Compacts are agreements held between organisations to improve and maintain the relationship between them. Nationally there is a Compact Commissioner in place to ensure that statutory bodies sign up to, and implement Compact’s locally.
Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, is pleased to be a fully signed up member of Hampshire County Council's 'One Compact' however, whilst 'One Compact' gives general guidance on how relationships between statutory bodies and voluntary\community sector organisations should operate, changes need to be made locally to meet these aims. Therefore in Basingstoke and Deane there is a 'Local Compact Implementation Group', set up to enable all members to actively roll out a ‘Compact way of working’ in their organisations.
Who can sit on the Local Compact Implementation Group?
The simple answer is anyone representing a voluntary\community sector group or a statutory body. Several voluntary\community sector groups and partners from the Borough Council, Hampshire Primary Care Trust and Hampshire Constabulary are part of the group. If you would like further information please contact either of the Chairs by email of telephone:
Mark Thorpe (01256) 845624 or Rebecca Kennelly (01256) 423811
What has happened so far?
Terms of reference (available below) have been agreed highlighting that the main tasks will be evaluation of our own organisations' practices, development of best practice and monitoring compliance.
The group also has an Action Plan (available below) which gives an overview of its aims, though the group has not met recently as efforts have been prioritised towards the Voluntary and Community Sector Development Strategy.
Does this mean that current partnerships aren’t working?
Not necessarily…but all partners recognise that working together is difficult and from time to time things go wrong.
The benefit of developing the Compact together is that it gives us a chance to look at what works well (so that we can replicate this), and an opportunity to analyze what may have gone wrong in the past (so that we can make changes to avoid reoccurrence in the future).
As well as proactive policy changes, a Compact can provide a mediation process to solve actual disputes as they happen, in a way mutually agreed prior to the problem occurring.
Links to other support provided to the Voluntary & Community sector
The Compact is only one aspect of the Council's ongoing relationship with the voluntary and community sector as there are other initiatives occurring including:
For further information on any of these areas please contact
Mark Thorpe
Neighbourhood Development Unit
Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council
Civic Offices
London Road
Basingstoke
RG21 4AH
Telephone (01256) 845624
Fax (01256) 845200
mark.thorpe@basingstoke.gov.uk