Annual Report 2006-2007

The 2006-2007 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
Public Patient Involvement Forums
John Haswell Memorial Trust
Capacity Building Project

Empower Gateshead

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

Rural Capacity Building Project

Staff and Volunteers

Management Committee 2006/2007

Chair's Report

This year has been a very mixed bag of fortune. GVOC has consolidated itself from the previous year, which saw the appointment of a new Director, the creation of the Deputy Director post and the establishment of a new Chair. This team quickly got to grips with the scale of the task and the complexity of the organisation to ensure that GVOC could progress with the minimum of unsteadiness that can affect organisations in change.

GVOC has a strong and committed management committee and a loyal and talented staff team. This gave a solid foundation for the new Directors and Chair to work from.
New projects have been initiated and new funding has been found to ensure growth in the organisation:

• GVOC now has a team of Development Workers examining mental health and learning disability services in the borough for the black and minority ethnic communities. This is fascinating and progressive work.

• GVOC has re-established its Community Accountancy Project with the help of the
Northern Rock Foundation. Financial support is a core role of GVOC and should
ultimately become part of the mainstream funds.

• After some debate the Council has continued to support Gateshead Advocacy
Information Network. This is a pure infrastructure support initiative valued by all who
work in the field of advocacy in Gateshead.

• Skills for Life proved to be a huge success and GVOC intends to continue this into
2007 – 2008.

• After most of the fountains were removed from the MetroCentre the future of the John Haswell Memorial Trust looked bleak. However, the MetroCentre has continued to support the Trust and many small Gateshead groups have benefited from this far-sighted decision.

There were also some significant changes:

• The new Patient and Public Involvement contract was not awarded to GVOC and the project closed in December. GVOC lost some valuable members of staff although some were redeployed internally. The Management Committee would like to thank them all for their hard work and loyalty.

• GVOC also lost its Information Officer in January. There is a need for funding bodies to realise that information and advice are core functions at the heart of infrastructure support and require stability in funding if the voluntary sector as a whole is to move from strength to strength. This is surely what we all want?

Finally, I would like to thank David Colley who had to stand down for personal reasons as Chair after a relatively short time in office. David was a member of the committee for a number of years and became Chair in November 2005. This was one of the most difficult periods in GVOC’s history with the retirement of Pauline Nelson and the hiatus that created. Pauline had been Director for over sixteen years. The Committee was, of course, delighted that GVOC gained Gev Pringle as the new Director.

David managed this period of change intelligently and calmly, instilling confidence in the rest of the committee and the staff. I, and the committee, would like to thank him for his dedication to the task and wish him all good luck for his future ventures.

GVOC is in good shape and I hope you take the time to read all about the recent achievements. Finally, I would like to extend many thanks to my fellow trustees, staff, volunteers and to GVOC’s funders.

Anne Marshall
Acting Chair

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Director's Report

Last year when I wrote my update for the 2006 annual report, I was definitely feeling like the new boy at the start of a new school term. An eventful year later and I still feel a little like the new boy. GVOC is such a large and complex organisation, providing a plethora of services to the voluntary sector and working at so many levels that I suspect I may always feel like this.

Complexity is a major part of the voluntary sector environment. Although, the partnership approach to service development and delivery is very welcome, it also adds to the responsibilities of any officer in the sector. It is one of our major challenges. If we as leaders in the sector don’t engage successfully in all of
the partnership developments such as the Strategic Partnership, Area Forums and patient involvement initiatives we will not be doing the sector a service.

However, we cannot neglect our real reason for existing. That is to support the voluntary and community sector and to campaign for its growth and survival. GVOC’s staff walk this tightrope between service delivery and partnership working very successfully and I feel sure that groups continue to receive high
quality support from us.

Finally, we were very sad that David Colley resigned as Chair, for personal reasons earlier in the year. David is a committed voluntary sector person with a wide range of skills. He knew GVOC well and brought his many skills to bear on management meetings incisively. We wish him well.

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Reception

Reception is the hub of GVOC and visitors can be assured of a warm welcome from the team. They are a mine of information and if your question can’t be answered immediately the team will find out where best to signpost you.

The figures above speak for themselves, all GVOC’s services are well used and we continue to spread the word and encourage membership of GVOC whenever the opportunity arises.

The team are heavily involved in the production and circulation of the very popular, GVOC bi-monthly newsletter as well as offering additional admin support to all GVOC projects.

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Funding Information North East

2006-2007 brought quite a few changes and new challenges for FINE. The core work, to provide funding information to the VCS and support funding advisers continued at a furious pace. In December Diana Wright joined the team as the new Research and Information Officer. Funding from Capacitybuilders allowed FINE to appoint Kate Moralee as part time Training Development Officer. New funding opportunities were successfully explored and FINE’s work was recognised, within the Region and nationally, as a model of excellence.

The creation of the National Hubs, in particular the Finance Hub, under the Government’s ChangeUp programme provided FINE with opportunities to play a more active role on the national stage. FINE became a member of the National Funding Advice Agencies Partnership, and in July 2006 the Partnership secured the contract to deliver a national funding advisers training package. As a result FINE was commissioned to run its 6 day level 3 accredited “Giving Funding Advice” course.

In February 2007 FINE was invited to become a signatory to the Regional Compact. It now has a seat on the Regional Compact Working Group.

The 9th edition of the North East Guide to Grants for Voluntary Organisations was published in March 2007.

Funding for FINE’s training to funding advisers was provided by Capacity Builders, Northern Rock Foundation and The National Finance Hub. Eight advisers in the North East achieved their level 3 certificate in “Giving Funding Advice” Seven one day professional development courses were organised covering a diverse range of topics.

In January 2007 One NorthEast provided funding to contribute towards the delivery of FINE’s core aims. In particular, the secretariat support to the North East Funders Forum, the development of training for funding advisers and expansion of FINE’s funding information services.

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Funding Advice Work

GVOC continues to see its funding advice service as a core part of the organisation. Advice and support is key to our operation with funding central to the sector’s ability to advance and take advantage of the Government’s expressed desire to see the voluntary sector progress as a service provider.

The Funding Advice Officer deals with over 100 groups per year and around 50 searches of the database for individuals in need. There is a constant need to update information sheets and the GVOC resource library and to respond to telephone enquiries.

The officer also ensures that the John Haswell Memorial Trust and the Great North Forest grants are properly and efficiently processed to ensure funds get out to even the smallest community ventures in the borough.

The GVOC newsletter always carries a substantial funding advice section.

Great North Forest Travel Grants

Great North Forest continue to support this very successful and ever popular grants fund. Applications are only open to Gateshead groups. This fund will pay up to a maximum of £100 for an organisation’s travel costs to visit and explore anywhere in the Great North Forest area.

Groups don’t have to be constituted or even have a bank account. That‘s how easy it is to access these grants.

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Public Patient Involvement Forums

PPI Forums continued to have an impact on health service provision in Gateshead and South Tyneside.

Ongoing work involved hospital cleanliness, patients’ choice, the reorganisation of a variety of health services including changes to the PPI structure. The Forums continued to develop partnerships and contact with a range of organisations including, other PPI forums, Gateshead Health and Social Care Partnership, the Community Care Forum, a variety of user-carer groups and a whole range of medical forums and bodies as well as colleagues in the voluntary sector.

Unfortunately, the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement decided to put the PPI support work out to tender again but changed the geographical areas to be covered. GVOC could only tender for the area that covered Gateshead, Newcastle and North Tyneside. This weakened the tender and the contract went, for the final year of PPI’s, to the body already delivering north of the river.

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John Haswell Memorial Trust

The John Haswell Memorial Trust continues to travel through turbulent times. Gateshead MetroCentre are the sole supporters of the Trust from their water features within the mall. Having removed all but one water feature, the Trust are delighted to report that MetroCentre Management Team continue to support the Trust through their corporate and social responsibility policy.

Eighteen Gateshead groups have been awarded grants ranging from £100 - £400. Activities, educational trips, equipment, training and start up grants can all be funded.

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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 with 24 voluntary organisations and community groups identifying their training and development needs and assisting them to address those identified needs and carried out an extensive training needs consultation, in which 208 voluntary organisations and Community Groups took part; the results of which were used to plan the next series of training programmes.

The project has facilitated 14 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. 132 individuals have benefited from this part of the project.

 
The project has also delivered 6 one-day non-accredited courses that have been specifically tailored to the needs of individual voluntary organisations and community groups. As part of the Tyne and Wear Voluntary Sector Learning Consortium’s, Skills Based Project, the Capacity Building Project has been able to deliver several accredited courses as part of GVOC’s ‘Voluntary Sector Toolkit’ programme. 26 individuals have achieved levels 2 and 3 qualifications, accredited through Open College Network North East.

The project has organised a series of information and consultation events; has played a significant role in the updating and re-accrediting of GVOC’s accredited training programme, and is working towards improving the standards of training offered to the sector both by GVOC staff and external tutors.

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Empower Gateshead

GVOC is delighted that Gateshead Strategic Partnership (GSP) agreed to fund Empower Gateshead from April 06 to March 08.

During 2006-07 there were some major team changes. A new Co-ordinator and an additional Community Development worker were appointed.

An external and independent review of Empower Gateshead was conducted between January and March 2007. The key finding from this review emphasised that Empower and Gateshead Community Network were valued by the GSP as an independent mechanism that enabled local people’s voices to be heard at both a strategic and decision making level.

Gateshead Community Network

As of March 2007 the Network had a membership totaling 611 groups and 75 individual members.

Empower Gateshead continues to support the members of Gateshead Community Network who have representatives on the Gateshead Strategic Partnership and the following GSP Themed Partnerships: Children and Young People, Health, Culture, Environment and Transport. The Network also has active Focus Groups chaired by Network Reps – Children and Young People, Housing, Transport, Environment and Culture.

Examples of Partnership Working

Vision 2030
Empower Gateshead co-ordinated the Area and Neighbourhood consultation events for the new Sustainable Community Strategy.

Operation Goldfinch
Empower Gateshead has been involved in the community participation weeks of these Northumbria Police and Gateshead Council events in Winlaton, Swalwell and

Springwell.

Community Development

Empower Gateshead has provided guidance, information, development support and funding advice to 60+ new and emerging community groups across Gateshead.

GCN Small Grants Fund

Gateshead Strategic Partnership awarded GCN £35,000 to enable the Network, via Empower Gateshead, to offer financial support to new and emerging community groups. A total of 26 groups were supported.

Springwell Report
Empower Gateshead‘s Community Development Worker spent 3 months on Springwell Estate in order to map existing community, voluntary and statutory sector provision.

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Skills For Life

This Tyne & Wear project has proven to be a huge success overall, but particularly for the voluntary and community sector of Gateshead.

The Engagement Manager worked with over 100 voluntary and community groups, raising the awareness of the skills for life need, supporting individuals through one to one intensive learning and arranging group learning out in community venues.

In total the project supported 423 learners from individual tuition up to the Adult Learner Support Certificate.

Due to the success of the project, GVOC is continuing with the good work for voluntary and community organisations and their service users within the Borough.

The project aims to support the voluntary and community sector of Gateshead with skills for life learning for their staff, volunteers and service users with a variety of services.

The project can help individuals who are 16+ with no upper age limit, employed or unemployed, but not currently on any Skills for Life provision.

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Volunteer Centre

The Volunteer Centre was proud to achieve re-accreditation with Volunteering England’s Quality Mark, which demonstrates that it is providing a quality service measured against national guidelines.

Volunteers Week was celebrated in style with an ‘Olde Fashioned Fete’ at Saltwell Park, with stalls and entertainment for all the family. Gateshead College, Newcastle College and the MetroCentre have also played host to volunteer recruitment events. The Officers have spoken to many groups that are under represented in volunteering such as women who have experienced domestic violence, people with learning disabilities and people with mental ill health. Dawn Trotter has led the campaign for volunteer-involving organisations to reimburse childcare expenses to allow access to volunteering for parents with young children.

The brokerage service has matched 3572 people with volunteering opportunities and has assisted a further 240 people with identifying and securing the right volunteering opportunities. They have also supported 210 volunteer managers with good practice advice and training, including a one day course on recruiting volunteers and an accredited course on volunteer management.

The Project continues to work strategically to develop volunteering in Gateshead through the Gateshead Volunteering Forum and through participation in the 2030 Strategy. The Gateshead Involving Volunteers’ Awards ran for a second year and was presented to Community Links for their commitment to good practice in volunteer management.

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The Tenants and Residents Development Project

It has been a really interesting year in the Tenant and Resident Project. The Officers, Julie and Kim, have been gathering opinion across the borough, regarding people’s level of enthusiasm for and expectations of an independent voice for Gateshead residents.

Residents are genuinely keen on having a bigger, collective voice and want to play an integral part in influencing services, delivery and policy decisions from a residents perspective.

On a practical level, the project started the year developing a Steering Group of key partners (Gateshead Tenants and Residents, Gateshead Council, The Gateshead Housing Company and GVOC), who developed a detailed action plan capable of supporting the project to achieve independent status in April 2008.

One of the main priorities was to find out exactly what the different geographic and interest communities need us to do, so they can get involved with the project and the new organisation. There is a need to look for more varied and creative ways to respond to people’s circumstances and interests.

The project consulted with over 700 people who offered their views on some key questions.

Support was expressed for resident groups, as was the opinion that is very important to be heard. People liked the idea of a resident newsletter, written from a resident point of view.

The Project hosted two events. This helped us to conclude that the independent organisation must support and respond to communities. To be effective, local people want to have teeth in influencing providers and decision makers.

The Project produces the Gatesider magazine, the independent voice of Gateshead tenants and residents with an editorial group of local residents.

Julie and Kim have also established and will continue to expand, a Consultation
Group capable of representing the many voices of Gateshead.

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Community Accountancy Project

GVOC revived this project through short term funding until July 2006, which allowed groups to continue to receive support for that time. During 2006 funding was secured from Northern Rock for a two year period and Kate Tully took up post as Finance Officer for the project in February 2007.

Since starting Kate has made contact with a number of groups and is supporting them in a variety of ways including:

• Independent Examination of Accounts
• Training and one-to-one support in all financial matters
• Setting up financial systems
• Support with IT accountancy packages
• Charity law regarding finances and reporting

In 2007 – 2008 Kate will be working on a number of Financial Information Sheets which will be available from the website or from the GVOC office; how the law applies to the voluntary and community sector with regard to the new anti money laundering legislation and Full Cost Recovery training.

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Payroll

GVOC offers a service to groups and individuals to support them with payroll administration. The service continued to expand during this year. By March 2007 there were 36 groups using the service and 82 individuals receiving Direct Payments from the Local Authority to employ personal assistants. The service has moved to completion of Inland Revenue paperwork online, claiming over £35,000 in incentive payments on behalf of our clients in the last two years.

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Gateshead Advocacy and Information Network

GAIN was without staff until Caroline Airs was recruited as full-time Co-Ordinator at the end of October 2006, (although from June Gateshead Access Panel loaned Caroline to GAIN for a few hours a week to keep things ticking over).

A planning day was held in November, to which all the local advocacy projects were invited, to review GAIN’s role. It was agreed that GAIN’s work continues to fall into 3 strands.

In its strategic role GAIN has:

• Contributed to the development of the Individual Budgets pilot
• Contributed to the local Mental Capacity Act Implementation Network
• Given evidence to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in relation to the Fair Access to Care criteria
• Responded, in consultation with local advocacy projects, to the DRC’s paper “Delivering the Choice and Voice Agenda”
• Participated in the North East Regional Advocacy Network, and the newly formed Advocacy Consortium UK

In its developmental role GAIN has:

• Worked with local projects in preparation for the implementation of the Independent
Mental Capacity Advocacy service
• Prepared a proposal to provide some funding for local advocacy projects to support the Individual Budgets pilot
• Participated in the Council’s review of advocacy provision
• Prepared a leaflet about advocacy, to accompany the Council’s Supported Assessment of Need form
• Arranged an Advocacy Awareness Day event in October 2006, when local advocacy
projects had a stall for the day in the foyer of the Civic Centre

In its supportive role GAIN has:

• Continued to facilitate the Gateshead Advocacy Support Network
• Delivered Advocacy Awareness training for Social Services staff
• Arranged training for local advocates on the Individual Budgets process

In 2007 GAIN will celebrate its 10th birthday.

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Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care (DRE),

Northumberland, Tyne and Wear

Looking back over the past year it is clear that everyone involved in the DRE programme of work feels confident that much has been achieved.

The project started by participating in various local events to understand what mental health services needed to do to better meet the needs of black and minority ethnic communities across Northumberland, Tyne and Wear.

The work then focused upon the identified needs: interpreting and mental health; race equality in rural areas; raising awareness within communities and with mental health providers; and asylum seekers, refugees and migrants.

Throughout, the project has worked closely with the Community Development Workers who have been recruited specifically to focus upon race equality and mental health, setting up a Community Development Workers’ network which meets regularly to provide support and share practice.

At the end of the first year the project was thoroughly reviewed by a national team and received very good feedback.

Suzanne, the Project Co-ordinator, aims to keep those interested up to date with the programme through the monthly bulletin ‘In the Loop’, which can be found on the GVOC website.

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aTENSION Gateshead Diverse Communities Health Care Initiative

The aTENSION project is a brand new community development project, started in November 2006. There is a full time Project Co-ordinator and two part time Community Development Workers (CDW). It is part of the Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care Initiative (DRE).

It provides support and advice to frontline staff dealing with BME clients. The support group take referrals from clinicians. A diversity training package is being created and plans are under way to review service providers’ diversity policies.

The project will help run support groups for local women and signpost service users and link them to practitioners. It also plans to recruit and train future volunteers and advocates and create a BME health body to carry the work forward.

Anecdotal information points to around 8,000 people from diverse backgrounds living in Gateshead.

Yet there is a much higher representation of Black and Minority Ethnic people in mental health care compared to their White counterparts. The Department of Health and the Commission for Race Equality have concluded that some mental health care services are “institutionally racist” and the service needs to change to address this issue. Providers need to re-think who they are providing a service to and what the best way to do that is.

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BME Community Development Worker - Learning Disability

Nasreen Zaman has recently joined GVOC as a part time Black and Minority Ethnic Community Development Worker for Learning Disability. Nasreen has previous experience as a Community Development Worker, however working with BME Learning Disability is a new challenge for her and she looks forward to working in this area and achieving the goals of the project.

This is a one year funded post and the role is to consult with people who use learning disability services, to talk about their experiences of accessing and using the services, to raise awareness among parents with children who have learning disabilities and get the views of BME Community groups on the availability of the services provided by both the statutory and voluntary sector. Nasreen will also be working closely with the SADA Group (Service Access for Disability Action) to enable her to target her work.

Another part of the role is to identify ways in which services may need to improve and change to ensure that they are culturally appropriate for BME Communities.

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Rural Capacity Building Project

The project is funded by DEFRA to give development support and advice to voluntary and community sector groups and organisations in the outlying parts of Gateshead. Up to the end of March, work has been carried out in the following areas: Clara Vale, Crawcrook, Ryton, Greenside, Sunniside, Birtley, Winlaton, Kibblesworth, Winlaton Mill, Rowlands Gill, Highfield, Chopwell, and Blackhall Mill.

The work has been very varied and has included supporting groups and organisations working in the fields of: developing community buildings and village halls, older people, local history, economic regeneration, financial exclusion, young people, environmental issues, health, heritage, and, in one case, preparing for an international conference in 2008.

The question of community buildings is probably one of the most important in terms of supporting voluntary and community sector initiative for the outlying areas. Most of the challenges faced by their management committees are connected with how to sustain their upkeep over the longer term. It would appear that in the past when there was somewhat more funding available for adult and community education courses, it was easier to do this.

Village halls are not like community centres in urban areas, where there are often large hinterlands of potential client groups and relatively good public transport connections. It can therefore be very difficult to make any kind of credible projection that minimum numbers of attendees will be reached. As a result not only is support funding lost to the halls - so undermining their sustainability - but local
people are also excluded from many adult educational opportunities that had previously been provided in their areas. Thus there is a double negative effect.

This is a point perhaps for collective action.

In its second year the project hopes to work on the issues identified in 2006/07.

Staff and Volunteers

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Management Committee 2006/2007

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GVOC

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