VCS Empowerment Toolkit - your guide to survival

Have you ever wanted to challenge decisions made by public bodies such as government departments, local authorities, or NHS Trusts?

VAL has put together an online toolkit to help the VCS challenge decisions through:

• Partnership working
• Collective voice
• Public law
• The Compact
• Petitions

Voluntary Action LeicesterShire can help you steer your course through this range of options.

Partnership Working

Our funders are very keen to stress the importance of the VCS. They place a great value on the way we deliver services closer to communities, and get service user involvement right. However they often don't put their money where their mouth is, and sometimes good voluntary sector organisations lose their funding. This section is about what to do when this happens.

The first course of action is always to work in partnership with our funders. Through dialogue it is possible to find out where each party is coming from and explore options for resolving the funding and contractual issues. Where possible it is best to avoid challenging funders, but sometimes this may become necessary.

Collective Voice

Through getting together we can have a more powerful voice which can influence public bodies. VAL have a staff that support a range of forums focussed on specialist areas such as children and young people, care providers, and disability.

Click here to view this range of networks.

Each forum will have representation at key multi-agency planning meetings where senior managers from commissioning bodies meet. Gaining the support of these multi-agency planning meetings can in turn influence the decisions made within individual statutory organisations.

Click here to see who your VCS representatives are in your area of work.

VAL are also currently creating a VCS Assembly to create a single and strong voice for the Voluntary Sector. This will provide a mechanism for strategic partners to engage with the VCS, respond collectively to consultations, and enable cross cutting themes to be addressed in a proactive way.

Click here to find out more about how you can get involved with the VCS Assembly.

Compact

Your first course of action when challenging public decisions is to look at your local compact. The Compact is an agreement that sets out how the voluntary and community sector (VCS) and the statutory sector will work together for the benefit of the local people. There is a national compact, and local compacts in all local authority areas.

Click here to find out more about the Compact

If the principles of the compact have been breached then you can refer to this with your funder. For serious breaches you may want to see if you can use public law to challenge the decision.

Public Law

Public law is the set of legal rules which ensure bodies carrying out public functions discharge their legal duties and do not abuse or exceed their powers.

There is an ‘Empowering the Voluntary Sector' service that provides tailored advice and training to help local third sector organisations understand the principles and framework of the Compact and public law. Decisions such as ‘ending funding without notice', or ‘failure to consult with VCS providers' can be deemed unlawful or contrary to the compact.

Empowering the Voluntary Sector service is run jointly by:

• National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) Compact Advocacy Programme; and
• The National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA) Public Law Project

To use this service contact the Compact Advocacy telephone helpline. This team will look at each case and then either provide advice on managing the case using Compact tools or refer the issue to the team of lawyers at Public Law Project for legal advice.

The advice line is available Monday to Friday 10.00 -16.00 on 020 7520 3161. Or you may email this service on: evsadvice@ncvo-vol.org.uk

To find out more about this project and training dates visit www.navca.org.uk/evs

Use VAL's help to bring all affected parties together

With decisions that are likely to affect a number of VCS organisations, Voluntary Action LeicesterShire can co-ordinate local third sectors response. We can help encourage a dialogue between the VCS and statutory bodies, and if necessary help to challenge decisions. This way the public law project can meet the needs of as many groups as possible rather than a single organisation. If groups try to get this support separately only one group will get the support, as there will be a conflict of interest in all following cases. As a local infrastructure organisation, Voluntary Action LeicesterShire can refer cases directly to the public law project.

Petitions

The government introduced a new power for councillors in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 called the Councillor Call for Action. This empowers councillors to require overview and scrutiny committees to consider issues of local concern. The mains conditions for an eligible petition is that it relates to a local authority matter, that it is organised by a local person, and that there are at least 250 signatures

Both Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council have processes for receiving petitions through their respective Democratic Services Departments. Please see the local guidance through the links below.

• Leicester City Council
• Leicestershire County Council Leaflet: Presenting a Petition
• E petitions homepage
• Prime Minister: Online petitions or e-petitions are a new way to create petitions

Listening to communities: Consultation on draft statutory guidance on the duty to respond to petitions

This consultation is open till 24 February 2010. The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 aims to reinvigorate local democracy by placing local authorities on the front line of ensuring local citizens connect with local decision makers.

This draft statutory guidance takes forward one strand of this policy. It sets out the key principles and requirements of the petitions duty, which requires local authorities to create a scheme for responding to the petitions they receive, and to comply with that scheme.

If you would like to take part in this consultation click here

How effective are these tools?

The success rate of these tools has not been evaluated. If you use any of these tools please let Voluntary Action LeicesterShire know how useful they were. While the above tools may not guarantee success, they should help you move your case forward.

How to get in touch with VAL

If you are thinking about challenging a decision made by a statutory body, you can get in touch with our telephone helpline to report the issue, and an appropriate member of staff will get in touch to discuss it further.

Telephone VAL Helpline: 0116 257 5050
Email: helpline@valonline.org.uk

Helpline opening hours:
Monday - Thursday: 9am - 7pm
Friday: 9am - 5pm
Saturday: 9am - 12pm