A representative from Voluntary Action Leicester will give the meeting an indication of the likely impacts of future budget reductions.
Minutes:
Kevan Liles, Chief Executive of Voluntary Action LeicesterShire (VAL) gave the meeting a brief presentation on the view of the voluntary sector with regard to the forthcoming budget cuts.
- VAL supported 1000 voluntary groups in the city from small to very large.
- The Big Society – this was felt to be a branding exercise and that real voluntary activity was firmly already in place, and it would continue regardless of any particular government initiative.
- It was generally felt that the Big Society was a means for making budget deficit reductions, by getting public sector roles undertaken for free, such as job clubs for the unemployed.
- There were no resources to support the public having a greater say in decisions (ie planning permission), no planned structure to it.
- As a community activist, Kevan felt that people would always help other people in need of a service. As an organisation VAL would always seek to help organisations and communities make a difference, particularly in this era of cuts.
- 20% cuts to funding couldn’t be made through efficiencies, but 80% funding still remained and political choices needed to be made about how that money was spent.
- It was felt that there needed to be a fundamental rethink about how services were structured – the voluntary sector could help to make a smaller amount of money go further by running services cheaper and reflect what the community wanted better.
Questions / comments were raised as follows:
A resident noted that he was a member of the Friends of Castle Park, he queried whether this organisation could run the park?
Councillor Dempster responded to this question. She pointed out that it was an attractive idea to have groups run parks. There were however a number of complicated practical issues. There was an issue of timing where cuts would need to be made to free up resources to pay for the new arrangements because it would take time and effort to put new arrangements in place. The alternative would be to ‘twin track’ to allow new and existing arrangements to run alongside each other for a time, but this would cost additional money. There was also a concern about how fixed the arrangements could be if the park was run by volunteers or a community group; for example, people may move away from the area. It wasn’t impossible that services could be run by community groups, but there were difficulties with it.
Councillor Dempster also responded to the point regarding the voluntary sector being able to run services cheaper. Again, she pointed to the requirement to ‘twin track’ whilst arrangements changed. Also, where a small grant is given to a ward based organisation, if that is multiplied by 22, for each ward in the city, the amount soon builds up.
It was commented that enthusiasm in community groups was often there at the beginning of a project, but often groups would get smaller as people lost interest or moved away.
Kevan commented that there were risks with this model, but there were also risks associated with the public and private sector running services. The example was given of failed hospitals.
The issue of the Bennion Pools hedge was raised again. It was felt that this was something which the community should be able to do for themselves, but were told that they couldn’t use external contractors.
Councillors agreed that there were issues with regard to Council bureaucracy, but there was no way of overcoming problems relating to legal and insurance matters. It was also noted that the rules around Council procurement were impossible to work around, these were often set down by the European Union. It was suggested that if a bid was put in for funding from the Community Meeting Budget, then it may be possible to use outside contractors.
It was queried whether Community Meeting budgets were being cut.
Councillors gave assurances that they were not.