Last month’s meeting of The Partnership represented the culmination of two years’ work in resetting the relationship between Croydon Council and our local VCS partners. In launching its Future Croydon vision, Croydon Council pledged to “change how we work with the voluntary sector” and “to bring the amount we spend with the voluntary sector in line with neighbouring boroughs - commissioning more services from the voluntary sector”.

This is a transformative vision - of how local government and civil society can collaborate more effectively to support local people and their communities. It involves cultural change; more relational commissioning; genuine coproduction with local people; testing new, collaborative service-models; and evidencing outcomes and impact. In other words, it will not happen overnight.

The workstream taking responsibility for this transformation programme has to plan for the long-term – and to support it, CVA has consulted our VCS partners on a draft agenda for change. This is set out below under the heading Future Croydon – Our Shared Responsibility.

In the short-term – and to maintain the momentum before the Partnership next meets on 21 July - the Council wants to take some immediate opportunities to demonstrate the new and collaborative ways of working that Future Croydon commits us all to. CVA will work with the Council to ensure that VCS partners are involved from the outset in helping to shape these collaborations, with The Partnership retaining its focus on longer-lasting transformational change – and how we achieve that together. Recommendations are set out below that provide a checklist for change that is both systemic and sustainable:

Future Croydon – Our Shared Responsibility

• To be transformational, commissioning needs to be more strategic in finding the right provider to deliver the right service. If service-developments are based on clear needs assessments and co-productions, the service-specifications are more likely to be responsive to local need - and a match for local VCS delivery-models that bring agility, flexibility and intersectionality to how people experience services
• Future training programmes to support local commissioners on more relational and accessible practice
• Outcome and impact measurement to be embedded from the outset in a commissioning process that invites innovation and learning
• Future training models to support VCS partners on coproduction; shared delivery-models; and impact measurement
• Complementary income-streams to be joined up to ensure maximise impact and minimal duplication
• External VCS funding bids to be aligned, wherever possible, with the Future Croydon priorities
• New VCS delivery-partnerships to provide opportunities for smaller as well as larger VCS providers
• The whole VCS to be engaged in Future Croydon via all existing channels of communication – the VCS networks, strategic partnership boards and social media platforms
• Future Croydon to be aligned with the Government’s Civil Society Covenant and CVA’s launch of the Croydon Civil Society Alliance

Lots to achieve then before The Partnership next meets on 21 July. Watch this space for confirmation of the first Future Croydon opportunities targeting the involvement of our local VCS.

Steve

Steve Phaure

Chief Executive