About the new VCS Support Service (11/06/11)

Click here for details about the new VCS Support Service

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Infrastructure commissioning update (27/01/11)

Voscur has been selected as the preferred provider for the Bristol City Council voluntary and community sector (VCS) infrastructure support service. At present Voscur is completing final negotiations with Bristol City Council and hopes to sign a funding agreement shortly.
 
The new service will see some changes to the way support is provided to VCS groups in Bristol. The details of the support service will be finalised and introduced over the first six months of the new service. We expect the new service to be formally launched later in 2011 - we'll be providing more details as soon as they are available.
 
Until the new service is finalised Voscur will continue to maintain support to VCS groups in Bristol.

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Previous update (6/9/10)

Further to our last update, Voscur has now been invited (6 Sept 2010) by Bristol City Council (BCC) to submit a full proposal to provide VCSE Infrastructure Support Services. The BCC deadline for submitting the full proposal is 18th October 2010.

Voscur is considering the detailed service specification and developing the detail of its full proposal. As the details are developed, Voscur will ask its potential providers to submit further detail of their proposals to deliver specific services under the new VCSE Infrastructure Support Services.

Voscur acknowledges that the deadlines are tight and that this could present challenges to potential providers. To ensure that providers have time to develop proposals for the best possible services, within the timeframe set out by the BCC process, Voscur recommends that potential providers begin work on this process now. We are working to finalise the sub-contracting/grant process and anticipate this process will be communicated with providers imminently.

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What have we done so far?

We have been approached by many organisations wishing to work with us. Voscur is in a sensitive position in that it wants to be open and transparent and make the best proposal possible so that the best services are delivered to the sector in Bristol.
However, as we may be in competition with others to bid for this work, we need to be cautious about the information that we are sharing.
These are some of the actions that we have taken so far:
•    We have commissioned an independent organisation to carry out some research for us on local need in relation to training and learning, information provision and community development support needs.  
•    We have designed a provider application form, which organisations who want to work with us will be asked to complete, so that we can be sure that organisations that we work with meet the standards required in the Council's specification.  We will also send this form to every organisation that has expressed an interest in providing services.
•    We held three consultation meetings in July so that we could ask local groups and networks about the future of voluntary, community and social enterprise sector representation to Bristol's local strategic partnership and other decision making bodies.
•    We have been talking to other local infrastructure organisations about how they might want to work with us.
•    We have been talking to a range of local institutions about what they may be able to offer in the way of support to voluntary and community sector organisations locally.
•    We have asked potential delivery partners to complete an application form.
If you want to talk to Voscur about any aspects of this work, please contact in the first instance, Wendy Stephenson, Voscur's Chief Executive on 0117 9099949 or wendy@voscur.org