Annual Report 2007-2008

The 2007-2008 Annual Report is available to download in a PDF format or is in Word format below.  The Audited Accounts are also available to download in PDF format.

Chair's Report
Director's Report
Reception
Funding Information North East
Funding Advice Work
Capacity Building Project

Gateshead Community Network

Skills for Life
Volunteer Centre

The Tenants and Residents Development Project
Community Accountancy Project

Payroll
Gateshead Advocacy and Information Network

Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health

aTENSION Gateshead Diverse Communities Health Care Initiative

BME Community Development Worker - Learning Disability

Working Together Tyne and Wear Operations Team

Staff and Volunteers

Management Committee 2007/2008

Chair's Report

Welcome to our Annual Review for the year 2007 – 08. Once again we have had a year of mixed fortunes at GVOC, the sum of which provide a perfect example of the increasing complexities of the environment in which we operate, and the challenges both GVOC and the organisations we support in Gateshead face.

After one year as Chair my main aim in this introduction is to thank our dedicated team of managers, staff, volunteers and trustees for helping us negotiate our way through another challenging year. Gev Pringle has now established himself in the role of Director, and I’d like to thank him for his dedication and hard work in providing a positive new direction and leadership. Sadly some key members of our staff team have been coping with serious health issues this year, and I’d like to wish those people a full recovery, as well as thanking them and the rest of the staff team for their continued hard work and commitment. Our volunteers also contribute enormously to our achievements and I’d like to thank them on behalf of GVOC.

I’d like to acknowledge the support of our many funders, and other external stakeholders for their ongoing support of GVOC. Without these partnerships we could not achieve our goal in supporting the invaluable work of the third sector in Gateshead.

You can see from this review that there have been some significant
achievements over the year, including:
• Being awarded funding to allow a youth volunteering project to commence in April 2008
• Winning the contract to act as the host for the Gateshead Local Involvement Network (LINk)
• Launching Gateshead’s Year of Volunteers

There have also been some significant challenges. Funding patterns for infrastructure organisations are changing and GVOC is having to plan for a different era in funding. As mentioned earlier, serious health issues have created managerial difficulties. However, GVOC’s staff have, as always, responded flexibly to this situation.

Finally, I would like to thank my fellow trustees for supporting me in my role as Chair, and providing intelligent and thoughtful leadership throughout the year. In particular I’d like to thank Anne Marshall for deputising for me when my new post with Mind nationally has meant I have been unable to attend committee meetings.

Our sector continues to provide challenges, and as I write the wider economic winds are blowing cold, but I am confident that GVOC is well placed to weather the storms and maintain our reputation as a first class CVS in the coming year. I hope you enjoy reading about our work over 2007 – 08, which you can see has been well received in the borough and region wide.

Sharon Stuart / Chair

Top | Home

Director's Report

I am now into my third year as Director of GVOC so cannot feign ignorance or induction period anymore. And, predictably, this has been a more difficult year for the organisation with shifts in funding threatening projects and ongoing reviews and audits interfering with our ability to deliver services.

GVOC’s staff respond very professionally to challenges and all of the difficulties have been virtually overcome. Projects, such as GAIN, that appeared to be entering financial hot water have completely reversed the situation and achieved a more stable funding base. However, the warning signs are there and the sector cannot ignore the fact that infrastructure support in the form of funding is becoming more difficult to find. GVOC is an infrastructure body and runs smaller infrastructure projects. We
must be on our mettle.

The irony is that at a national level there is a lot of recognition for the role of the voluntary sector and the support required from infrastructure bodies such as GVOC. However, the reality of a policy that is driving us into consortium working, joint long term planning, consortium funding bids and so on, rather than focussing endeavour, appears to be creating complexity and blocking easy access to support for individual organisations. This situation also appears to be here for some time.

However, having said this, GVOC continues to thrive. We have been awarded the contract to develop Gateshead Local Involvement Network (LINk) and we remain the host to the Community Network working through the Gateshead Strategic Partnership. This is Gateshead’s Year of Volunteers and our Volunteer Centre is central to this. Both the local authority and the health services are recognising the value of the voluntary sector more and more and GVOC will continue into 2008 and
2009 ensuring the best outcomes for the sector.

Top | Home

Reception

The GVOC reception team are praised regularly by colleagues and visitors alike for their friendly, professional manner and for their knowledge of the voluntary sector.

The team dealt with more than 13,100 telephone calls in the year, that’s an average of 257 per week. Visitors totalled more than 6,300 which is an average of 125 every week. All callers are welcomed equally and signposted on, either to the appropriate member of staff or to other organisations when necessary.

Members of GVOC regularly use our duplicating and photocopying service and the team are always around to lend a hand if needed – it’s all in a day’s work. Their help is very much appreciated and the team are rewarded by the many positive comments received such as:

‘Thanks – great help’

‘Thanks you very much for all your hard work to make the event such a success’

‘I want to record my thanks to your fabulous reception team for their help at a time of crisis’

‘My colleague is full of praise for your staff’s support, flexibility and help’

‘I want to say a big thank you for the support I have been receiving from reception. Their help has been invaluable’

‘Thanks, you’re a star’

'Brilliant, thank you so much’

Top | Home

Funding Information North East

‘FINE has been the regional infrastructure agency that has most consistently provided high quality meaningful support to a wide range of VCS organisations’ (Regional organisation) FINE remained a member of the National Funding Advice Agencies Partnership. The Partnership secured a grant from the National Finance Hub to establish a national funding advisers network as well as develop ways to increase the quality of funding advice across England. FINE led on the development of a competency framework for funding advisers and a quality mark in funding advice
and jointly led on the development of level four training modules.

FINE was invited to be a part of the Third Sector Strategic Forum. This Forum has been established by Government Office for the North East to provide them with the mechanism to discuss government policy and its impact on the Third Sector in the North East. As well as FINE, the Forum partners are, VONNE, BECON and NESEP.

The 5th edition of The North East Guide to Grants for Individuals was published in January 2008. This specialist book and database provides information on funding for individuals in need and is popular with charitable and statutory sector agencies. Also, FINE’s information bulletins, News You Can Use and Grants Bulletin continued to be regarded as vital services, allowing Third Sector organisations and funding advisers to keep up to date with a wide range of funding opportunities. In October 2007 as a result of a grant from One North East, FINE launched The North East Third Sector
Funding Opportunities Database. This database provides information on funding programmes from local and central government, lottery distributors, loan giving organisations, Europe as well as charitable trusts and foundations. By the end of the financial year 783 users accessed one or more of FINE’s information services.

Four workers from the North West and seven from the North East, all of whom have a responsibility for giving funding advice, achieved their level 3 certificates after completing FINE’s Giving Funding Advice course. Eight one-day professional development courses were organised covering a diverse range of topics such as Charity Accounts, Social Enterprise, Tax Effective Giving and Business Planning. An average of nine funding advisers attended each course.

FINE continued to facilitate the North East Funding Advice Workers Network (FAWN) meetings. These meetings provide funding advisers with the opportunity to meet together to share information, knowledge and best practice, as well as meet with a wide variety of funders. FINE also continued to provide secretariat support to the North East Funders Forum. Once again a series of successful, well attended, seminars were arranged, providing statutory and charitable funders with opportunities to
network and discuss a wide range of topics.

“Quality standards are important and regional organisations such as FINE ensure that funding information provision, training, peer support and on going professional development are readily available to local funding advisers.”

Top | Home

Funding Advice Work

John Haswell Memorial Trust

The John Haswell Memorial Trust continues to be an invaluable and enjoyable part of the Funding Adviser’s role. The Trust now administers three funds, The Memorial Trust, Great North Forest Travel Grants and Gateshead Community Network Small Grants Scheme.

The John Haswell Memorial Trust award grants from £25 - £400 for start up costs, equipment, activities, education and general charitable activities. This year 19 groups have been awarded nearly£5,000.

The Great North Forest Travel Grants awards grants from £25 - £100 to cover transport costs for voluntary organisations visiting the Great North Forest area for a day.

The Gateshead Community Network Small Grants Scheme, award grants from £25 to £1500 for new and emerging community organisations toward start up, organisational developments, activities and equipment costs. Six groups were awarded a total of £8338.91.

Funding Information

39 People in Need searches have been carried out. However the funding advisor works with VCS groups. Requests for assistance ranged from fixing a stair-lift to expenses incurred to participate in the Tall Ships Race.

Over 400 telephone calls were received for the funding advice service. GVOC’s funding section on the website is frequently updated and in the year has taken almost 1,000 hits and almost 70 Funding advice sessions have taken place.

All six funding sections of GVOC’s newsletter have been produced on target. This information could not be produced without the priceless support and information from Funding Information North East.

The Information Sheets relating to funding and funding issues have been overhauled. There are now 13 information sheets specific to fundraising and are available to download from our website http://www.gvoc.org.uk

Local Network Fund

During this last year we helped The Community Foundation of Tyne & Wear deliver the contract on the Local Network Fund for Children and Young People. This was always a time limited funding stream and finished in December 2007. Grants of up to £7,000 were on offer to voluntary organisations working with children and young people to help deliver some of the Every Child Matters outcomes.

Top | Home

Capacity Building Project

The Community Capacity Building Project was set up in 2002 and offers information, training and advice to voluntary organisations and community groups throughout the Borough of Gateshead.

Over the past twelve months the project has worked to plan and deliver a large part of the training offered to the voluntary sector. The project has worked with 45 voluntary organisations and community groups identifying their training and development needs and assisting them to address those identified needs.

The project has provided 25 one-day, non-accredited training courses as part of the GVOC training programme, providing volunteers, staff and paid workers of a variety of organisations and community groups with the knowledge and skills to operate more effectively. The project has delivered 7 courses as part of GVOC’s ‘Voluntary Sector Toolkit’ programme, accredited through Open College Network North East.

The project has also been able to offer a sign-posting service, so that any enquiries received by the project can be passed on to other GVOC projects or to appropriate external organisations.

The project has continued to organise information and consultation events, 3 for this year around Individualised Budgets.

Top | Home

Empower Gateshead

GCN continues to support the members and representatives on the Gateshead Strategic Partnership and the following GSP Themed Partnerships: Children and Young People, Safer Stronger Culture, Adult Social Care & Health, Environment Economy and Transport.

Area Forums Neighbourhood Plans

Area Forums began in June and are intended to share best practice and to enhance partnership working through producing joint solutions to local issues and concerns. Representatives from GCN attend the meetings and their role is to act as a mechanism for the views or concerns of local people to be heard at the Forums about specific issues.

Examples of Partnership Working

Northumbria Police – GCN staff carried out a customer satisfaction survey on behalf of Northumbria Police. This was piloted in Beacon Lough with a feedback event held at Calendar Court. The survey was subsequently carried out in the Portmeads/Kateregina area of Birtley. As a result of the survey information the Police have put measures in place to tackle some of the issues raised.

Gateshead Central Library - Big Lottery Bid - Gateshead Central Library has been successful in acquiring almost £2 million pounds to redesign the Library. The Network continues to be involved and is currently helping with the development of the Library’s community engagement strategy.

Tyne & Wear Fire & Rescue Service - The Network carried out a series of three consultations on behalf of the Fire Service in November, December and January. As a consequence we are now supporting the Fire Service to set up “Friends of” groups for community fire stations.

Nexus – The team carried out a series of consultations with Nexus which looked at how transport affected local people when trying to move around the Borough.

Go North East – Because of the work we did with Nexus, Go North East asked us to do a specific piece of work around an area in Whickham. This resulted in a bus service being reinstated.

Community Development

In November GCN and Gateshead Council jointly launched a Community Development
Framework for Gateshead. The framework was developed via a series of GCN led seminars for the statutory, voluntary and community sectors. As a result of these seminars common definitions were agreed for the terms Consultation, Engagement, Participation and Capacity Building, and for the key roles in Community Development.

GCN Small Grants Activity Apr 07- Mar 08

From April 07-November 07 the GCN Small Grants fund was unable to award any grants due to the late arrival of funding to GVOC. Grant issuing therefore commenced in November 07.

For the period November 07-Mar 08 there was a total of 6 applications to the fund all of which were successful. The fund awarded grants to the total of £8338.91 in this period. The groups funded included a new community association in Sunniside and a new group in Felling looking at working to improve local amenities on open space in the area. Grants were also awarded to develop a PTA group in Felling primary school and a young people’s cricket club in central Gateshead. There were also grants to a new community mobility scheme for the Springwell area and a grant to support a new
group supporting carers and people with cerebral palsy.

Work with young people

Our first school council’s conference took place in October 2007. 71 students from 14 schools took part in the day with partners facilitating the workshops. Also the team have been involved in working with schools around the citizenship part of the curriculum.

Top | Home

Skills For Life

2007 – 08 saw the third year of a Skills for Life project running from GVOC, where again it was very successful, particularly in the area of one to one/ small group provision – the progression rates were also successful due to the effective partnership working with Gateshead Council’s Skills for Life Department.

The volunteer rate on the project was successful, with the recruitment of volunteer tutors and volunteer learner support workers.

The Project achieved:

110 Referrals
78 Engagement Interviews
70 Individuals on One to One/ Small group provision
23 Individuals that have moved on into mainstream provision and/ or other areas of progression
11 Volunteers supporting the project: 3 tutors and 8 support workers

Future funding for Skills for life, one to one/ small group provision has not been achieved, therefore, for the foreseeable future the project is now at an end.

Top | Home

Volunteer Centre

We had a very successful Volunteers Week (1-7 June 2007) event at Gateshead Library where information was available about volunteer-involving organisations in Gateshead and many new volunteers were recruited. We have also attended other volunteer recruitment events throughout the year with Gateshead College, Metro Centre and Gateshead Council being among the venues.

The Gateshead Volunteering Forum continued to develop and promote volunteering in Gateshead and was successful alongside GVOC in its bid for funding for the vproject, which aims to involve young people aged 16-25 in volunteering, develop new opportunities and support organisations who wish to involve young people in their existing volunteer programme.

Gateshead Volunteering Forum also secured funding from ‘Awards for All’ to launch its Say Yes to Disabled Volunteers project, which is a long term strategy to make Gateshead an area where disabled volunteers are actively recruited, valued and retained within volunteer-involving organisations. The project began with a high profile business breakfast at Gateshead Marriott Hotel and was attended by
Chief Officers of volunteer-involving organisations, representatives from Gateshead Primary Care Trust, Gateshead Council and Job Centre Plus. GVOC’s Volunteer Centre is supporting this initiative.

Over 40 organisations signed the pledge to Say Yes to Disabled Volunteers and many issues were tackled during a question and answer session with a volunteer panel of disabled people. A follow-up event is to be held in 2008.

Our brokerage service has continued to support volunteers in finding the right opportunities and securing volunteer placements and a new Volunteers Directory will be produced early 2008 which is a most valuable tool to volunteers, volunteer-involving organisations and other agencies.

2008 is the Year of Volunteers, which is a year long Council-backed initiative aimed at encouraging people to make a positive contribution to their community. The Year of Volunteers is a partnership led by Gateshead Council working with the Gateshead Strategic Partnership and GVOC and will run from January – December 2008 with many events being held throughout the year.

Top | Home

The Tenants and Residents Development Project

The Project has experienced some great positives and real challenges in this period.

Work continued expanding representation within the project Consultation Group and developed contact with a range of specific interest groups, to broaden opinion on what Gateshead residents require from an independent organisation.

Project involvement in one area of central Gateshead enabled residents to address some longstanding issues on their estate. We were both pleased for them and gratified to be able to demonstrate the benefits of intervention from an independent perspective.

Great progress has been made in developing productive working relationships with our key statutory partners, particularly The Gateshead Housing Company and aspects of housing services providers in Gateshead Council. We have actively engaged with Gateshead Community Network in exploring effective joint working. I believe these relationships have the potential to produce many positive outcomes in the coming year.

Latterly, we have begun to enhance our contact with Registered Social Landlords, who are also very interested in being involved with our work. This will enable us achieve a more complete picture of residents views as a whole.

The project and those we have been working with, think this aspect of ‘completeness’ is important. Housing provision and particularly social housing, is undergoing the most major review seen for 30 years. There is an increasingly mixed economy of provision and ‘neighbourhood’ and ‘local involvement’ play an ever growing role in the local, regional and national government approach to determining future policy. It is difficult to imagine a more critical time for an independent residents voice to be active in influencing decision-making.

A lot of hard work has gone into developing a draft constitution and a three-year development plan. These living documents will support the work of the organisation as it reaches independent status. A huge thanks to our Consultation Group members for their input in making sure these documents are relevant to Gateshead residents. A distinct challenge has been in bringing the ‘old’ alongside the ‘new’. Sad to say, a very small number of people have actively resisted the move forward to a more inclusive and pro-active organisation. This has badly hindered our progress and decided Gateshead Council in conducting a review, across all stakeholder groups, to establish the best way forward.

As I write, the outcome of the review is yet to be announced. We are, however, confident in the merit of our approach and that we will shortly be given the green light to proceed.

Our ultimate aim, as when the project commenced, is to enhance resident involvement and the capacity to influence decision-making and effect change.

Top | Home

Community Accountancy Project

This has been a busy year. Services being delivered by the Community Accountancy Project include:
• Financial Health Checks
• Help with financial systems, particularly if a new organisation, or one that has grown quickly in size, and needs a robust financial system to reflect this
• Budgeting/cash-flows – usually needed in the first instance for a funding bid
• Monitoring of the above
• Training in the above in conjunction with the Capacity Building project
• Inland Revenue queries and Payroll in conjunction with IT Officer, Colin Bell
• Computerised accounts, the IT Officer already receives regular requests regarding this
• Information Sheets – both hard copy and via the website
• Reporting and returns for outside organisations such as the Charity Commission and HM Revenue and Customs.
• Year end accounts and Independent Examinations

In total support has been given to 61 groups and over 111 sessions. The type of support given is as follows:

The project hopes to continue supporting groups, both old and new, during the coming year and will be looking in particular at the impact the new Fraud and Anti Money Laundering regulations will have on the sector, along with changes to the Charities Act and Companies Act.

Top | Home

Payroll

GVOC offers a service to voluntary sector employers, supporting them with payroll administration. This includes: calculating wages, issuing payslips and reports, making payments to staff and Inland Revenue. By March 2008 there were 34 groups using the service.

We also provide a service to individuals receiving funding from the Local Authority to employ personal assistants. There were over 80 active employers on the system using the service to calculate their wages, issue payslips and reports. We have worked with Gateshead Council throughout the year to clarify roles and responsibilities for the different parts of the service and to simplify the administration for the clients.

Top | Home

Gateshead Advocacy Information Network

GAIN’s role is to support advocacy provision in Gateshead; to “advocate for advocacy” and to give advocates a voice in the development of local, regional and national health and social care policy.

GAIN facilitates the Gateshead Advocacy Support Network, a forum for information and peer support for advocates, arranging speakers as appropriate.

In July 2007 GAIN arranged for Fast Forward, an advocacy training provider, to deliver their“Advocacy Dilemmas” training in Gateshead. This was attended by 27 people, 17 of whom were from Gateshead projects. In 2007/2008 GAIN delivered Advocacy Awareness training to 65 Social Services staff.

Instead of arranging an event for National Advocacy Awareness Day in 2007, the GAIN
Coordinator gave presentations about advocacy to a number of Partnership boards and forums. GAIN also launched a newsletter in October 2007.GAIN has played a key role in the development of the Individual Budgets pilot in Gateshead. Through GAIN, local advocates have contributed to the development of the Supported Assessment of Need form. GAIN has produced a leaflet about advocacy, which is sent with Social Services documentation to everyone seeking an assessment for social care services in Gateshead. GAIN negotiated an arrangement for advocacy projects to receive
some payment for providing advocacy support in connection with Individual Budgets.

GAIN also arranged training for advocates on the Individual Budgets process.GAIN has coordinated and submitted responses on behalf of Gateshead advocates and advocacy projects to a number of local, regional and national consultations on health and social care policy issues.

Top | Home

Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care (DRE),

Northumberland, Tyne and Wear

The second full year of the DRE Project has proved to be both a busy and an interesting one. GVOC hosts one of 17 DRE Focussed Implementation Sites across England and ours is the only one to have been placed in the voluntary sector.

The Focussed Implementation Sites have been responsible for ‘fast-tracking’ the national DRE Action Plan, testing out what works, sharing and facilitating good practice and supporting partnership working. Locally, our work has covered a wide range of activities and this is a flavour of what has been happening.

In November we helped organise a North East conference on Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health in Rural areas, held in Northumberland. This was a successful meeting with about 100 delegates who are taking forward a plan of action with local stakeholders.

Three training courses were delivered to NHS mental health practitioners on the key issues to consider when working with asylum seekers and refugees.

For a limited time we provided free access to interpreters for voluntary sector mental health organisations and this fund was fully used. Using this experience and feedback from voluntary organisations we are flagging up with Health Commissioners the need for the voluntary sector to have access to funding for interpreters as needed.

We have continued to support the BME Community Development Workers Network and the region now has a near full complement of community workers, supporting local initiatives to improve mental health services for black and minority ethnic communities.

Northumberland, Tyne and Wear won funding for the Clinical Trailblazer programme and we have been developing work around supporting clinicians in the use of interpreters; better use of monitoring data; discovery interviews with BME patients around their experience of using mental health services.

We supported two events looking at how we can better involve BME service users and carers in the provision, design and commissioning of mental health and well-being services across Northumberland and Tyne and Wear.

You can read more about the work of the local DRE programme on the GVOC website.

Top | Home

aTENSION Gateshead Diverse Communities Health Care Initiative

The aTENSION Project Gateshead Diverse Communities Mental Health Care Initiative.
The aTENSION project is part of the larger national Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health care initiative. The objective of the initiative is to create a more culturally sensitive mental health care service for diverse communities. The project works with the local BME communities and mental health care staff & practitioners.

To achieve its objectives the project;

…talks and listens to local people by running a Support and Consultation Group. In the forum members can take part in art-based activities around mental health and meet frontline service staff through visits and debates.

…identifies and addresses service gaps. Working with MIND, a “Listening Ear Service” has been rolled out to frontline community workers for short term benefit. The next step is to secure funding to train local volunteers with a community language in Basic Talk Therapy, the volunteers will be employed by MIND and the service will be available to GP’s and others To address the low uptake of Individual Budgets and other Independent Living benefits, a working group has been formed as a pilot scheme in Gateshead to oversee the experience of some BME families who take up the benefits.

…will try even harder to be more visible to service users and service providers. The project is involved with most of the organisations and networking groups who work for or with the BME communities. Service providers regularly contact aTENSION for advice and referrals. Nevertheless, more efforts will be made to raise community awareness of poor mental health, identify more moderate to severe mental health sufferers hidden in the community and offer frontline services cultural competency training.

Top | Home

BME Community Development Worker - Learning Disability

This was a one-year pilot project funded through the Learning Disabilities Partnership Board (LDPB) during 2007 and 2008. The aim of the project was to work geographically across the Gateshead Borough to engage communities, groups and individuals with an interest in learning disabilities in a consultation process regarding service delivery in order to raise awareness, assess need and make future recommendations for improvements to services. A final report was produced and further funding is being sought to carry forward some of the work.

Top | Home

Working Together Tyne and Wear Operations Team

GVOC provides developmental and secretariat support for Working Together Tyne and Wear (WTTW) which is the voluntary sector learning consortium for Tyne & Wear. This was formed to implement the Learning and Skills Council's 'Working Together' strategy through a key strategic learning partnership.

The purpose of WTTW is to: Influence and progress the implementation of the 'Working Together' strategy at sub-regional and local level and to increase access to learning opportunities for the voluntary and community sector in Tyne and Wear.

Initially the role of the Operations Team was:
• Day-to-day responsibility for ensuring delivery of the action plan
• Arrange and support meetings
• Develop protocols and procedures
• Ensure all procedures were adhered to
• Act as the central point for dissemination of information
• Maintain and update the WTTW website
• Maintain and update WTTW membership lists

This role has become wider as the consortium develops and capacity building through a variety of means is now a much larger part of the work of the Operations Team.

Staff and Volunteers

Top | Home

Management Committee 2006/2007

Top | Home

GVOC

GVOC gratefully acknowledges the assistance from all its funders and supporters and in particular Gateshead Council for its major contribution.