An insight into Northamptonshire's approach to engaging the Third Sector in their LAAs and how they are approaching their LAAS.

Engaging the Third Sector in Northamptonshire’s LAA

Northamptonshire Third Sector Office (NTSO) is a Voluntary and Community Sector organisation, one of its key strands is the delivery of infrastructure services across in Northamptonshire.

As an infrastructure organisation, NTSO plays a supporting, co-ordinating, representation, policy-making and development role for other voluntary and community groups, including social enterprises.

Support offered by NTSO
NTSO provides support to Local Infrastructure Organisations (LIOs) in Northamptonshire, for example, the Council for Ethnic Minority Communities (CEMC) and the YMCA.  Both  are the specialist infrastructure organisations (second-tier organisations working with specific community groups).

Support provided by NTSO is either generic (a range of services provided to everyone) or ’specialist’ (support to specific groups or specific types of advice). Through the support of infrastructure services, NTSO enables the delivery of high quality and sustainable services locally.

In March 2006 the NTSO together with other VCS organisations established the third sector Infrastructure Steering Group. The aim of the Group is to manage change in the front-line organisations and to be a link between the third sector and the LAA. At the monthly meetings delegates discuss strategic issues such as capacity development, governance and  ICT skills development in VCS organisations.

VCS representation on the LAA
Northamptonshire does not have one county-wide Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) but seven local LSPs. The County Council, which is accountable for the LAA, established a county-wide LAA Board. Although the Board has no decision-making authority it serves as a steering and co-ordinating body.

There are seven district and borough areas in Northamptonshire and each of them has established their own local third sector forums. The third sector local infrastructure organisations work closely with these forums and the different LSPs.

The County Council (CC) has plans for transforming the LAA Board into the Public Service Board (PSB). It will be equipped to make decisions regarding the LAA funding (including the Area Based Grant) on behalf of its members, but its scope will be much wider than LAA. The transformation is planned to be finalised around April 2008, with the first PSB meeting expected in May 2008. The PSB will bring together all the key partners and ensure joint-up approach to public service delivery. The County Council expects that such close relations will also enable more effective pooling of mainstream resources. At the present the LAA Board consists of "governance" level (such as elected members, trust or board members) representatives of the local authorities, health trusts, voluntary sector, police, the criminal justice sector, the private sector and the care sector through representation from the four 'deliverby' locks.

Murphy Brown, Third Sector Business Development Director of the NTSO, sits on the LAA Board as the third sector representative. There are also two places for deputies on the LAA Board which the NTSO is currently recruiting for.

NTSO also has a role in helping second and third-tier VCS organisations engage in the LAA structure, currently the LAA theme boards. The third sector is already represented on SSC, HCOP, EDE and CYP Boards, but its presence needs to be stronger and more confident. The County Council is planning to facilitate the change of the block boards structure in preparation to introducing the new LAA. The structure will be determined by the priorities identified to deliver. The only change agreed so far is the transformation of the CYP board into the Children’s Partnership Board, which effectively will be Children’s Trust Board (for creating which there is a statutory obligation). These changes pose a great opportunity for the third sector to be more engaged in the process.

The role of VCS organisations, regardless of what LAA structure will be in place, is to be a link between the LAA boards and local community. Third sector representatives feed their knowledge and expertise to the LAA Board’s discussions and also disseminate information gained at the meetings to the communities.

VCS activity in the Current LAA
In 2005 Northamptonshire County Council established the LAA office, which led on the negotiation process. It coordinated the partnership engagement and agreed which organisations would lead on which LAA outcomes.

The third sector organisations were engaged early in this process and have been since involved in delivering improvement mainly in the HCOP area, jointly with the PCT and the County Council. The targets the VCS organisations are working towards (although they are not directly accountable for achieving them) are associated with e.g. obesity, smoking cessation, increasing hours of exercising. Age Concern is one of such organisations. To support it, the PCT and CC make funds available for building Age Concern’s capacity to deliver. Some front-line organisations have their projects at least partly funded by the CC with the Pump Priming Grant.

The NTSO also agreed with the Northamptonshire CC that they would lead on one of the stretch targets. The target relates to increasing the number of volunteers in Northamptonshire form 20% to 25% by the end of the 3-year LAA. Should this target be achieved, the result will be rewarded with the Performance Reward Grant.

Second generation LAA
Negotiations for the second generation of the LAA have been more mature. The Partnership has been running workshops to discuss priorities for Northamptonshire for the next 3 years. Organisations involved in these meetings have been: the County Council, Borough and District Councils, third sector organisations, public services and development corporations. The discussions are coordinated by the LAA Office.

New LAAs have put more pressure on the partnerships to evidence how they work with the VCS. To help partners realise how much the third sector is already doing, in November 2006 NTSO commissioned a mapping exercise to identify which public services are currently being delivered by VCS organisations. The research is being conducted by Sustained Consultancy, which plans to complete it in mid-February 2008. The research will provide for a baseline figure showing the number and proportion of services commissioned by the County Council and which are being delivered by the third sector. 

Challenges 
The most pressing challenge at the moment for the third sector in Northamptonshire is being heard at the right level. To achieve that, the VCS needs to have confident representatives, able to lead meaningful debate at the strategic level with the local authorities and their partners.

To support third sector representatives, the NTSO has introduced a skills development programme – ’be representative’. The NTSO is in the process of preparing a toolkit, which will be published in February/March 2008. The toolkit will focus on ways to boost VCS representatives’ confidence in negotiations, so they can be equal partners in discussions. It is too often said that the third sector delegates have all the necessary knowledge, but lack skills to be active in a debate.

The ’be representative’ programme is being supported jointly by NTSO and Converge, a third sector specialist organisation leading on learning and development in Northamptonshire. Converge conducted consultations among the third sector organisations on their needs in the capacity building area, which formed a base for constructing the ’be representative’ programme.

The NTSO finds it crucial for the third sector organisations to change their attitude towards the Compact.. NTSO’s Murphy Brown feels that the Compact has been used too much as means of reminding the local authorities their duty to support VCS sector with funds. the

"The focus should be shifted in actually using the Compact as tool for the third sector to establish themselves as equal partner in negotiations, including the LAA process."

 NTSO will insist that the County Council integrates the Compact into all the strategies it leads on. One of the results expected by the third sector will be raising VCS profile in the consultations to allow enough time for each partner to feedback and respond properly.