Cultural Playing Field

On Wednesday I was at the Cabinet Office in London to meet John Knights, Policy Manager- Volunteering at the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) to discuss opportunities for volunteering in relation to the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. We talked about how to ensure voluntary arts groups take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Cultural Olympiad, how the Olympic volunteering programme is being co-ordinated between LOCOG, OTS, DCMS etc, and how to realise the aim of the Games to leave a legacy of increased participation in the arts. We also discussed how OTS might be able to help us to work across other Government Departments to improve support for the voluntary arts and help to unlock the potential of the sector.

This morning I was at The Goring Hotel, Victoria, London, for the final breakfast meeting of the Volunteering Hub Scrutiny Committee. We reflected on the achievements of the Volunteering Hub and the 104 projects we have funded over the past 3 years. We discussed our successes and failures and tried to identify the areas in which the Hub has had the most significant effect. We also heard how the new Volunteering National Support Service is progressing. This will be a much smaller, more focussed partnership programme which will take forward some aspects of the Hub’s work. To ensure continuity, members of the Volunteering Hub Scrutiny Committee have been invited to join a new advisory committee for the National Support Service but I have decided that, after two years, this feels like the right time to bow out and concentrate on other things. I have very much enjoyed the experience of being part of the Scrutiny Committee. I think the model of bringing in external expertise to scrutinise the work of the Volunteering Hub has proved useful and effective. We have certainly been rigorous in our examination of commissioning proposals and project reports - and I think this has been a healthy process for all involved. I’ve gained much insight and confidence myself from being a scrutineer. But I won’t miss getting up at 5 am for the meetings - despite the wonderful breakfasts!

On Thursday I was at Community Matters in London for a meeting about the new ‘Leadership & Governance’ National Support Service. This programme – funded by Capacitybuilders as one of the replacements for the old ChangeUp national Hubs – is a partnership between NCVO, acevo and the Community Sector Coalition. The meeting I attended was an opportunity for Coalition members to help to plan the parts of the programme which will be delivered by the CSC. The emphasis for the programme (as for the all the national support services) is to help ‘Support Providers’ (including local infrastructure organisations and national membership bodies such as voluntary arts umbrella organisations) to deliver capacity-building to local front-line organisations. In the case of the Leadership & Governance support service there will be a particular focus on small community groups – including voluntary arts groups. The old Governance Hub was very helpful to VAN and enabled us to deliver a programme of governance support to voluntary arts umbrella bodies. It looks like there should be even more potential to improve leadership and governance in local voluntary arts groups through the new national support service.

On Tuesday I was at Highgate House in Creaton, Northamptonshire for the annual NCVO Board awayday. There was much discussion of the Conservative Party green paper on the role of the third sector which had just been released and which includes several proposals that NCVO had been pushing for (changing the Office of the Third Sector to an Office for Civil Society, establishing a select committee for the sector etc). As well as the usual business, the Board meeting looked in detail at NCVO’s environmental performance. You can see details of progress on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiHnvpY8WkA

This morning I presented a session on the 2012 Cultural Olympiad at the Volunteering England Convention in Gateshead at which I launched the second VAN ‘Once in a Lifetime’ Briefing – available shortly at: http://www.voluntaryarts.org/2012 – which explains how to develop and submit project ideas for the UK-wide cultural festival. It was good to hear Sarah Benioff (Deputy Director of the Office of the Third Sector at the Cabinet Office) later in the morning referring to the importance of the Cultural Olympiad in helping to develop a sustainable legacy of increased volunteering. Sarah took a fair bit of flak from delegates – particularly about the lack of sustainable funding for local volunteer centres. Someone made the point that, welcome though the Government’s new Access to Volunteering fund to encourage more disabled volunteers is, this £4M investment compares poorly with the £117M recently allocated to youth volunteering. But I think the Office of the Third Sector gains credibility and respect by regularly being willing to put up senior civil servants to listen to the sector at conferences and seminars.