Scottish Compact Baseline Review
APPENDIX ONE: EDINBURGH CITY COUNCIL AND EDINBURGH VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS COUNCIL PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT
The Agreement was drawn up between the City and the Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council (EVOC) in 1997. It involved a Partnership Statement and through it a number of protocols were formulated. The Agreement was driven by the Partnership Monitoring and Development Group. This had a cross-party membership of councillors and representatives from EVOC and other City-wide groups such as ones representing the elderly and young people.
Despite its name, the Group was not involved in formal monitoring. Through its meetings and discussions there developed a far greater mutual understanding of the issues and priorities facing the voluntary sector and the Council. This is seen as an important output of the process. It resulted in the growth of mutual respect from which the recent development of a formal written compact has been able to proceed. There were also a number of changes to policies and practices, in particular ones related to Council funding of voluntary organisations. For example there is now a single grant application form, the timetable for application submissions and decisions is distributed in advance and, where organisations are in receipt of support from a number of departments, one department takes the lead. These changes were as a result of these issues being raised at the Group. However, whilst other issues were discussed, for example the treatment of financial reserves, these have not always been resolved.
A more formal output of the Group's discussion was an annual questionnaire to voluntary groups seeking their views on the grant application and approval process and asking for information on performance. Feedback resulted in changes being made to the grant form. However, of greater significance for monitoring, is the information requested on performance. This is used to develop 3 performance indicators:-
- The extent to which funding related targets are attained by grant aided organisations. The average across all departments is currently 75%;
- The ratio of paid staff hours to volunteer hours across the funding departments; and
- The leverage of Council grant aid, with the average being 4.10 of other support attracted for every 1 of Council grant. As with all of the other indicators variations across funding Departments can be identified.
This information is collated and is to be reported to the Council Executive on an annual basis. It is a condition of grant support that this information is provided. The monitoring information requested has recently been added to. For example information is now to be provided on such things as black and ethnic minority service users.
The Council is now in the process, along with a range of partners, of moving towards having a formal written Compact. This will then be one of the inputs into the wider community planning process. It may be that the indicators can then be used as a baseline measure for some aspects of voluntary sector engagement.
Although the details on the Compact are still being discussed it seems that it will include an Action Plan that will be rolled forward annually. The partners involved in the Compact are likely to be, in addition to a number of representatives from the voluntary sector: Lothian and Borders Police, the Lothian National Health Service Trust, Communities Scotland and Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian. This membership indicates that the aim is to replicate the national compact's membership at the local level, moving away from the Positive Partnership Statements which were between the authority and the sector with little, or no, involvement of other public bodies.