The New Hertfordshire Community Assembly
Important Changes to the Structure of HIC
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At the HIC AGM held on 1st December 2009 the Chair and Accountable Body of HIC formally introduced the principles of an enhanced VCS structure that we are provisionally calling the Hertfordshire Community Assembly
After long consideration, the HIC steering group put to the wider HIC membership that it was time to create a county wide body that represented all the community sector.
The context of the need for a new body is straight forward.
HIC is currently only open to Infrastructure Services
The funding we receive from Capacity Builders (and others) has been vital. But this funding is coming to an end and we need to consider the future. Particularly in the face of significantly reduced public funding.
Training and development is a huge need.
Volunteering, and its development, is ever more vital. Funding, of course, remains a strain.
It is our belief that we need to develop HIC into body to properly to represent the whole sector and able, with legitimacy to support and enhance our sector in a genuinely representational, transparent and appropriate way.
Recent examples include requests from Herts Works and the Herts Childrens Trust Partnership Executive Group for voluntary sector representation from HIC which has no developed process for assessing the wider interest in this role and electing an appropriate individual to undertake this.
Other Counties have also begun to address these issues - one example is the Gloucestershire Assembly for the Voluntary and Community Sector.
The HIC Steering Group have given a great deal of thought to the principle of a similar Assembly and we attach The Flow Chart of how we think a Hertfordshire wide county wide consortium could and should look. This Diagramme has also been discussed and refined at full HIC meetings where it has received full support.
You will see that we propose a large annual assembly conference drawn from groups across Hertfordshire, which could also act as a virtual assembly throughout the year receiving electronic updates of the work of the executive group that will be drawn from and elected by the whole membership.
In terms of roles we have developed some basic terms of reference which have been agreed by the current HIC membership and we have Paraphrased some of the key tasks of the executive group which may in the short term contain many of the current HIC member groups thereby providing continuity at this stage.
You will note that we show "Theme Groups" along the one side.
These will include for example the work of the LAA Theme groups led by Hertfordshire Children's Trust, Hertfordshire Works (Covering economic development), Healthier Communities and Older People (HCOP) and all the other partnerships in which we are involved at a strategic level as a sector. This is broken down in far greater detail in this Current HIC Representation graphic.
As you can see VCS engagement in Hertfordshire currently relies heavily on input from key individuals from a select number of VCS organisations particularly the Herts CVS Group. who continue to undertake VCS representation as part of their generalist area of work. However it is important that specialist voices are also heard and that those organisations are able to feed in their knowledge, experience and thoughts that can then be communicated to our non VCS Partners. So a new representation structure needs to be clear that groups are not just talking on behalf of their own group but all of the VCS in Hertfordshire. We therefore need a mechanism such as the Assembly to push information out to the wider sector.
In terms of monitoring and assessing the effectiveness of new assembly we have identified the following three key outcomes which we believe could be achieved by the new structure and they are
Provide a stronger VOICE
A legitimate representative voice on strategic partnerships with a mandate to lobby and campaign
Enable effective COMMUNICATION
A route of contact and communication for engagement, consultation and feedback
Demonstrate our IMPACT
For example coming up with Research and information that evidences the economic and social value of the sector
Meeting on 26 January 2010
We invite to a First Meeting the existing HIC membership to establish an interim working party or core team and agree a system of communicating with the wider VCS so that we can involve as many groups as want to be part of the development of the Assembly.
We also want to start a process of agreeing a system for election of representatives and to look at identify Funding for the assembly going forward for that we may need to consider a Big Lottery bid and we will need willing volunteers to enable this to happen.
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