Manchester Alliance for Community Care

A Volunteer Centre for Manchester at last!
MACC is delighted to announce that our new Volunteer Centre for Manchester is now open for business. This brings to an end the many years during which the city was without a generic volunteering agency linked to the national volunteering network.

Volunteer Centre Manchester will champion volunteering within the city and promote good practice to organisations which involve volunteers. The Centre is based in the MACC offices, part of the redevelopment of MACC as the lead infrastructure body for Manchester’s voluntary and community sector. Our intention is to achieve Volunteering England accreditation by completing Volunteer Centre Quality Accreditation alongside other centres in Greater Manchester.

The arrival of the Volunteer Centre in Manchester comes as a result of a lot of hard work by individuals from various organisations, such as the GMCVO-based Volunteering Greater Manchester project, Greater Manchester Youth Network and Manchester Youth Volunteering Project (now closed).

The new service will redevelop the existing volunteering pages on the Manchester Community Central website and volunteering opportunities will be advertised widely across social media, Do-it.org and discussed in one-to-one interviews with potential volunteers.

Introductory volunteering sessions will also be offered to local people considering volunteering, and these events, plus outreach drop-in sessions, will be held at local community venues to allow potential volunteers to make informal enquiries and arrange one-to-one appointments.

If your organisation works in Manchester and involves volunteers, we would encourage you to register with the Volunteer Centre via the link below.

For further information about Volunteer Centre Manchester, contact:
Jen Halfpenny (Development Worker) jen@macc.org.uk
Mark Pritchard (Manager) mark@macc.org.uk
Telephone 0161 834 9823

Link: Volunteer Centre Manchester

What is a GP Commissioning Consortia Pathfinder?
From April 2013, it is planned that GP commissioning consortia will become the new NHS commissioners of healthcare. A pathfinder programme has been initiated to invite emerging consortia to begin development from January this year. For more information on Manchester's Pathfinder see the summary below produced by NHS Manchester

Download: communication_and_development_-_summary_(3).doc

Equalities Duties Review
As part of it's 'Red Tape Challenge' the Government has launched a consultation to review the duties of public sector bodies under the 2010 Equalities Act. MACC is concerned that some hard-won legal protections for minority groups could be at risk of being dismantled when they have only just come into force: the description of this as an issue of "bureaucracy" rather than social justice is in itself disturbing. As with the consultation on the duties of Local Authorities (see the item below) we encourage all local VCS organisations to respond to the consultation. Click on the link below for more information and to find out how to respond.

Link: Equalities Duties Review

Voluntary Sector Cuts
A number of national bodies including NAVCA, NCVO, Volunteering England, Compact Voice and Voluntary Sector North West have launched a website to gather information about cuts being made to voluntary and community sector organisations across England. All groups are asked to supply some basic details of the cuts and the impact it will have on the provision of services and activities.

It's important to note that the information once uploaded is publicly available - read the "about" section for details.

MACC wishes to encourage all local groups to record their funding cuts on this site - it's important that public sector decision makers can be shown evidence of the impact of the decisions being made across the various funding bodies.

If your organisation is facing cuts and needs support in planning and managing, you can contact Manchester Community Central for useful information and support.

Link: Voluntary Sector Cuts website
Link: Manchester Community Central

Justice for All campaign
Justice for All is a national campaign group which has been formed to press for "free, independent advice and representation on legal matter". The group's membership includes well known national agencies such as Citizens Advice Bureau, Advice UK, Shelter, RNIB, Scope and Mencap. A particular focus for the campaign is access to support around welfare rights. At MACC we share the concern that access to advice is under threat at a time when the welfare system is undergoing major reform with many of the most vulnerable members of society at risk of losing the support on which they depend.

Link: Justice for All website

City Council Third Sector Consultation
Below is a link to the notes from the recent City Council Adults Directorate briefing held shortly before Christmas. This includes a useful summary of the Work Programme and details of the various "prime contractors" who are bidding to run these services in Manchester.

Link: Manchester City Council - Consultation Event notes

Equality Act 2010
The Government Equalities Office has produced a series of guides on the new Equalities Act which has now come into force. As well as increasing rights for individuals and communities, this also places new responsibilities on all organisations providing services to members of the public - including voluntary sector. There is a particular issue for charities around the provision of services which are targetted at one section of the community (e.g. women-only): this is now acceptable if it is primarily about addressing a social imbalance. Below are links to the website and the summary guide for organisations.

Link: Government Equalities Office
Link: Summary Guide for Voluntary and Community Sector organisations

BME VCS and the Big Society
The Manchester BME Network is collecting views on how the 'Big Society' agenda will impact on minority communities and the race equality agenda. The responses will be fed into a regional survey being conducted by One North West. The survey questions can be found on the front page of the network's new website. See link below.

Link: Manchester BME Network

Public sector bodies in Manchester have now completed the "Locality Joint Strategic Needs Assessments". These are documents which pulls together everything which is known about the needs of communities in the North, Central and South parts of Manchester in, for example, areas such as public health. They are produced by the local NHS and City Council Departments including social care and children's services. Evidence from the JSNAs should inform how services are planned and delivered in all these areas. Each also includes a "ward fact sheet" which can be downloaded separately from the Council website.

All this is useful stuff for local voluntary groups in seeing how they fit with or could add to tackling local needs - and is a good source evidence when putting funding applications together.

Report on Small Voluntary and Community Sector Organisations
Children England (previously known as NCCVO) have produced a new report entitled Small Change - a survey about experiences of engaging with government initiatives, the impact of funding changes and the move to commissioning and the role in influencing strategic decision making.
Children England

Download: children_england_survey_report_small_change.pdf

Collaborative Working
NCVO has published a new guide on different ways of working with other organisations to generate income. Subjects covered include fundraising events, joint trading, payroll giving through consortia, legacy giving and appeals. You can download this for FREE from their website.
Link: NCVO Collaborative Working
Link: Download the guide directly (PDF file)

Government Guidance on minimum 3 year funding
The Government's Office of the Third Sector (part of the Cabinet Office ) has produced guidance which states that where appropriate, funding for the voluntary and community sector must be for a minimum of three years. This has been published jointly with the Treasury - which gives it much greater importance. The idea is that over the next 3 years, all Government departments will report to the Minister for the Third Sector on their progress in delivering 3 year funding agreements as standard. This will become part of the annual review of the national Compact.
Sadly, this doesn't currently apply to Local Authorities or Primary Care Trusts but it is a step in the right direction.
Link: Office of the Third Sector Guidance (pdf)

CRB Checks for Volunteers
In June 2008, the Office of the Third Sector released guidance to make clear what groups using volunteers need to do about Criminal Records Bureau checks. This is intended as a reply to concerns that some volunteers are being put off by the CRB check process. Obviously, organisations do need to manage risks in people doing voluntary work with children or vulnerable adults and there are some legal requirements but this new guidance tries to explain where a formal CRB check fits with other steps such as interviewing, training and getting references.
Link: Guidance on CRB Checks for Volunteers (pdf)
Link: Criminal Records Bureau