“the state of the sector” how the voluntary and community ... · pdf filehow the...

1 Overview

1.1 During February 2014, GAVCA undertook its annual survey of voluntary and community organisations in Gloucestershire to see how they are doing – how they are changing, what challenges they are facing and how they see the future. This report provides a snapshot of the voluntary and community sector in Gloucestershire today. Common themes emerged of increased workloads, reduced capacity and increased uncertainty about the future. Given that background, it is pleasing to note that 53 of our member organisations took the time to complete the online survey, representing a good geographical spread of voluntary and community organisations across the county and also a good spread in terms of size. The information contained in the feedback should be of value to GAVCA and to our partners. 2.1 There three key messages come through from the responses: 1 Voluntary and community organisations are a vital resource in local communities. However they are facing significant challenges, as the demand for their services continues to grow and outstrip the resources available to deliver them. 2. There is growing uncertainty and gloom about future sustainability: whilst organisations are keen to continue to deliver crucial services, many are struggling to adapt successfully to the financial and cultural challenges facing them 3 There is a huge a sense of frustration with local public agencies, particularly Gloucestershire County Council, which, respondents feel, do not value local voluntary and community organisations and are missing opportunities to work together towards common goals. For now at least VCS groups are hanging on to their passion, and their pride in what they are still achieving successfully against the odds. The challenge for partner organisations must be to find more effective ways to engage with the VCS in order to harness these resources for the benefit of the communities of Gloucestershire before key and irreplaceable services are lost – a challenge with which GAVCA is well placed and keen to assist.

“We’re keen to ensure that we continue to be a proper charitable organisation. We acknowledge that things aren’t as they used to be and that we do have to try and make our own way in the world. However, doing that without losing sight of the core values we hold is a very difficult thing to do. How do you make that transition from having time for people to making enough money to survive? It doesn't sit well with us.” “A good Local Authority with a sensible commissioning strategy should be supporting a& encouraging local organisations to build local support infrastructures & build strength in local communities.” “Voluntary groups are the backbone of charity work.” “It just feels like it’s getting harder and harder to survive!”

“The State of the Sector” How the voluntary and community sector in Gloucestershire is faring.

March 2014

2 The respondents 2.1 Most of the groups that responded were small –medium sized community groups, with 72%of them employing less than 5 paid staff and 83% having an annual income of less than £250k.

2.2 Groups typically involve between 6 and 20 volunteers each week, with at least 1,457people volunteering in these 53 organisations alone. This reflects what we know from previous research about the nature of the local VCS in general and of our membership, and so indicate that the survey is a good reflection of the wider VCS.

3 Changes to organisations 3.1 Income sources are changing as public sector income has decreased again. Donations and subscriptions from individuals, along with income from fundraising events and charged-for services have increased, illustrating that organisations are working hard to adapt to their changing circumstances, although these new income sources are not matching the loss of income from the public sector. More worryingly, grants from charitable trusts have also decreased, possibly due to money having to be spread more thinly to meet greater demand A few groups have attracted more corporate sponsorship than in previous years, but relative to public sector and charitable trust grants of the past, this type of income remains insignificant.

3.2 There was a mixed response in terms of the paid workforce, with some organisations having increased the number of staff, some having decreased and some having kept the same number. Anecdotally, GAVCA staff report that many organisations that employ paid staff have been spending reserves this year in the hope things might turn around before they are forced to let go of skills that would be very difficult to replace. For this reason, looking at workforce numbers in isolation may not give the whole story of what’s going on in some organisations.

3.3 Whilst there has been an increase in the number of volunteers involved in many groups, most organisations have not increased the number of volunteers.

“Some volunteers have stopped coming because they have been told by welfare system that volunteering can lead to benefits being cut.”

3.4 No respondents reported any plans to merge in the future. This is clearly not seen as the solution for many struggling groups. “We merged in the past and it is not an easy process and the change is still going on now and has an effect on the organisation and the staff etc. who work in it”.

4. Changes to services and activities

4.1 The majority of respondents (67%) reported an increase in the demand for their services.

“Even as a network of churches, we are struggling to cope with the demand in our services.” “Greater demand for our services from individuals and referrers - but no funding to maintain the services”

4.2 Although we wouldn’t expect all the groups that responded to have been affected by recent changes to the welfare system – e.g. those that provide sports or cultural activities - there were common concerns and experiences amongst those organisations which provide support or services to people in some kind of need, with 41% of respondents reporting changes which they attributed to changes to the welfare system in the past year. Common themes from their comments were:

greater demand for services that groups are struggling to meet;

more people feeling overwhelmed with a range of complex problems;

increased number of people relying on food banks;

increased stress amongst clients;

loss of volunteers due to stress and benefit changes; clients and volunteers affected by “bedroom tax”;

“The number of people coming to us for food aid due to changes in their benefits has increased from 15% in 2012/13 to 19.32% 2013/14 and due to benefit delays from 31% in 2012/13 to 37% in 2013/14.”

5 External relationships 5.1 There has been little change in relationships with district councils with many reporting good relationships, despite some relationships clearly feeling the strain of reducing resources. However, more groups report a worsening relationship with the County Council, with many worrying comments that highlight a feeling of being ignored and undervalued, despite working hard to engage and offer services that support the County Council’s priorities.

“We had a good relationship with the …council. We still have contact with officers and do work closely with them. However our overall relationship is not so robust - in my opinion due to the drop in funding they have to support voluntary sector and pressures on them to maintain their own staff levels and with a reduced budget.” “GCC appears distant. They make all the right noises publicly about engagement and consultation, but the reality is rather different. Individual meeting offers are almost always politely declined, except for one or two particular champions for our cause.” “We don’t know who the right people to talk to anymore are” “Trying to catch someone's attention during a wider engagement exercise is fraught with dangers of alienating fellow charity representatives who have the same problem of wanting their own voice heard, and meeting with a glazed eye expression from the speaker who has only come to tell you things, and is terrified of being bamboozled by you and a hundred others.” “We have been encouraged over the last few years to change the way we provide services and charge for them so that we can meet the "individual Budget" culture that Adult Social Care were adopting. We have all done this - often helped by the excellent GAVCA courses. However, the reality of this is different and we are still not seeing enough people with personal budgets or people who are giving ASC instructions on who they would like their care purchased from. This is seriously damaging to small voluntary sector organisations”

5.2 62% of groups that are involved in health and social care said they had either a poor or no relationship with any of the new health structures, although a few groups recognised that it is early days for some of these and hope that things will improve. As with the County Council, there is a frustration that the excellent services, passion and commitment that voluntary groups are keen to contribute to joint priorities are not being harnessed.

“We have had no interest from the 2gether Trust in what we do - despite the fact that there is no other user-led charity like ours in the UK. We are a unique charity and we wonder why they don't support what we do. One of their patients set this charity up. Why are they not seeking to support and empower us as service users?”

“Healthwatch no longer has group/organisation membership as had the LINk. I retain individual membership but it is now difficult for any 'community of interest' input.” “We work with the local surgery but could do much more through contact with Drs and links with local community opportunities” “Early days - relationship between different pathway groups still evolving. Great to have Neurology lead in the CCG and through GLOSNA a regular dialogue about the NCS audit of Neurology services and subsequent action plan.”

5.3 In contrast, the picture is more positive when it comes to criminal justice structures. Although half the respondents have no relationship with these structures, the absence of any negative comments suggests that this might be by choice, with 28% of groups reporting good or excellent and only 2% reporting a poor relationship.

“Local police are very helpful and there is an atmosphere of mutual support” “We’re working closely with local police. Huge support and enthusiasm. Constant face-to-face contact. They visit our local groups to support delivery of services.” “The PCC Commissioner's Fund supports our youth project.”

5.4 There is surprisingly low involvement amongst the VCS with the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) - 83% reported no or a poor relationship- given the statutory requirement for LEPs to work in partnership with the VCS and the large amount of work that goes on within the VCS around learning and skills development. However, groups that have established a relationship so far in the early days of this new structure, made some positive comments about this relationship.

“We have established an excellent collaboration with Remploy in particular. They have realised that by working with us they are more likely to be successful in achieving their targets for employment with our beneficiary group.” “We have tried to work with these sectors to provide training places for people. We felt so let down by these providers that we have not approached them again.” “The LEP has been extremely positive in working with my organisation and very helpful and honest about the limitations of their function of driving growth and not social engineering”

6 Challenges: what keeps you awake at night?

6.1 There are many worries keeping workers in the VCS awake at night, with most concerns around:

Increased demand for services and lack of capacity to meet demand

Difficulties recruiting sufficient volunteers, including trustees

Change management and maintaining quality during a period of huge change

financial sustainability and the loss of funding

increased competition from other VCS organisations which is making collaborative working harder

“Rebuilding the organisation after a very difficult couple of years, in particular recruiting new volunteers and trustees, to ensure we are able to cope with the challenges that will face us in the future” “Worrying that we have just nine months’ funding left and no longer any reserves, and our treasurer is having kittens, saying that we need to make 'drastic' decisions well before that nine months. Recently we have had two major contracts extended for a further six months whilst the public sector makes their minds up about the future. It gives short term stability but doesn't take the nightmare away: once we make the decision to let go of skilled staff, there will be no coming back from the grave even if the whole situation suddenly turned around again two weeks later. It takes three years to train up people to work for our organisation.” “Funding is getting increasingly harder to source, especially to cover core costs.” “The VCS sector needs to come together but it won't, due to pride or the competitive nature that exists within groups.” “Nothing: staying awake would not help!”

6.2 Despite all these difficulties, the VCS is still hugely proud of what it achieves, with endless anecdotes of successes being cited with great pride. “We are most proud of the fact that there are people who are alive now, who may well have

died by suicide, if our service did not exist.”

“Safe, person-centred care and well-trained, supported workforce” “Our continued ability to work with people with very complex disabilities and contribute to their quality of life. In some cases we have made progress where we understood there was little chance of this and this has been done by dedicated and high calibre staff committed to the ethos of the organisation.” “Finding work for six profoundly Deaf sign language users in the past four months. One had not worked for 11 years; becoming a Deaf charity that appears to be the envy of other Deaf charities around the country. We have had four other Deaf charities in the past six months approach us to show them the way. If only they knew that despite our apparent success, we are still struggling to survive; presenting a major report in response to the recent 'Joining up Your Care' engagement by Gloucestershire CCG. Will it make a difference though? Will have to wait and see.”

Appendix – Survey Results

A Organisation Profile

1. In which district(s) of Gloucestershire do your organisation's activities take place? (tick all that apply)

Answer Options Response Percent

Response Count

Cheltenham 58.5% 31

Cotswolds 45.3% 24

Forest of Dean 39.6% 21

Gloucester 58.5% 31

Stroud 45.3% 24

Tewkesbury 39.6% 21

Outside Gloucestershire 9.4% 5

answered question 53

skipped question 0

2. How many paid staff work for your organisation in Gloucestershire? (both full time and part time)

Answer Options Response

Percent Response

Count

None 30.2% 16

Fewer than 5 41.5% 22

6-20 18.9% 10

21-50 3.8% 2

51-100 3.8% 2

More than 100 1.9% 1


skipped question 0

3. What is your organisation's expected income for the whole of 2013-14?


Response Count

Under £1,000 5.8% 3

£1,000 - £20,000 28.8% 15

£21,000 - £250,000 48.1% 25

£251,000 - £500,000 7.7% 4

Over £500,000 9.6% 5


skipped question 1

4. In a typical week, how many volunteers are involved with your organisation

in Gloucestershire? (Please include trustees)


Response Count

Min total no. volunteers

None 1.9% 1 0

Fewer than 5 20.8% 11 44

6-20 56.6% 30 570

21-50 9.4% 5 245

51-100 3.8% 2 198

more than 100 7.5% 4 400

Total no. volunteers (minimum) 1,457

Answered question 53

Skipped questions 0

B Changes to organisations

5. During 2013-14 where has your organisation's income come from? Please tick all that apply and whether the income from each source selected has changed since the year before. If so, please indicate how it has changed.

Answer Options Tick if source of

income in 2013-14 Increased since

year before Decreased since

year before Stayed the

same Response Count

Contracts from local or national public sector 16 4 6 7 18

Grants from local or national public sector 28 7 13 8 31

Grants from charitable trusts 26 6 10 6 28

Donations / subscriptions from individuals 33 11 9 9 36

Fundraising events 30 12 6 11 34

Donations from businesses 18 5 2 10 20

Charges for services 22 11 3 9 27

Other (please describe) 3 2 0 2 5


skipped question 3

6. How has the number of paid staff in your organisation changed since last year? If you don't have any paid staff, tick n/a


Response Count

Increased 25.5% 13

Decreased 13.7% 7

Stayed the Same 33.3% 17

n/a 27.5% 14


skipped question 2

7. How has the number of volunteers involved in your organisation changed in the last year? If you don't involve volunteers, tick n/a


Response Count

Increased 41.2% 21

Decreased 9.8% 5


n/a 2.0% 1


skipped question 2

”

C Changes to Services and activities

8. Have you noticed any change in demand for the services of activities your organisation provides over the last year?


Response Count

Increased 66.7% 34

Decreased 5.9% 3


n/a 5.9% 3


skipped question 2

9. Have you noticed any changes to your organisation or its beneficiaries as a result of changes to the welfare system in the past year?


Response Count

Yes 41.2% 21

No 33.3% 17

Don't know 25.5% 13

If yes please describe 17


skipped question 2

Comments on changes to beneficiaries:

More people needing debt advice, employment issues, benefits advice

Greater demand for our services from individuals and referrers - no funding to maintain the services.

Increased numbers of people ineligible for public funded services - services not meeting needs - increasing numbers of people are falling into poverty and becoming overwhelmed with complex and multifarious health and social problems.

More people requiring on 'welfare reform' assistance rather than grants.

More people requiring food bank for help with absolute basic needs.

funding cuts for some of our service users

Volunteers on benefits are more stressed, either by benefit changes or cuts or increasing cost of living

Some volunteers have stopped coming because they have been told by welfare system that volunteering can lead to benefits being cut.

Also had volunteers affected by bedroom tax

Social Services paring down their spend on permanent accommodation

increased need for representations

The number of people coming to us for food aid due to changes in their benefits has increased from 15% in 2012/13 to 19.32% 2013/14. Benefit delays from 31% in 2012/13 to 37% in 2013/14

Beneficiaries feeling confused and sure they are being disadvantaged further. Much stronger drive to encourage disabled people into work; speaking with Remploy…

More concern amongst our users in how they are coping financially.

Impacts of 2nd bedroom tax, changes from DLA to PIP and loss of social fund loans.

Adult Social Care criteria are more strict and clients who would previously have qualified for their help are often told they don't meet criteria and are directed to us.

Even as a network of churches, we are struggling to cope with the demand in our services.

Increase in sanctions is causing a lot of hardship. Also one family affected by the "Bedroom Tax’

Access to hardship fund is difficult and so people rely on others to help them through the hiatus.

General trend towards requests for benefits advice and food banks

We are struggling with the capacity to deliver the changes and therefore is supporting volunteers to be more of a part of the work therefore the training and development is key to this work

Greater difficulty accessing legal advice especially around relationship breakdown and family law

D External relationships

11.How has your relationship)s) with District Council(s) changed?


Response Count

Better 8.0% 4

Worse 6.0% 3

Stayed the same 62.0% 31

n/a (no relationship) 24.0% 12

Explain your answer 10


skipped question 3

Individual comments:

Good relationship with local councillors. Supportive local councillor

District Councils are under pressure to meet increasing demands with decreasing funds - some understand the benefits of fostering and maintaining good relationships with the VCS - some even understand the benefits of funding VCS provision.

We are a user-led and survivor-led charity. We were optimistic about and hopeful that councils would be interested in what we do. We have found that they are either not interested in what we do, or wary of our user-led status

Have always has a good relationship with the council

Only one DC (Gloucester City) has funded us in the last few years, there has been little contact with other districts in the last couple of years. The future looks bleak.

Cheltenham Borough Council continues to give us matched grant support for our projects

Communications and actions between the group and the council's tree officer continue to provide both parties with support and a mutual respect.

We had a good relationship with SDC. We still have contact with officers and do work closely with them. However our overall relationship is not so robust - in my opinion due to the drop in funding they have to support voluntary sector and pressures on them to maintain their own staff levels and with a reduced budget.

We have no real contact with them

Good relationship with councillor - very supportive council officers

12. How has your relationship with the County Council changed?


Response Count

Better 6.0% 3

Worse 18.0% 9

Stayed the same 48.0% 24

n/a (no relationship) 28.0% 14


skipped question 3

Individual comments

currently have no links with county council x 3

The County Council is desperate to streamline their business - it would seem there is little understanding (or little interest in understanding) of the benefits of investing in the development of a healthy VCS.

The County Council appears to pursue its own course of action, spending time and effort on consultations that have little impact on the result.

The County Council has not supported local organisations with local volunteers that keep funding in the locality.

Attempts at consultation seem empty as direction of is driven by commissioners and not service users, professionals or community.

Public Health, made a decision not to include our charity as members of the XXX Forum … We felt that the decision was taken because we are a

user-led charity. This has been really distressing to us, because we felt we were excluded because we are service users / survivors. We felt that we were somehow lesser people, - that we are somehow tainted, flawed, unacceptable and judged for an aspect of ourselves that we have not chosen.

GCC appears distant. They make all the right noises publicly about engagement and consultation, but the reality is rather different. Individual meeting offers are almost always politely declined, except for one or two particular champions for our cause.

Trying to catch someone's attention during a wider engagement exercise is fraught with dangers of alienating fellow charity representatives who have the same problem of wanting their own voice heard, and meeting with a glazed eye expression from the speaker who has only come to tell you things, and is terrified of being bamboozled by you and a hundred others.

There is a disturbing sense that key commissioners have one or two 'favourites' among the VCS and we can all name them. Nothing against them, but it does make it harder for other causes to get their messages across.

Funding from County Council ceased some years ago. There currently seems to be NO relationship other than through the overloaded Gill Oxley (Equalities Officer) who does a sterling job under impossible circumstances!

Opportunity to work jointly with Health and Social Care.

We do not have a good relationship with the County Council. We have always championed local provision over their own view that commissioning county wide provision is best and more cost efficient. The funding we had from county has been given to a countywide service and we no longer have funding from them. Our existence seems to be perceived as damaging the countywide provision.

Don’t know who the right people to talk to anymore are.

GCC remain a distant organisation. Links with some councillors have become limited

The leadership of the county council run a dictatorship - the leader in particular acts like he owns the county and is extremely rude and obnoxious

Received new funding - better county councillor

13.I f you are involved in health and social care, how would you describe your relationship with local health structures? (for example: Health and Wellbeing Board; Clinical Commissioning Group; Healthwatch Gloucestershire)


Response Count

Excellent 4.3% 2

Good 14.9% 7

Fair 19.1% 9

Poor 6.4% 3

No relationship 55.3% 26

Explain your answer here 12


skipped question 6

Individual comments

We have more input into commissioning of services in my local area. Believe this is because of relationships held with city council

As a grant giving charity, we are not well known and would like to improve others awareness of our ability to help with grant funding. We are in the process of rebranding but what else can we do?

Our relationship with the CCG is terrible. (Sorry, but we have nothing to lose by our total honesty. We are already viewed so negatively.) They were openly sceptical that our founder of our charity could set up this charity. Well she has. And the feedback from our clients is excellent.

We have had no interest from the 2gether Trust in what we do - despite the fact that there is no other user-led charity like ours in the UK. We are a unique charity and we wonder why they don't support what we do. One of their patients set this charity up. Why are they not seeking to support and empower us as service users? They will not even put our posters up in waiting rooms to advertise our Post Traumatic Stress group.

Healthwatch no longer has group/organisation membership as had the LINk. I retain individual membership but it is now difficult for any 'community of interest' input.

Early days - relationship between different pathway groups still evolving. Great to have a Neurology lead in the CCG, and through GLOSNA a regular dialogue about the NCS audit of Neurology services and subsequent action plan.

Sadly we are so busy and so staff time poor that making these relationships has not yet been possible.

We work with the local surgery but could do much more through contact with Drs and links with local community opportunities

It is a two way process and collaboratively we can still go forward together Visits from hub members interested in work

14. If you are involved in working within the criminal justice system, how would you describe your relationship with local criminal justice structures? (for example: Police and Crime Commissioner; Community Safety Partnerships)


Response Count

Excellent 6.5% 3

Good 21.7% 10

Fair 10.9% 5

Poor 2.2% 1


Explain your answer here 8


skipped question 7

Individual Comments

Working closely with local police. Huge support and enthusiasm. Constant face to face contact. They visit our local groups to support delivery of services.

we have had a small grant from one of the police foundations

The PCC Commissioner's Fund supports our youth project.

We sit on county and local hate crime and incident groups and through that connection the Safer Gloucester Leadership Group. When funding goes this will have to be reviewed.

Not involved with Criminal Justice System.

We work with the Police very well, although this is on ground level.

Local police are very helpful and there is an atmosphere of mutual support

We are not directly linked to this but work collaboratively

We have found the people in the system to be supportive of the work we do.

14. If you are involved in working within the employment, skills and worklessness agenda, how you would describe your relationship with local structures? (for example: the Local Enterprise Partnership, or LEP)


Response Count

Excellent 2.2% 1

Good 8.7% 4

Fair 6.5% 3

Poor 4.3% 2


Explain your answer here. 7


skipped question 7

Individual comments

little or no contact

Historically Gloucestershire LEP has been impenetrable to most VCS organisations

Have established an excellent collaboration with Remploy in particular. They have realised that by working with us they are more likely to be successful in achieving their targets for employment with our beneficiary group.

We have tried to work with these sectors to provide training places for people. We felt so let down by these providers that we have not approached them again.

We enjoy a good relationship with these agencies

We are not directly linked to this but work collaboratively

LEP have been extremely positive in working with my organisation and very helpful and honest about the limitations of their function of driving growth and not social engineering

D Challenges ad Achievements

16. In terms of managing your organisation, what currently keeps you awake at night?

Capacity

Access to training etc.

increasing our service users – paperwork

can i get advertisements/press releases out on time.

The burden of process and bureaucracy in the organisation. We are chasing the wrong things and missing the important stuff. Good work done in 2013 will almost certainly not be progressed in 2014 as everyone is tied up in red tape.

keeping good staff in long term positions

Managing demands against pressures of living

Workload. .

Building in pension provisions.

Accessing quality support and supervision as the Manager of the organisation. Need for help recruiting and supporting volunteers

lack of support for volunteers.

recruiting volunteers x 2

co-ordinating volunteers and client waiting lists

The fact that we need more volunteers at management level. Very few people will volunteer at this level.

Finding a new treasurer

Getting new interested trustees x 2 Change management / quality

Rebuilding the organisation after a very difficult couple of years, in particular recruiting new volunteers and trustees, to ensure we are able to cope with the challenges that will face us in the future

Increasing the level of active support for the Charity and change management to introduce best practice - this working towards eventual Hallmark accreditation

The core focus for us is quality and ensuring that we maintain high standards despite an ever worsening financial climate.

Sustainability

keeping the project viable

Expenditure exceeding Income

Worrying that we have just nine months’ funding left and no longer any reserves, and our treasurer is having kittens, saying that we need to make 'drastic' decisions well before that nine months. Recently we have had two major contracts extended for a further six months whilst the public sector makes their minds up about the future. It gives short term stability but doesn't take the nightmare away: once we make the decision to let go of skilled staff, there will be no coming back from the grave even if the whole situation suddenly turned around again two weeks later. It takes three years to train up people to work for our organisation.

finding ways to increase our income

Lack of funding x 7

Funding is getting increasingly harder to source, especially to cover core costs.

Sustainability - and over reliance on the local authority.

MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trying to maintain service delivery in the face of other pressures

The loss of funding and the fact that bid writing is getting harder and more work has to go into it

Raising enough money to repair a tower on our site

client needs and keeping going in order to maintain the support they need

Affordable premises

Budgets! With more and more cuts from the local authority we have had to cast budgets that look very gloomy. Fundraising is an ever more competitive field and without this we would not be able to continue our services. Voice

How best to get our message across

Seeming lack of desire for engagement. Promoting our work

will people come to our meetings.

Nothing - staying awake would not help. Collaboration

Range of people deliberately attacking the VCS and it's organisations not working in partnership

Increased competition regarding our Furniture Reuse Project.

17. What achievements are you most proud of?

Development of community led services.

That we have survived a difficult couple of years and the encouragement and support we have received from organisations across the voluntary and statutory sectors.

Major self-help maintenance effort and on-going review of processes and procedures.

Joining GAVCA as a full member.

Resolution of some governance and property issues.

Health workshops and culture events

setting up our structure

Helping over 500 clients

Providing services to service users that generate excellent feedback!

Excellent partnership working with other organisations.

Key successes with fundraising.

We are most proud of the fact that there are people who are alive now, who may well have died by suicide, if our service did not exist. Some of our clients have been high risk and it is they who say that they do not know if they would have survived, if it had not been for our service. This is our feeling, too, knowing how high risk they were.

Giving to a wider variety of services

getting Charitable status

Keeping up the awareness. Speaking on local radio. Press reports

Over 100 came to a debate in Stroud on the motion 'prison works' heavily defeated. One member of the audience said she'd changed her mind about prisons after listening to the speakers. This is our main aim.

Diversifying income streams, appointing a Fundraising and Marketing Manager and still being here!

Safe, person-centred care and well-trained, supported workforce

Staying open

Increased involvement with our Community

We have experienced 100% increase in demand and have managed to keep up with that demand.

Launch of an education centre; Finding work for six profoundly Deaf sign language users in the past four months. One had not worked for 11 years; Launch of a Deaf enterprise zone (about to happen!; Becoming a Deaf charity that appears to be the envy of other Deaf charities around the country. We have had four other Deaf charities in the past six months approach us to show them the way. If only they knew that despite our apparent success, we are still struggling to survive; presenting a major report in response to the recent 'Joining Up Your Care' engagement by Gloucestershire CCG. Will it make a difference though? have to wait and see.

Playing a proactive role in developing partnership work including initiating projects and leading partnership teams to achieve action. Continuing success of work in schools and the grouping youth group; securing ongoing funding for the youth group for the next 3 years.

Securing stage 1 HLF bid and Arts Council Grant.

the number of students we have worked with

Our pilot delivery of a new enablement programme - increased the scope of our activities and access to our services.

Our fund raising and completion of maintenance and enhancement goals

Some of our long term volunteers have found paid employment.

New grant to extend one of our projects and therefore keep our project officer employed.

A new project will be launching later this year.

Increased our presence within social media and other networks.

New website.

Our continued ability to work with people with very complex disabilities and contribute to their quality of life. In some cases we have made progress where we understood there was little chance

of this and this has been done by dedicated and high calibre staff committed to the ethos of the organisation.

We have also managed to retain our external accreditations despite reduced staff resources, another mark of the quality of our provision.

Providing funding to introduce and maintain mangroves in Gambia.

The hard work and enthusiasm of the communities’ volunteers which makes this work possible. Planting 60 trees in a local park to improve the area, supporting a new cycle track created by the council.

Helping older people to remain independent in their own homes. Little things mean so much to people and it is lovely when they tell you how much something has helped them. So often people do not know what is available to them and giving time to listen and impart appropriate advice and support is the reason we get out of bed to do this job.

social peer support groups and general well-being support. benefit advice and networking services

maintaining our level of services and income considering the economic climate

Establishment of soft play facility for Under 5s.

We are still here, expanding into new areas of work, building new links!

clients who have got their "status" and therefore now safe.

Got kids into school

got kids into fostering care

kept people from enforced removal

provided good quality, consistent advice, and ESOL provision.,

Obtaining grants towards the repair of the tower and improving the finances of our Unit

Developing a partnership project with local providers to run a sports project for local young people, sharing our wide skills in promotion, fundraising, community sport and education to great effect

The fact that we are still here and still striving to move forward The community directs our work so we should be able to continue on until maybe funding gets easier

It is too competitive at the moment

Altering the services we provide to work in with the changes to the education system

Improving quality of our internal processes, eg embedding support and supervisions, annual reviews, improving integrity of performance management data, increasing volunteer engagement

Number of volunteers increased

Survival! … and delivering a great service

18. General Comments

We are starting to engage with a number of 'hard to reach' groups and over the next 12 months we expect to hear of more cases where older people have fallen through the health and social care 'safety net'.

A good Local Authority with a sensible commissioning strategy should be supporting and encouraging local organisations to build local support infrastructures and build strength in local communities.

There are so many excellent examples of wonderful organisations set up by and for local people to meet local need in Gloucestershire. These seem to be the ones that are least recognised by the County Council and least able to attract funding or other forms of support.

We wish that this county would recognise what we are doing, and support it. The public response is excellent. The response from councils, statutory services and the police is one of disinterest, or a feeling that this is somehow frightening and risky, because it's user-led. If they find it frightening or risky, then bring those concerns to us, so that we at least have the chance to answer them and show what we are doing. We should not be as isolated as we are in this county. What we are doing is working. It's unique and valuable. It's been described as 'ground-breaking' and 'pioneering'.

Despite asking GAVCA to publicise our grant funding cycles several times during 2013, this has not happened we believe. Can this be improved? Our name is Gloucestershire Association for Disability

Voluntary groups are the backbone of charity work.

Managing Church Finances is the most changing

It just feels like it’s getting harder and harder to survive!

It is harder and harder to secure income for our services. People want more for free or for less. I think that people think charities are 'funded by someone else'

Good support from GAVCA.

It is very difficult as an independent local charity to link in with larger national businesses. Many are only willing to sponsor, fund raise or develop partnerships with national charities.

We are keen to ensure that our organisation continues to be a proper charitable organisation. We acknowledge that things are not as they used to be and that we do have to try and make our own way in the world. However, doing that without losing sight of the core values we hold is a very difficult thing to do. How do you make that transition from having time for people to making enough money to survive? It doesn't sit well with us.

I believe we all need to give more support to the new VCS alliance so there is a strong independent voice for the VCS sector

We have been encouraged over the last few years to change the way we provide services and charge for them so that we can meet the "individual Budget" culture that Adult Social Care were adopting. We have all done this - often helped by the excellent GAVCA courses. However, the reality of this is different and we are still not seeing enough people with personal budgets or people who are giving ASC instructions on who they would like their care purchased from. This is seriously damaging to small voluntary sector organisations. ASC also spent lots of time trying to negotiate the lowest possible price from us to maximise the buying potential of their client. This is understandable but should be reflected across all that ASC purchase. I have recently been very cross about losing work that I know was quoted at several hundred pounds less than the "Commissioned provider" quoted for the same thing. How can this be when we are told that every penny counts?

The VCS sector needs to come together but it won't, due to pride or the competitive nature that exists within groups

The struggle with core funding is a greatest worry

“the state of the sector” how the voluntary and community ... · pdf filehow the...

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