Compacts are essentially 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. Currently several voluntary\community sector groups attend with partners from the Borough Council, Hampshire Primary Care Trust and Hampshire Constabulary. The group wants to broaden membership further to include more voluntary\community groups, housing associations, Hampshire County Council representatives and other interested parties. So if you would like to join us or would like further information please contact either of the Chairs by email of telephone:
Mark Thorpe (01256) 845624 OR Rebecca Rebecca Kennelly (01256) 423811
What will the group do?
Terms of reference (available below) have been agreed for the group highlighting that the main tasks will be evaluation of our own organisations' practices, development of best practice and monitoring compliance. The minutes of the last meeting are also available below, however the next full meeting of the group has not yet been set due as a sub group is busy working on a draft Consultation Code of Practice. This code will provide consistency and help all partners to get improve their engagement with others on policy matters and service delivery decisions.
The group also has an Action Plan for the next 12 months (also available below) which gives an overview of its aims.
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 analyse 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 also encourages statutory organisations to support Voluntary and Community organisations by providing resources in kind. To find out more about what else the Borough Council is doing to support the Voluntary and Community Sector see:
Development of a Voluntary and Community Sector Development Strategy
Core Revenue Funding to Voluntary Groups
Basingstoke Training Consortium
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) 845411
mark.thorpe@basingstoke.gov.uk