Decision details

Decision on future services that the Council commissions to support voluntary and community sector groups and organisations in Leicester.

Focus the Council’s strategic support for the city’s Voluntary and Community Sector as follows:

Decommission the three existing services (“Supporting collaboration and guaranteeing a collective voice for the city’s Voluntary and Community Sector”; “Providing infrastructure support to the city’s Voluntary and Community Sector”; and “Supporting volunteers and volunteering in the city”).

Commission a new, streamlined, single service aligned with the Council’s strategic commitment to supporting a vibrant, wide-ranging and effective Voluntary and Community Sector in the city. This service will focus predominantly on infrastructure support-related activities, incorporating an appropriate element of support for volunteers and volunteering (though not necessarily in the same manner as the current arrangement). This service can be procured through an “open procedure”, specifying broad outcomes and outputs in line with the Council’s manifesto commitment to the VCS. The commissioned provider should deliver appropriate support to improve the sector’s efficacy, sustainability and viability.

Continue to use existing and historical working arrangements within the Council to promote our own volunteering opportunities

The Council is in the final year of a three year agreement which comes to an end in September 2017 and the council are currently in the process of considering what future support arrangements might be appropriate and affordable given the current financial challenges faced by the Council.

Details in relation to the options are set in paragraphs 3.53 to 3.65 of the report.