NVSC - Newham Voluntary Sector Consortium

Working in Partnership

November 30, 2007

Over the past few months, everywhere you go in Newham. People are talking about "working in partnership". All around us there are odd groupings of people beginning to show signs of stress as they desperately try and join a consortium, and then worry just in case there are other consortia, and should they join another group. They are spending all their time just attending meetings. Partnership is not the panacea to all the issues that we, as the Third Sector in Newham, are currently battling with.

I say battling, because that is exactly how it feels. It doesn't have to be like this, but in Newham it is. The facts of the matter are that we, in the Third Sector, have a different definition of Partnership Working than the decision makers.

There is nothing mysterious about working in partnership, forming a consortia or any other name that is used. But it doesn't just happen. It takes time, and resources and above all a commitment from all involved that this is how they want to move forward.

Over the past few months we have been forced into partnerships, these are based solely on the fact that the Council would prefer to fund a consortium. Or that a partner is required as part of a bid. And yet there has never been any attempt to properly resource partnership development.

This is not to say that there are not successful partnerships in Newham - there probably are, but examples don't immediately spring to mind. If we look at the experience of the recent commissioning process you will find in almost all the service specifications, the Council are positively welcoming consortia bids. We have 14 weeks in which to submit a bid. The only additional resources that are available to put a consortia together is half a day of a consultants time.

The experience of a recently formed consortia is that it took some 6 months, a dedicated staff member 2 days a week, numerous meetings, each consortia member having to get their Trustee approval and learning to trust each other. The additional cost of this was £10k. The consortia were also fortunate that the lead organisation was large enough to be able to second a member of staff to do the developmental work required. It takes skill and time to get agreement.

The sector should be encouraged to work together, we are all acutely aware of the reducing resources, we understand that there is very little sense in duplication, but at the same time, we are also aware of the real needs of the communities in this Borough, that a one size fits all approach does not work in Newham.

There is little point in encouraging partnership if at the same time the very organisations that could lead on this work are facing severe cuts to their funding.

We accept that in many cases the larger organisations could enable smaller community organisations, by partnering, but this should never be seen as a way to silence the demands of the many groups who are doing an excellent job
in supporting the very communities that continue to be marginalised.

Partnership working requires commitment, trust, respect and a genuine agreement to work together - if in any way this is forced it will end in divorce, and the losers will be the communities we work with.

Sarah Ruiz
NVSC Director

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