical depression.

Sandwell Esteem Team

http://www.sheffieldcubed.co.uk/about-us/ http://havcoharingey.org.uk/together-north-london http://www.shapingourlives.org.uk/documents/C3AReportFINAL.pdf http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/field/field_publication_file/sandwell- esteem-team-coordinated-care-case-study-kings-fund-aug13.pdf

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Voluntary & Community Groups

Community Schemes

Volunteering

Public Sector & Local Authorities

Businesses

Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire, services for :

01604 637522 | contact@voluntaryimpact.org.uk | 15 St Giles Street, Northampton, NN1 1JA

The writing of this report is supported through the funding from NCC for the Countywide Support and Development contract