Taskforce gets down to the nitty gitty

The Taskforce on Resourcing the Voluntary and Community Sector has been up and running for four months. It spent some time in exploring its task and then planning how it will carry out its work over the year or so available.

From that the Taskforce has identified a number of key areas for further exploration which it believes is central to its core task. The Taskforce has agreed to establish four working groups to explore these areas in greater detail. An academic adviser for each of the groups has been selected on the basis of their specialist expertise in the area.

The four working groups are:

• government policy for support and funding of the voluntary and community sector
• accountability and organisational systems of governance
• infrastructure
• sustainability.

The groups are chaired respectively by Dave Wall (Voluntary and Community Unit ), Seamus McAleavey (NICVA), Anne O’Reilly (Help the Aged ) and Paul Cavanagh (Western Health and Social Services Board ). The academic advisers to the working groups are Professor Jimmy Kearney, Dr Jeremy Harbison, Dr Mike Morrissey and Professor Colin Knox. The Taskforce has drawn in at least sixty other people to the working groups with a range of experience across the voluntary and community sector and government in particular.

Each working group is beginning with a scoping study to draw in all previous work on their particular subject which will help them in their discussions. It is expected that the working groups will meet three or four times over the summer and each will submit a report to the Taskforce for further consideration.

It is expected that the working groups will build on experiences of the past, identifying what works best and what does not and, where appropriate, use best practice examples to highlight and inform practice and policy in Northern Ireland for government support of the sector. When the Taskforce fully considers the reports from the working groups it is expected that many of their recommendations will be incorporated into a consultation document or options paper which will be published by the Taskforce by early November. That paper will be subject to a three month consultation period with the wider voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland and any other interested parties. Feedback from that consultation will clearly influence the Taskforce in the drafting of its final report which it expects to submit to the Minister for Social Development by the end of March.

These are four key areas for voluntary and community organisations in Northern Ireland. SCOPE has reported many times on issues directly related to these subjects and SCOPE knows that they affect the daily practice of voluntary and community groups. Issues such as how do we properly spend and account for public funds while still getting the job done? What type of infrastructure, if any, does the sector need? What do we mean by sustainability - maybe it is just over hyped in the funding relationship with government? If the government has a policy on the sector can it ever really be implemented in a coherent way? Who knows? The Taskforce might not but it wants to find out. The Taskforce and working groups welcome any comments or submissions at any time. These can be given directly to working group members, Taskforce members or to the Taskforce secretariat.

They can also be submitted to the Taskforce website at www.taskforcevcsni.gov.uk . The website hopes to play an interactive part in the process and allows anyone to post comments or to contact the Taskforce with any viewpoint they may have. The minutes and papers are published on the site.A full list of the members of working groups is also available. It is the policy of the Taskforce to be as open and transparent in all its activities as it is possible to be.

If you would like to contact the Taskforce the address is:
Claire Anderson, Taskforce Secretariat, Department for Social Development, Freepost NATN511, Belfast BT2 7BR.

taskforce@vcuni.gov.uk

028 9091 0090

028 9091 0088 or textphone 028 9091 0087

www.taskforcevcsni.gov.uk