Havering bids goodbye to ‘big society’ as council for voluntary groups closes
|
Version 0 of 1. It may be celebrating 50 years since it was created, but it’s fair to say that the London borough of Havering suffers something of an identity problem. Sitting on the eastern fringe of the capital, it comprises the former councils of Romford and Hornchurch, and includes Upminster where District Line tube trains end their 40-mile trundle across the city. Many people think it is all part of Essex. Havering must need all the help it can get with creating an image and building a sense of community. So there is surprise and dismay that the borough’s council for voluntary service (CVS), which supports more than 500 local voluntary and community groups, has announced its closure from the end of this month, citing “ongoing funding uncertainties”. I’ve not chained myself to railings, but I've objected to things the council has done, such as salami-slicing contracts The Havering Association of Voluntary and Community Organisations (Havco) is not the first CVS to fall victim to austerity. According to Navca, the national umbrella body for organisations that help to build and support an infrastructure for local charities and community groups, about 70 have been lost since 2010 – though many of those have merged with others to try to shore up their position. But if the government is still serious about building the “big society” – and those much-ridiculed words resurfaced in the Conservative party manifesto at the general election in May – then encouragement of, and support for, voluntary activity at a local level is surely essential. And a glance at the record of Havco since its establishment 14 years ago shows what can be achieved. Havering has some of the lowest deprivation indicators in London, and it reaches to the south into the booming Thames Gateway urban regeneration zone – but it does have pockets of need, and its overwhelmingly white population is ageing rapidly. Loss of big employers such as the historic former Star Brewery in Romford, now a shopping centre, has eroded community cohesion. When Havco organised a celebration of local volunteering, people were effusive in their gratitude for recognition of their efforts. “One man had done 50-plus years for the Red Cross,” recalls Havco’s chief executive, Kim Guest. “Nobody had ever thanked him for that.” Guest has been running Havco since the beginning. When she turned up at the office allocated by the council in 2001, there was no desk, no chair, no telephone – and a smashed window. “My first job was to go to the corner shop and buy a dustpan and brush to sweep up the glass,” she says. “Out of my own money, of course.” Thanks to the serendipity of a royal visit (“they needed a building for the Queen to open”) the organisation within two years found itself in rather better and more spacious premises in the centre of Romford. It steadily built its membership from 94 groups in 2002 to 552 in 2014 and its core staff from one to 17. All will now be made redundant. Havco was the first voluntary organisation to negotiate with Whitehall, and then achieve, a target for boosting numbers of people volunteering. The success was written up independently as a model of outstanding practice. Guest secured government and European funding for skills training for local volunteer managers and launched a network of work clubs to help the long-term jobless re-enter the labour market via volunteering and confidence-building. They were the people you went to for help and advice on all kinds of issues … I don’t know what we'll do without them “Last year we got 64 people into work,” says Guest. “It’s the ‘people stuff’ – not ticking boxes or counting numbers but seeing them holistically. I hope that some of that can be rescued after we finish.” The decision to run down the organisation in good order is in sharp contrast to the sudden closure recently of a high-profile children’s charity. Havco trustees took the decision in response to a remorselessly deteriorating financial position and a move by Havering council to re-tender its infrastructure support contract “to better support the sector”. The contract is worth only £54,000 a year to Havco, about 10% of its total income last year, but the organisation has been eating deeply into a contingency reserve to mitigate a trading deficit of about £150,000 in each of the past two years. The trustees saw the writing on the wall. Overall, Tory-controlled Havering council is looking to cut £1.1m from its spending on the voluntary sector over the next four years. Melvin Wallace, the council’s cabinet member for culture and community engagement, says that changes in the Care Act and other recent legislation mean that the local authority is looking to the voluntary sector to do more, and the local infrastructure body “will need to be in the best possible position to respond”. Wallace, who stresses that the council was “happy” with Havco’s delivery of a separate contract, also worth £54,000, for running the local volunteer centre, adds: “The council currently adopts a fairly traditional approach to grant-funding and commissioning services, and this is the first review carried out in 13 years. The needs of the council and of residents have changed considerably since then, hence the decision to re-tender the borough’s infrastructure support service.” Guest believes that the council wants to shift from a traditional CVS structure to a much smaller and looser model of two or three development workers out and about in the community. She thinks that is a misreading of the recent report of an independent commission on the future of local infrastructure, Change for Good, commissioned by Navca, which argued that the infrastructure organisation of the future would be “a much leaner enabler, broker and catalyst, rather than necessarily a deliverer”. “Change for Good says we should be clearer about what we are doing, not competing with our members for their contracts,” says Guest. “It would contradict that if we were to concentrate on community development work in this way.” Does she think that Havco is paying a price for speaking out against the impact of cuts on local voluntary groups? “Well, I’ve not chained myself to the town hall railings, but I have objected to some of the things that the council has been doing, such as the salami-slicing of contracts so that instead of six one-hour counselling sessions, for instance, someone might get four half-hour sessions. That’s drastically changing the quality of a service. “My concern going forward is that when those £1.1m cuts hit the sector, without a CVS speaking up there won’t be much counter-argument or opposition.” Guest says she has already had approaches about other jobs, but she plans to take time out to reflect when she shuts up shop after a final Havco AGM. She is asking member groups and others to contribute to a report she plans to present to the council on what the sector has valued about Havco and what future services are wanted. Nina Mortimer, administrator of Romford Salvation Army, which hosts one of Havco’s work clubs, is in no doubt about the organisation’s legacy. “They will be grievously missed in Havering,” she says. “They were the people you went to for help and advice on volunteering and all kinds of issues … I don’t know what we are going to do without them.” David Brindle was a member of the Change for Good commission |