LSB6

Response to the Health, Wellbeing and Local Government Committee call for evidence regarding Local Service Boards (LSBs)

Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA)

Introduction

Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) is pleased to offer this evidence to The Health, Wellbeing and Local Government Committee of the National Assembly for Wales with regard to its inquiry into the progress of the six Local Service Board (LSB) pilots in Wales and how LSBs might develop in future. If requested, WCVA would be prepared to give oral evidence.

WCVA

WCVA represents the interests of voluntary organisations, community groups and volunteers in Wales.  It has 2,100 organisations in direct membership and is in contact with many more through national and regional networks.

WCVA’s mission is to strengthen voluntary and community action at the heart of a civil society in Wales that:

• is inclusive and offers equality of opportunity;

• empowers people to participate and fosters community leadership;

• encourages and promotes the independence of voluntary action;

• celebrates and reflects linguistic and cultural diversity and choice, and engages in genuine partnership with other sectors on a "who does what best” basis.

The third sector and the Local Service Board

Delivering Beyond Boundaries says that 'all parts of the Welsh public service’ will 'establish Local Service Boards’ and 'each Board will bring together the key contributors to local service delivery’. The third sector delivers many public services alongside public and private partners.

The 2008 Welsh Assembly Government statutory guidance, entitled Local Vision - developing and delivering community strategies, developed this further by saying, in paragraph 5.24:

'The local service board, which will include the County Voluntary Council,

should ensure that a constructive dialogue takes place with the wider third sector

and citizens locally. The County Voluntary Council will be able to advise on this’. Although this refers to dialogue concerning the community strategy, it does establish that each County Voluntary Council will be a core member of the local LSB. This is the case in each of the Local Service Board pilot areas.

The County Voluntary Council, through its links with the diversity of third sector organisations in its area, enriches the LSB by supporting citizen engagement, contributing to more effective partnerships, enhancing service delivery, and ensuring more effective scrutiny.

The County Voluntary Councils in the pilot areas are actively engaging in LSBs but to date they have not received any additional resources to sustain their vital contribution. The only exception to this is Cardiff where a part-time Partnerships Officer post, based in the County Voluntary Council, was augmented to full-time. However, this is only for the duration of the pilot stage in order to support delivery on some specific LSB related objectives. This lack of resources is the most important issue facing the third sector regarding Local Service Boards at the moment.

Specifically, each County Voluntary Council has the potential to work with groups in its area to:

Support citizen engagement by:

• Keeping networks and local citizens’ groups informed of the issues tackled by LSBs;

• creating opportunities for dialogue between networks and local groups, and service planners and managers;

• disseminating information to local groups and networks, using both electronic and traditional media;

• seeking feedback and feeding views into planning processes;

• facilitating participative events.

Contribute to more effective partnerships by:

• Securing representation on working and planning groups from relevant third sector bodies able to bring citizen/user perspectives;

• supporting and training representatives from the broad third sector;

• disseminating information to wider interest groups and networks;

• bringing a third sector perspective to service design and commissioning processes, including co-production, resource allocation, processes to select providers, monitoring and evaluating services  

Enhance service delivery by:

• Increasing the ability of third sector organisations to enter public sector procurement processes to deliver local services;

• Improving their efficiency and effectiveness (training, networking, consortia building, capital investment, shared services);

• Supporting collaborative approaches to growing services in specific areas where gaps in provision have been identified and third sector delivery can be enhanced.

Contribute to more effective scrutiny by:

• Developing the role of relevant groups involving service users

• Helping organisations to develop their knowledge and skills base and techniques

• Developing clear arrangements for involvement in formal scrutiny arrangements, including as members of scrutiny panels

Current position of third sector with regard to LSBs

The WCVA Compact Survey 2008 says that 20 Local Service Boards have the County Voluntary Council as a core member. However, if the third sector is fully to perform the essential roles described above then the County Voluntary Councils need to be properly resourced to do so and this is not currently the case.

Contact

For anything concerning this paper please contact tday@wcva.org.uk .

26 September 2008