From April this year, local government and statutory agencies have a “duty to inform, consult and involve” people in decision-making.
The duty relates to both routine and occasional planning processes.
The new requirements provide an opportunity for voluntary and community organisations to play a valuable bridging role between service users, the wider community and public service representatives.
The Community Development Foundation has produced guidance to help the public sector and their partners make the most of the new requirements, which are available here.
The independent review of Newham Council’s grants-to-commissioning process between 2006 and 2008 was completed in March but has yet to be formally launched. The report, with the rather dry title of “Pointers to Better Outcomes”, is critical in a number of important areas about the process undertaken by the local authority. It says:
“There has been little consultation so far on what services third sector organisations could best provide to meet Local Area Agreement priorities and no accompanying mapping of the provider landscape”
“Unfortunately the process did not model or further good partnership working between third sector organisations and the Council nor between third sector organisations themselves.”
“The confusion around the process, inconsistent technical input and the difficult timeline meant, that even with high quality support, the transfer of grants to commissioning did not work as well as it could have done for both the Council and for third sector organisations.”
“Partnerships were rushed together in very short spaces of time or established consortia rushed together bids. Both are unsatisfactory and do not allow for the building of trust and the development of supporting systems and structures.”
“The Council did not appropriately design the consultation and planning stage of the Grants to Commissioning process and therefore did not meet best practice.”
“The Council does have an understanding of need based on its own and others research and resident feedback. However, what was missing was a process of dialogue whereby third sector organisations could feed in emerging needs and beneficiary aspiration to further shape that understanding.”
Many of these criticisms will be of little surprise to groups who took part in the commissioning process.
Pointers to Better Outcomes (Word, 495K)
Section 4: Conclusions and Recommendations (Word, 118K)
Welcome to the new site. Previously called “Implementing the Newham Compact” and set up by Aston-Mansfield Community Involvement Unit to publicise the work of the Compact Implementation Group, www.newhamcompact.org.uk now aims to provide news and updates on how the Newham Compact has been embraced locally by statutory sector agencies like the council, the NHS and the police.
In no way does this website represent or reflect the views of the Newham Compact Implementation Group or its voluntary sector members.
Glad to clear that up…
The Compact Implementation Group has agreed a new mechanism for resolving disputes using the Newham Compact
Because the Newham Compact strives to improve dialogue between all voluntary, community and faith sector groups and all officers in the statutory agencies that have signed up to it, the Compact Implementation Group wants to encourage disputes and disagreements to be resolved amicably wherever possible by discussion between local partners, as part of strengthening their on-going working relationships.
However, this may not always be possible. If either party to a disagreement between a voluntary, community or faith sector group and a statutory partner has tried unsuccessfully to resolve their dispute, they can approach the relevant contact on the Compact Implementation Group to ask for an external mediator to become involved.
This must be done by e-mail or in writing.
The main contacts for the Compact Disputes Process are:
Tom Connor, for London Borough of Newham - tom.connor@newham.gov.uk
Ian McDowell, for Newham NHS- Ian.Mcdowell@newhampct.nhs.uk
Sarah Ruiz, for the VCF sectors in Newham - sarah@nvsc.org.uk
Paul Morris, for Newham Police - Paul.Morris@newham.gov.uk
The Compact Implementation Group has also produced a ‘Successful Communication Checklist’ to assist groups and statutory partners to improve the way they communicate.
Successful Communication Checklist (84K) 
click here to download
