Working with Local Infrastructure Organisations to engage smaller VCFSE organisations: Good practice guide

Synopsis

Theme: facilitating sustainable food provision for those in food poverty and building relationships with council, LIO and VCFSE organisations

The challenge

Following a procurement exercise for local VCFSE infrastructure support services in 2018, the predecessor organisation to Community Vision lost the contract, putting a strain on long standing relationships with the East Riding of Yorkshire Council. Despite this and having to initially withdraw from strategic boards and relationships, the LIO continued to work with the council as part of its commitment to the VCFSE sector. Initially, this was through regular dialogue with relevant council officers, which led to the LIO working on other projects with the council and continuing to support the VCFSE sector in other ways. 

During the pandemic and extending into the cost of living crisis, the council wanted to better support VCFSE organisations providing vital food support and identified that it needed to work with the many small foodbanks working in the large rural area. 

The solution

The East Riding of Yorkshire Council has been a long-term funder of VCFSE infrastructure support services. The 2018 procurement exercise brought in a new provider, and once this was in place, Community Vision worked to rebuild the relationship with the council, by refusing to hold a grudge and get on with delivering other contracts and services including for the council. They saw it was important to: ‘continue to care, build relationships, maintain communication, and still be willing to work through difficulties being faced by communities – we will work with the council regardless.’ Community Vision had to restructure and diversify income streams to bring in consistent core funding to move to a secure financial footing. 

Community Vision were subsequently invited to participate in some strategic forums by the council, who wanted their knowledge and perspective of local communities and the VCFSE sector. Even though the work was unfunded, Community Vision readily agreed to do this. As one council officer commented: ‘it was a mature and grown-up response to disappointing decisions that has allowed Community Vision to develop and thrive.’ 

At the point during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 when the council realised it needed to work very closely with emergency food providers, an informal network of VCFSE organisations was already meeting for mutual support and resource sharing. The East Riding Food Poverty Alliance (ERFPA) was formed from this informal collaboration, supported initially by the council. The Alliance itself then tendered for a Local Trusted Organisation (LTO) to work with it to become an independent charity so they could apply for and hold funding in their own right. Community Vision was successful in securing this tender. 

ERFPA acts as an umbrella body for all the emergency food providers and related organisations working together in the East Riding. Now an established organisation thanks to initial funding from the council, The National Lottery Community Fund and the local Community Foundation, the alliance works as an effective partnership with strong relationships, facilitated by Community Vision as LTO. ERFPA has been able to demonstrate significant impact and social value of £5.30 for every £1 invested, having been supported to gather the right data to do so. The ability to demonstrate impact, need, and changes in demand, helps quickly identify emerging themes allowing members to plan their response effectively. It also means that applications for funding have relevant data to support them. 

The local council funds a development worker to work with the food providers on a one-to-one basis and support networking and resource sharing, a post hosted by Community Vision. ERFPA is also working to help foodbanks that want to transition to a food pantry or social supermarket model. The initial crisis response during the pandemic has remained a necessity since, but the Alliance wants to help the move to more sustainable models of food provision for those who need it. 

As a result of working effectively with small VCFSE organisations through this project the council has extended this learning to working with other council departments and projects. 

The impact

The Southern Holderness Resource Centre in Withernsea, known as the SHoRes Centre, opened in 2005. It is a multipurpose resource hub hosting a foodbank and community pantry, Citizens Advice, credit union, a community café, family support services, digital access skills hub and support for employability and skills development amongst many other things. Withernsea is in the top 10 per centof deprived communities, with high levels of unemployment, economic inactivity and complex health needs. 

The SHoRes Centre is part of ERFPA, joining initially to gain resources, intelligence and for mutual support as the work is lonely and draining. The Alliance quickly started to work to develop a strategy and action plan to address the escalation of poverty and food poverty in the East Riding area. This included making sure it could inform the local council about what it was learning and experiencing on the ground, and developing innovative solutions to help people move from dependency to economic inclusion.

Some food banks were facing sustainability issues due to the rising cost of food and so the Alliance worked to develop a food pantry and social supermarket model. The ShoRes Centre provided the first social supermarket in East Riding and is open to all residents who needed it. It is a shop on the high street like any other, selling heavily discounted food, most of which would otherwise go to landfill although it is perfectly edible and within date. It uses a membership model, people apply to join and are issued with a discount card if in receipt of benefits, a free food parcel if for a foodbank referral, with others on low incomes paying full price (although still substantially below normal supermarket prices).

The tills are staffed by paid key workers who can signpost to further sources of support or offer help with specific issues. This is effectively stealth support work done through ordinary casual conversations at the checkout. People may not ask for help directly but are happy to have a chat. The social supermarket has effectively become a second support Hub in Withernsea and provides food to 900 households each week, that would otherwise struggle to feed themselves.

The ShoRes Centre really values the relationships it has with the council through the Alliance. It has seen the dynamics of relationships and understanding of each other change: ‘this has really evolved through this work because of dialogue and what we have seen of each other when we work together.’ There is much more appreciation of the commitment, skills, abilities and knowledge that each bring and the trust that has developed giving the ability to try things out without risk of failure.

Lessons learned

As councils look to reshape services in the current funding environment, initiatives such as ERFPA demonstrate how the VCFSE sector and small organisations in particular, can contribute significantly to service delivery on behalf of the council. A comparatively small investment to facilitate partnership working, builds the capacity of the VCFSE sector and it can then demonstrate its impact, extensive community reach and professional delivery.

Initiatives such as ERFPA benefit from a senior council officer being an advocate for the detailed work and approach to collaboration. This allows the ability to develop trust and test methods of partnership working.

Initiatives such as ERFPA give the council and VCFSE sector more appreciation of the commitment, skills, abilities and knowledge that each have. This dialogue forms confidence and credibility.

Council departments that have effective working relationships with LIOs and / or the VCFSE sector, can assist other council departments to benefit from these relationships through building relationships with the LIO, sharing information and knowledge of the sector and identifying what good looks like. 

LIOs and small VCFSE organisations need to be able to demonstrate the impact that their activities have. 

Relationships can be inadvertently broken through poor communication, consultation and decision making, particularly in relation to tendering and procurement practices. 

Whenever possible, councils should ensure that commissioning and procurement exercises are undertaken in such a way that they are accessible to VCFSE organisations, in terms of scale of contracts, timescales and levels of information required.

Building partnerships to provide the services needed by residents is likely to bring significant added return for the council. 

Synopsis

Theme: Distribution of small grants on behalf of the council whilst building the capacity of VCFSE organisations 

The challenge

The London Borough of Hackney recognises that there are some groups of residents who are at risk or in greatest need that are also furthest from council services. The VCFSE sector has good reach into these communities, building relationships and trust over many years. Hackney Giving an initiative of Hackney CVS, works with local VCFSE organisations to help them build capacity to access funding and distributes small grants on behalf of funders. 

The solution

Hackney Giving is a local giving scheme run by Hackney CVS, which works on the principle that everyone has something to give — money, time, skills. The recipients are not-for-profit groups operating within Hackney Borough. With a core staff of 1.6 FTE, Hackney Giving has distributed funding from Hackney council, the NHS, corporate donors, and community fundraising, with 20 grant rounds since March 2020, distributing £2.3 million in total to local VCFSE organisations. Funding programmes have included support for households during the pandemic, addressing vaccination inequalities and providing information, NHS Community Chest to reduce barriers to access health care and financial support, and £500K from the Household Support Fund targeted at food and fuel provision.  

Alongside the distribution of funds Hackney Giving also supports and develops the capacity of VCFSE organisations to make an application and deliver their services and activities. It has also been able to act as an advocate for the sector with partner funders to ensure that application processes are simpler and reporting realistic. The detailed knowledge that Hackney Giving has of the VCFSE sector in the borough means that council officers and decision makers are well informed on its capacity, skills, and needs. Hackney Giving are also trusted by the VCFSE sector and are able to act as an intermediary with funders who are unlikely to be trusted in the same way.

Hackney Giving has the ability to work with and fund a very broad spectrum of organisations, through their deep knowledge of the communities within Hackney – the inequalities, challenges residents have, and the groups furthest from council services – and the VCFSE organisations working with the local communities. This knowledge is something the council does not have in the depth needed.

For both pandemic response and the distribution of the Household Support Fund, the council and Hackney Giving were able to work together to set schemes up very quickly. Using a memorandum of understanding and a grant agreement with Hackney Giving each time, there was no fear or risk for the council, as they were working together as trusted partners. What resulted was a very open process with council officers and staff of Hackney Giving working closely together to achieve strategic priorities, in this case to obtain maximum reach to priority communities. Particularly for the Household Support Fund, small amounts of money could be targeted to small VCFSE organisations who could make it work effectively for the communities they were working with. The council could see the impact that the small sums given to VCFSE organisations could have for households and individuals in need.

The impact

Firstly, working with Hackney Giving, the council was able to change the way small VCFSE organisations could work with the council, including receiving funding to reach groups furthest from council services. Hackney Giving’s working included:

• Acting as an advocate for the VCFSE sector, pointing out the benefits that working with the sector can bring. Challenging funding partners, and building trust between council, other funders and the VCFSE.
• Simplifying application forms and processes so that they reflect the scale of the funding available e.g. to apply for £1,000 there may previously have been a 24-page guidance document and 13-page prospectus. Hackney Giving guidance contains everything that VCFSE organisations need to know within 5 pages.
• Simplifying monitoring and reporting procedures so that the most relevant and important information is collected accurately without overburdening small VCFSE organisations. 
• Ensuring that project funding also covers back office costs or overheads for VCFSE organisations, as there is often limited or no core funding available for these sorts of costs. 

Due diligence is an important part of the work. Hackney Giving carries out eligibility checks assessed against an agreed written framework, and applications are scored by at least two people, one of whom is from the funder. Funders are always part the decision-making panel, along with a representative of the VCFSE sector in Hackney to give a wider perspective but who has not applied for funding.

Secondly, the council is able to direct services to communities most in need. Since 2020 this has included but is not limited to: access to food and fuel, emergency food support, activities for children and young people, warm spaces and after school clubs, support for cancer patients, accurate and relevant public health information widely available. Most of the money is spent very locally either on direct purchases particularly of food, but also on staffing costs for VCFSE organisations, most of whose staff are based locally, supporting their own community where they live and work.

Lessons learned

This partnership working between the LIO and the council has enabled small VCFSE organisations to access funding in an accessible and straightforward way. This allows them to focus on what they do best in communities. 

The established trusted relationship between the council and Hackney Giving has extended the reach into communities furthest from council services, and diversified the range of small VCFSE organisations receiving funding from the council.

By working more closely together in a trusted relationship outcomes for residents have been improved, with a focus on doing what is best for them rather than serving organisational needs.

Moving away from rigid measurement of outputs and outcomes from grant funding has led to a more collaborative way of working with small VCFSE organisations to identify and understand their real outcomes. This has been facilitated by the changes in grant making practices by working with the LIO.

The VCFSE has the knowledge, reach and trusted relationships needed by the council to provide early help, work towards prevention and deliver services most effectively.

The challenge

Oldham is amongst the most deprived local authority areas in England with individuals and households facing many difficult problems and VCFSE frontline service providers facing high levels of demand. Action Together CIO, the local infrastructure organisation (LIO) in Oldham, was asked to coordinate the VCFSE sector response to the cost of living crisis, distributing the Household Support Fund (HSF) rapidly to support priority groups, particularly those from minoritised communities.   

The solution

Action Together has an established relationship with Oldham Council and the two organisations have worked in partnership for a long time. Both council and LIO describe an open, honest and trusted relationship. This allows for rapid and flexible working, the ability to disagree, and challenge when things go wrong. Action Together takes a relational approach to its work with the local VCFSE sector, building relationships to understand the objectives and aspirations of grassroots groups as well as support their needs.

The approach to addressing the cost of living crisis was a continuation of the work during the pandemic, with senior council leadership bringing Action Together into the response very early on to ensure that there was a voice from the VCFSE sector and communities around the table. The cost of living steering group was chaired by the assistant chief executive  of the council and was where all decision making took place. This streamlined governance enabled coordination throughout council departments, with Action Together and enabled a quick and well targeted response. 

Action Together runs a series of networks for the VCFSE in Oldham. This includes the Poverty Action Network which draws together different strands of work on poverty which can then shape responses to poverty amongst the VCFSE sector. The network draws on lived experience, and perspectives from the VCFSE and public sector to work together to form solutions. This and another network provided one of the ways of distributing HSF to target to those most in need. 

There are several communities in the borough experiencing deep deprivation through racial injustice, learning differences and other inequalities. The council, VCFSE sector and Action Together were all aware of these groups and worked intentionally to use VCFSE organisations to reach out to and engage with these residents, instead of expecting them to ring a council helpline and ask for support, which they were very unlikely to do. The council could be sure that these communities were receiving the support they need by working through the grassroots groups. 

The funding process was co-designed with the VCFSE to try and take away unnecessary details, with the council and Action Together ensuring that the audit trail from DWP and Treasury was satisfied, rather than letting this burden fall on small VCFSE organisations, who found this very helpful. As a staff member of Action Together commented: ‘if the ultimate aim is to help Oldham residents in poverty — how do we remove as many barriers as possible and take risks to enable this?’ 

The HSF funding allowed a breadth of support to be provided to residents by the VCFSE organisations in the Poverty Action Network. Through the partnership they worked together to play to their areas of expertise. The support provided included culturally appropriate emergency food provision, emergency energy costs, equipment to keep people warm at home, household furniture and white goods, household essentials, transport costs for medical or public service appointments. 

The impact

Support and Action Women’s Network (SAWN) started in Oldham 18 years ago as a self-help group. It has received capacity building support over the years from Action Together and has developed into a charity working at scale to provide a breadth of frontline support for people in Oldham, particularly marginalised Black African Women. The work ranges from a furniture hub, a women’s empowerment group, a group supporting women with HIV, a growing and gardening project, a choir, one to one support, subsistence grants, a men’s group for Black men, and many other initiatives around mental health and wellbeing. SAWN sees itself as working in partnership with Action Together and through them with the Council. The clients SAWN supports often come with a diverse range of complex intersectional problems. 

SAWN is involved in various voluntary sector networks in the area including the Poverty Action Network. SAWN said that they valued the simplified application and reporting process for HSF which mean that they could focus on delivery. The found that they could provide what was needed rapidly, for example from their furniture bank, and also ensure that clients could access other services from other VCFSE partners in the network if needed, through a warm handover. As one staff member of SAWN commented: ‘Action Together gives us the links to the council and because there is structure and coordination it prevents silo working. Different organisations are linked together to provide the grassroots support needed.’ 

Another SAWN staff member commented that: ‘it’s all about trust. It takes a lot to feel trusted, especially with reporting. But in our relationship with the council and Action Together we feel trusted, and so we can be honest and open, have challenging conversations. It is possible to be real and honest as a group based in the community. Trust is huge to contribute to learning.’

Lessons learned

The council benefited from Action Together knowing the needs of communities and the strengths of VCFSE organisations through its relational partnership working with the VCFSE sector. It also benefited from Action Together providing the practical mechanism to distribute funding quickly, to the right places.

HSF and other cost of living funding could be targeted to those in most need and VCFSE organisations could play to their strengths receiving funding to do what they do best. This reduced competition within the grant application process with the outcome that individuals, households and communities received the holistic support they needed. 

The project benefited from streamlined governance with a senior council officer chairing, and able to take decisions as needed. Without this in other projects, things move much more slowly and take longer. 

The VCFSE sector are building relationships with the council as well as the LIO. A staff member at SAWN said: ‘the council are encouraging – together we can do more than if just working in silos. We find the council is approachable.’

The challenge

During the spring of 2021 Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC) identified the need to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing during the pandemic. Using funding from central government SMBC identified Sandwell Council of Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) as a partner to manage the £1 million Emotional Wellbeing Project which drew together a partnership which included the council, health systems, other statutory partners and the VCFSE sector. 

The solution

The government’s COVID-19 Mental Health and Wellbeing Recovery Action Plan 2021 aimed to support people to look after their mental wellbeing, prevent the onset of mental health difficulties, and to support services to continue to meet the needs of those who require specialist support. Sandwell council appointed SCVO to manage and administer the initial £1 million of funding, who then set up a partnership approach to delivery and build capacity in the VCFSE organisations. 

The council priorities were to: 

• provide school aged children with support to address challenges with their emotional welling and mental health 
• target those children and young people identified as requiring additional support or access to specialist services 
• provide support for children and young people impacted by domestic abuse 
• deliver immediate support in light of an expected surge in demand from Summer 2021 and scale up, develop, test and refine the model during delivery up until the end of August 2022.

At the beginning of phase one from April 2021, SCVO talked to schools, practitioners and the VCFSE sector about emotional wellbeing issues facing children and young people arising from the pandemic and their capacity to respond to them. In June 2021 selected applicants were invited to apply for up to £40,000. These applicants were selected on the basis that they would be able to begin immediately and deliver their project during the summer of 2021. This would enable their services to be sustained in a period of uncertainty with funding, and also provided time to recruit key staff for September. The second round of funding invited organisations to identify what was most needed in the local area, from mentoring, sports activities, to drop-ins and support for the domestic abuse survivors, and to apply for funding to support these activities. The third round of funding was only for the provision of counselling services by VCFSE organisations, as the steering group and VCFSE partnership identified that this element was missing from round two. Overall, provisions focussed on ‘getting advice' and ‘getting help’ – areas of the nationally recognised iThrive framework for children’s mental health, with emphasis on equity of access for young people who needed support.

SCVO took four very important approaches to the project:

1. Independent evaluators were recruited to monitor the project delivery and the difference it was making for the children and young people themselves. This enabled the impact to be clearly demonstrated and made the case for continuation funding.
2. VCFSE sector providers were not asked to fit into a particular shape or approach to service delivery but to play to their strengths. This also allowed the children and young people to have a choice about the type of services they engaged with. 
3. A high level steering group of experts was convened of senior leaders and decision makers from the council and health systems, chaired by the CEO of SCVO. It met regularly throughout the programme to advise, make decisions on targeting and funding, and also included engagement with the VCFSE providers so that sectors could learn about each other. 
4. Strengthening the capacity of the VCFSE organisations was important to successfully deliver the project and the intended outcomes, help build professionalism and the skills needed to apply for funding from other sources to contribute to organisational sustainability.

SCVO played a central role in facilitating the links between VCFSE organisations and the other agencies involved. The project was managed through regular meetings with the VCFSE organisations, enabling a strong collaborative partnership to be formed through information sharing and network building, helping with ongoing learning, informing the evaluation, as well as joining up activities so young people could be routed through to available support more quickly. Data was reported monthly along with a narrative report to identify what was working well, issues to be aware of and any concerns. A dedicated project manager worked three days per week. 

Phase one was so successful that two further phases of delivery have taken place, so that from July 2021 to March 2024 over £2 million from central government has been used to fund VCFSE organisations to provide support and activities to children and young people to address their emotional wellbeing needs.

The impact

The project has achieved its aim of improving the emotional wellbeing of children and young people. The outcomes for the children and young people have included reduced isolation and anxiety (tracked as a longitudinal measure), improved confidence and self-esteem, improved resilience and improved safety in the home. 

Sport 4 Life is a VCFSE organisation that works with 11-29 year-olds on life skills and employability using sport as the vehicle. As part of the Sandwell Emotional Wellbeing project, it delivered mentoring in schools, with the schools identifying the young people needing support with emotional wellbeing. A six-week mentoring program is provided that looks at skills, motivation and wellbeing. The young people are encouraged to talk about the issues that they are facing and come up with their own plan to work through them, which can if they choose include participation in sports. 

Sport 4 Life appreciated being part of the programme as it was different to others it had participated in because ‘you knew all about the different organisations delivering the project and so felt that it was like a partnership of organisations delivering.’ The proactive communications from SCVO kept everyone informed and the regular meetings ‘helped get to know the other organisations and build confidence in each other.’ As a result of participation in this project Sport 4 Life has been able to consolidate its work within Sandwell Borough and access other sources of funding to support related work in the local area.

The project has also been able to strengthen partnership working and build trust between the VCFSE providers, schools, strategic partners including health services, mental health trusts, children’s services, the police and the council. The creation of these borough-wide cross-cutting networks was vital to delivering the project successfully and has led to an ambition to develop new programmes together and interlink delivery across Sandwell. 

Lessons learned

The project started by asking local people what was most needed to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. It did not attempt to decide for them or commission without consulting first. 

By being flexible and encouraging VCFSE organisations to play to their strengths and expertise, relevant high-quality activities and services were delivered for the children and young people, making a positive difference to their wellbeing. 

High quality, regular communication between project partners, SCVO, the council, health systems and other partners, with regular partnership and steering group meetings has been essential for the project. This approach built respect for expertise and experience and made effective use of subject knowledge. 

By creating a steering group that included senior decision makers and leaders and meeting regularly with the VCFSE organisations, each sector could learn about each other and build relationships and trust that would not have been possible otherwise. This approach has benefited the council, VCFSE organisations and health systems through laying the foundations for other project partnerships. 

VCFSE providers were strengthened from the experience, gaining capacity, capability and developing strong links with each other, with schools, and with other agencies. The different VCFSE organisations could mutually add value to each other’s work and share capacity so that young people could access support considerably earlier.

The challenge

Suffolk is a large county with a two-tier council system. Much of the county is rural. In rural areas VCFSE organisations are generally smaller but have vital knowledge and understanding about the needs of residents and the situation in communities that the councils need to know. The LIO, Community Action Suffolk (CAS) has a vital role in facilitating the connections with the county and five district councils, but given the complexity of the Suffolk system a more formal mechanism was needed to facilitate engagement. 

The solution

There are two bodies that enable councils to work with and learn from small VCFSE organisations with the LIO: The Collaborative Communities Board and the Voluntary Sector Leaders Group.

The Collaborative Communities Board (CCB) creates a space for county council, district councils, health systems (Suffolk has two Integrated Care Systems), statutory partners and local infrastructure organisations (LIOs) to come together to address the big issues for residents and communities. Although created during the pandemic, it was built on an existing culture of collaboration, enabling working together on issues such as tackling poverty, reducing isolation and loneliness, supporting volunteering and emergency response. This way of working was so constructive that it has been continued post-pandemic. 

The CCB now focuses on prevention, targeted intervention and demand management so that needs are met, and communities can benefit from everyone working together. As the county LIO, the chief executive of CAS co-chairs the CCB with a senior officer from the County Council demonstrating parity of esteem, and the board meets regularly with most work done through a series of subgroups. The main board provides a forum to link to: existing work streams and subgroups; new groups forming to respond to presenting needs or opportunities; strategies being developed elsewhere such as the health and wellbeing board. It is able to share knowledge and insight from across the different organisations, advise on the work of subgroups, act strategically, help allocate funding and take decisions. This prevents duplication across the tiers of local government, health systems and other partners and drives partnership working rather than competition. The subgroups convene VCFSE organisations working in the topic area and cover areas such as tackling poverty including access to food and homelessness support, early years and family support, refugees and VCFSE capacity and development. Intelligence and issues gathered by the subgroups can be fed directly into the CCB to enable connection to other pieces of work and the potential to leverage additional funds from other sources.

As one council officer described: ‘the large cogs turn only if you have small cogs in between to make everything work. All the cogs have to work together in collaboration to succeed.’

The CCB has provided the mechanism for the district and county councils to work together to distribute central government funds such as the Household Support Fund (HSF), applying subsidiarity principles so that funding has been distributed at the most appropriate level. It also acknowledges the complexity that exists within the Suffolk system and helps facilitate conversations, trust and action. This culture of working together at a system level as a collective of the public sector and the VCFSE sector facilitated by the LIO, enables very close working between all partners. It also enabled the Holiday and Food Programme, which county councils were required by central government to deliver, to be devolved to the district councils who had a better knowledge of local need, and local VCFSE organisations could be commissioned to deliver to children and families. 

CAS brings an overview of the VCFSE sector into the discussions, intelligence from communities and the right representatives and organisations from the VCFSE sector into conversations and decision making. The role of CAS in the CCB enables the VCFSE sector to come to the table in the right place at the right time. 

The CCB is supplemented by a Voluntary Sector Leaders Group (VSLG) convened by CAS. This is a group of chief executives of VCFSE organisations across Suffolk meeting monthly to share intelligence and problem solve. The VSLG is attended by the County Council CEO and relevant Cabinet Member, and leaders of other statutory partners but the agenda is driven by the voluntary sector.

The impact

One example of the impact of the CCB and the work of its subgroups is in emergency food provision. 

The tackling poverty subgroup of the CCB recognised that in responding to the growing need for emergency food provision in the county, there was an increasing number of community-based foodbanks and pantries, often set up in a local area as a crisis response but which were struggling to be sustainable in the long-term. 

Using district and county council funding from UK Shared Prosperity Fund and Household Support Fund, a food network sustainability project has been created to provide coordination, mapping, accountability and sustainability. CAS is facilitating the network, working with community-based providers to map provision, share good practice, address challenges and barriers, particularly for small VCFSE organisations run by volunteers alone. The network directly contributes to a CCB objective of a warm handover, and the councils can be certain that the needs of people being referred are met at the earliest opportunity. 

Lessons learned

It takes an investment of effort and time to build and sustain relationships. The CCB is an example of the benefits that accrue from investing in relationships. 

Although this may appear to be a complex strategic framework, it is comparatively simple with one board that provides strategic oversight, can target work to areas of most need and enables the allocation of funding from several sources to the right place at the right time. 

The subgroups provide a flexible and agile response to presenting issues, and prevents duplication and competition between councils, statutory sectors and the VCFSE. 

The challenge

In early 2022 funding was made available from central government to support interventions in areas where there had been a low uptake of vaccines during the pandemic. Cambridge City Council (CCC) were aware that there were challenges in engaging some communities in the city and that they needed to work with the VCFSE sector to reach them. Working with Cambridge CVS, a collaborative project with grassroots VCFSE organisations was set up to ensure that individuals in communities had the information, resources and access they needed to take decisions about receiving a COVID-19 vaccination. This was done through a non-medicalised model of engagement supporting creative and therapeutic interventions. 

The solution

The City of Cambridge had a comparatively low COVID-19 vaccination uptake and, Cambridge CVS received initial funding from the council to find out why. The community-based research also identified what VCFSE organisations were already doing to provide information and resources to the communities they worked with and what additional support would be helpful. Central government funding then became available, and a bigger programme based on this research was then developed and coordinated by Cambridge CVS. 

A systems design and systems thinking approach was used to develop the project, which brought in expertise from people with lived experience, allowed learning by doing and enabled different ways of working. The project started by building trust and establishing shared values between the partners. Everyone participating had to sign up to an agreed list of shared values such as a commitment to openness and transparency, providing regular feedback to each other, sharing data and useful insights from communities. The Vaccine Access Partnership was made up of VCFSE organisations, Cambridge CVS, Cambridge City Council, health systems, public health, researchers and those with lived experience. All participants had equal status, the meeting chair rotated between the different organisations, all information was shared and there was open discussion and decision making, even when problems arose. The programme work was codesigned to have a non-medicalised approach based on creative and therapeutic activities. The intention was to break down barriers, listen to concerns sensitively, take activities and information to residents, and serve the needs of the priority groups. 

There are health inequalities within the Cambridge population due in part to high population churn, as one in five people stay for a year or less, and do not necessarily know about the health system and how it works. Other groups identified as a priority for the project were the Chinese community, residents originally from Eastern Europe, faith communities, young people, and adults and young people with learning differences. 

It was important that the project did not tell people what they should do, and so instead of commissioning one big project, the VCFSE organisations were asked how they thought they could most effectively reach their communities with information and resources, and what they needed to do this. VCFSE organisations were encouraged to take risks and do new or innovative things to do so. Funding was provided on a full cost recovery basis, project management support was available from Cambridge CVS who also managed finance and reporting to help organisations who were less used to this type of project to participate.

The project acknowledged people’s feelings in relation to the vaccine; provided knowledge, information and confidence; recognised practical issues around accessibility, time, the attitudes of friends and family; and took into account influences of social media and politics – national and international. For example, in a partnership between Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum and the Museum of Cambridge a series of creative workshops were held to develop a virtual time capsule. This created opportunities to start conversations not about vaccination, but about people’s experiences of the pandemic, flowing naturally to enable people who had not yet accessed vaccines to express their concerns and discuss their experiences. Pop-up vaccination events took place in small community settings, which was particularly useful for those who did not trust medical settings, the NHS or government messaging.

The impact

Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum (CECF), a member of the Vaccine Access Partnership has an extensive programme of work on equality – to help people access services and vice versa; provide governance and fundraising support for groups serving ethnic communities in Cambridge; and contribute significantly to community cohesion through various events and activities. CECF works with established, migrant and refugee communities. From early 2020 CECF had been working with the council and health systems to support translation and distribution of messaging around the pandemic, including participating in multiagency meetings to address barriers for particular groups. 

CECF recruited paid Health Champions from different ethnic communities who were trained and resourced to explain core health messages in relevant ways, answer questions and support engagement through choice in vaccine provision. The Health Champions built bridges into communities, helped other services access those communities and identified other issues that needed addressing, e.g. access to culturally appropriate food. All those recruited had previously been distant from the labour market, but in 2024 are all now in employment. As a result of participation in the Vaccine Access Partnership CECF are now viewed as a respected delivery partner, have participated in other projects with the council to provide services to ethnic communities in Cambridge, and been able to use data the project generated in order to demonstrate need to secure funding from The National Lottery Community Fund amongst others.

Cambs Youth Panel (CYP) also participated in the Partnership. CYP started in 2016 as consultative space where young people could safely share their views about policing and be heard by senior officers, and the police could consult with young people. The success of this initiative brought other agencies and organisations into the relationship, and CYP now supports children, young people and families all over the county, dealing with a wide variety of issues and topics. CYP works with young people of secondary school age and above to give them an insight into local decision-making bodies and other authorities. It gives a voice to young people to provide adult decision makers with reliable and objective views and information from young people themselves, challenges inequalities faced by young people and opens doors for new opportunities.

Cambridge CVS originally asked CYP to participate in the Vaccine Access Partnership to help reach young people as they had been distributing reconditioned computers to young people during the pandemic. The members of CYP designed and did all the vaccination outreach work themselves with one paid member of staff supporting them. The work started by sweeping away any presumptions about why young people might not be engaging with the vaccination programme by listening to and exploring with young people why they might be hesitant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. CYP worked with medical students and academics at Cambridge University to answer the questions asked by young people, producing factsheets that were relevant and accessible, and working with other project partners to distribute as widely as possible. 

CYP then set about creating events for young people to take place in local community spaces. Using Minecraft, virtual reality and podcasting to contribute to a virtual time capsule, the workshop helped young people to explore their experiences of the pandemic, talk more about vaccination, and receive a vaccine if they wanted to. CYP members designed all parts of the experience to a very high standard from the stands and displays, literature and resources available, to the t-shirts they wore when staffing the events.  This engagement changed the narrative around vaccination for young people, giving more balanced views and facilitating open discussions.

Lessons learned

Many people and organisations participated in the Vaccine Access Partnership. One participant described this as being like ‘the Dunkirk Flotilla’ as lots of people were enabled to make a difference within their own communities. 

The VCFSE partners were able to harness the real lived experiences of the communities they worked with, and this helped the council and health partners to uncover and understand the barriers that existed which were not revealed in the national conversation around vaccine access.

The council, health systems, researchers and other statutory partners all participated on equal terms alongside Cambridge CVS and VCFSE organisations. This lack of hierarchy led to effective co-design and open decision making and was a core contributor to the project success. 

Central government funding with flexibility for councils in how its objectives could be delivered, allowed a new way of cross-sectoral working to be tested based on systems thinking, which brought in key grassroots community groups.

The project succeeded because its primary aim was about breaking down barriers to vaccination and wider healthcare using non-traditional methods of promoting health interventions. It also led to improvements in wellbeing and mental health. Any increase in vaccination uptake was a byproduct of this focus.

The project created new trusted relationships and has built partnerships that have contributed to subsequent collaborations for example on wider health inequalities, an equalities toolkit for the VCFSE sector, and specific support for young people and families during the cost of living crisis. 

The challenge

Early in January 2022 the then Cumbria County Council was notified that in two weeks an asylum contingency hotel would be opening in Barrow in Furness. The area’s LIO, Cumbria CVS was contacted by the council and identified that coordination would be needed for the small local community groups who would get involved to provide support for the residents of the hotel, but for whom this was mostly a very new area of work. Frequent online meetings were set up with staff from the council, CVS and VCFSE organisations. These had flexible agendas and were focused on problem solving and building effective working relationships. A senior council manager with local knowledge and relationships attended who was able to take decisions. Through this partnership working the small VCFSE organisations were able to help meet the needs of the hotel residents. 

The solution

The Home Office housing provider coordinated statutory service responses but initially third sector organisations were not invited to the meetings. Although the statutory role of a council is limited in relation to the contingency hotels themselves, Cumbria County Council identified that a lot of support would be needed by the residents, mostly single males, and this would need to come from the VCFSE sector. There were also community cohesion issues to consider. 

Cumbria CVS already had a very good multiple working relationship with senior officers and frontline staff of Cumbria County Council Communities Team (following local government reorganisation, since May 2022 Barrow is now within a new unitary authority of Westmorland and Furness Council). The response mirrored that taken during the pandemic and other local emergencies, with lots of short, online meetings convened to learn from other areas, find out what funding was available, identify other potential partners, solve problems and coordinate the response. Initially three senior staff from the council, CVS and Furness Multicultural Community Forum (FMCF) a local VCFSE organisation, met together to initiate the work, quickly building relationships and trust – with the three leads working very closely and often interchangeably. Local knowledge was key, by having people who were based in the area and therefore who knew the right contacts and organisations to involve, it helped bring people together and make sure the appropriate VCFSE organisations were then brought in to support the new residents. The Home Office housing provider, Barrow Borough Council, Police and local NHS organisations joined the group to add to coordination and problem solving capacity, creating a multiagency response. 

One important issue to address was gaining the trust of the VCFSE organisations and their volunteers as there were so many unknowns in this situation and there was also some element of relationship rebuilding to be done across all partners. Cumbria CVS filled much of the information gap, for example finding out what people living in the hotel would receive from the housing provider and what would have to be provided from other sources; as well as helping to communicate with the community around the hotel. A full set of accessible guidance sheets for the VCFSE organisations were co-created on risk assessment, personal safety, language culture and faith, etc. Cumbria CVS also created working agreements with the housing provider and hotel staff, supported VCFSE organisations to source additional volunteers, and coordinated funding applications. Cumbria Community Foundation were able to provide small amounts of funding for the VCFSE groups alongside funding from the Home Office via the council. 

The resulting package of support for people living in the hotels helped meet their needs for clothing and toiletries, mobile phones and internet access, provide volunteering activities, access to English language tuition and culturally appropriate activities. The VCFSE organisations helped build links with the local communities and break down some barriers, contributing to community cohesion. They could also identify issues that needed to be addressed within the accommodation which would be escalated via the council to the housing provider. 

VCFSE organisations, council and LIO worked as a collaborative collective and were able to respond rapidly and flexibly. The work was built on existing trusted relationships and partnerships, as effectively it was an emergency response. It was intensive, meeting several times per week and relationships had to be built very quickly. The presence of senior council staff with local knowledge enabled decision making to happen quickly at the point of need and helped remove any barriers that arose.

The impact

Furness Multicultural Community Forum (FMCF) is a small VCFSE organisation with one full time and four part time members of staff. It works with people from ethnically diverse backgrounds of all ages supporting young people, families and men’s groups. FMCF works to build community cohesion through cultural celebrations and an annual unity festival for the local community, as well as delivering training in schools. It is part of the Furness for You Partnership supporting refugees to become volunteers.

As the first VCFSE partner to work with the council and Cumbria CVS, FMCF was able to convince other VCFSE organisations to participate and contributed to the creation of resources for VCFSE groups. FMCF worked with the housing provider area manager and hotel staff to build relationships to progress the work to support the asylum seekers. They put on activities within the hotel as well as off-site, orientated people into life in the UK, facilitated participation in community volunteering and set up sports groups and cooking events for young people and adults. FMCF worked in partnership with Mind to provide off-site mental health support. The use of the hotels for emergency accommodation was not welcomed by some parts of the local community and there was some hostility and associated crime. The project partners worked together to improve information available to the local community and answer any questions.

FMCF had good existing relationships with Cumbria CVS and that formed the basis for trusted participation in the project. However, given the short notice of this work starting, other activities had to be paused and additional funding sought to cover the increased staff capacity needed to participate. 

Despite these and other difficulties FMCF and other project partners were able to provide the initial much-needed support for the hotel residents, offer ongoing support and advocacy for them and start to enable their integration into the local community. For example: ‘one of the best outcomes was the young men being able to integrate more with the local community.’ Two thousand plus hours of volunteering took place in the local area e.g. in a warehouse for a local hospice charity shop. ‘This valued the skills that the young men already had, they up cycled furniture and tested donated electrical items.’ 

Lessons learned

The approach of frequent, short meetings attended by a senior decision maker with local knowledge and relationships, can be used much more in council and VCFSE sector projects to move them along rapidly, and quickly address issues. 

Where information can be shared, it should be communicated with other partners as early as possible. Once this was routine within working relationships, information flowed smoothly. 

It is important for statutory partners and external provider organisations to understand how VCFSE organisations operate as this knowledge and understanding was key in ensuring that all parties worked well together. 

As a statutory consultee the council was automatically brought into discussions with the housing provider and other statutory partners. This is not automatically the case for VCFSE partners. LIOs and the VCFSE sector also need to be involved from the beginning so that the work can benefit from the LIO’s overarching view of communities and the VCFSE sector, and the specialist knowledge and experience of VCFSE organisations. The Home Office housing provider now convenes multiagency response groups that include the local VCFSE sector where new facilities are being opened. 

The high-quality existing relationships between council and LIO have been important as Cumbria has transitioned from two tier to unitary councils. These relationships have transferred to the new teams, are not dependent on one or two people but exist across the breadth of the teams, and at senior and frontline levels. This has helped to mitigate any challenges within the new structures.