Mixed response to third sector event

The VCS summit was intended to present the findings of a special commission on how the VCS should work with the council in the future.

However VCS representatives were disappointed they were not invited to be part of the commission, with one person saying it was ‘incredibly insulting.’

Lynda Reese is from one of the six major organisations in Luton who have formed the Connectsix Consortium.

Speaking on their behalf, she said: “It’s fair to say as a group we felt patronised by it. We felt we were being told things that we knew so clearly from our own day-to-day experiences. Every one of our groups has suffered enormous cuts in grants. It almost felt like it was something we should have been having two years ago and was way out of date by now.

“There was a very strong suggestion made that we need to stop putting our organisatons first and put users at the forefront. We were deeply offended by that. I’ve worked in this sector for 35 years and you couldn’t possibly do that if you weren’t putting your users first. That really did cut.”

The commission’s report was agreed by Luton Council’s executive members to be adopted as a model for a ‘new way of working with voluntary and community organisations’ on March 26.

Robin Millar, one of the external speakers at the summit, said: “This kind of collaboration (between council and VCS) is innovative and groundbreaking. There are not 300 other councils round the country doing this sort of thing.”

Indeed some VCS representatives said they felt there were good ideas in the report, such as creating a list of all the organisations in Luton to identify overlaps and gaps in the services.

Mrs Reese said she knew some of the much smaller organisations felt the summit had been a success.

Leader of the council, Councillor Hazel Simmons, said at the meeting: “We have a very vibrant and exciting voluntary sector in Luton, from all of our diverse communities in Luton and we really do want to work with you. I know we are not always going to agree and will fall out on lots of things but everything we will agree on is to improve services to the communities we serve. We need compromise and flexibility on both sides if we are going to make this work in these very challenging times.”

Children’s Services director Martin Pratt, who chaired the VCS Commission, emphasised the need to work ‘with’ the people of Luton, not ‘for’ or ‘to’.

He said: “We don’t want to make the VCS an extension of the state. We will be working together but still have very different roles.”

There will be a meeting on May 8 at 10am in the Council Chamber to discuss the ‘code of practice’ and a new specification for an infrastructure organisation will be put out to tender.

The full report from the VCS Commission can be downloaded from www.luton.gov.uk/VCS.