Understanding
The VCS
Just a bunch of volunteers, aren’t
they?
VCS – A Definition
• The VCS is diverse, active and passionate
• It includes voluntary and community organisations, charities,
social enterprises, cooperatives, mutuals, and companies both
large and small
• Organisations in the sector share common characteristics:
• Value-driven, person centred, social model
• Accountable by governance structures – real people, real
communities (usually unpaid)
• work delivered for the public benefit, beyond the
membership of individual voluntary and community
organisations (VCOs)
• Not for profit – principally reinvest any financial surpluses to
further social, environmental or cultural objectives
• independence of both formal structures of government and
the profit sector
• They are full of expert, professional paid staff - not only
volunteers
Scope of the VCS
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Adult Education
Advice
Advocacy
Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking
Arts/Culture
Asylum Seekers &
Refugees
Bereavement
Birth/Pregnancy
Campaigning
Carers
Children
Chronic Medical Condition
Community Care
Community Development
Community Safety
Counselling
Cultural
Economic Development
Education
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Elderly
Employment Support
Environment
Faith/Religion
Families
Family Support
Gay/Lesbian
Grant Giving
Health
Health & Social Care
HIV/AIDS
Housing
Immigration
International Dev.
Learning Disability
Leisure
Men
Mental Health
Parenting
Physical Disability
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Play
Public Health/Health
Promotion
Racial Harassment
Relationships
Self Help
Sensory Disability
Sexual Abuse
Single Parents
Social Activities
Sport
Support
Training
Volunteering
Women
Youth
Scope of the VCS
• The ways in which the sector works, the activities it
carries out and the beneficiaries it supports, are very
diverse
– building social capital
– providing services to the public and to particular community
groups
– providing advocacy on behalf of communities and the
individuals
– contributing expertise and experience to policy formulation
Size of the VCS – National Picture
• Total number of VCS groups in England 138,72
Micro charities Less than £10,000
Small charities £10,000 to £100,000
Medium charities £100,000 to £1 million
Large charities £1 million to £10 million Major charities More than £10 million
VCS in Leicester/Leicestershire
VCS in Leicester/Leicestershire
VCS in Leicester/Leicestershire
VCS in Leicester/Leicestershire
What can the VCS add
– Value, innovation and quality in delivering public services
– Efficient and effective services that can produce better and
lasting outcomes
– Ability to engage at a community level and understand the
real needs of the community
• building social capital, that is, building relationships and bridges within
and across communities that help to bind society together
• meeting special needs/niche interests through significant expertise and
experience, especially with complex needs
• maintaining an independent voice – structural and legal independence
allows it to assume a role as a constitutional check or balance
• full involvement of stakeholders across sector divides
• acting with flexibility and speed – its independence allows it, within legal
and constitutional boundaries, to respond to changing needs
Barriers to cross-sector Contracts
• May be cost differences due to some of their approaches
• If no costs are put in for involvement, the VCS will no longer be
able to be engaged in multi agency meetings/forums/initiatives
• Finance, shift to equity and loan finance – cash flow !
– Change in VCS ethos from “caring to charging”
• Governance, Boards/Trustees – (memorandum & arts)
• Language differences
Positives of working with the VCS
• Well governed
• Value, innovative and experienced in delivering public
sector contracts
• Ability to engage at a community level and understand
the real needs of the community
• Trusted by their communities and potentially deliver
and focus services to hard to reach areas
Cross sector working may well influence any potential
commissioning ?
Thank you
David Barsby
david.b@valonline.org.uk
0116 2575047