Agenda item

To receive details of funding from the VCFSE Accord

Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods to report.

The Cabinet received a report of the Director of Public Health, which advised that in November 2021 Greater Manchester (GM) established a Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) Accord, which was a collaboration agreement between the public and VCFSE sectors with the aim of improving outcomes for Greater Manchester’s residents. It was jointly owned by the VCFSE and public sectors in GM, including NHS GM, Transport for GM, Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and all ten constituent local authorities.

The Accord was supported by an implementation plan and supporting activities at a GM level. At a local level adoption was locally led, with limited accountability or responsibility for reporting to GM on implementation.

A role of the Accord was to provide opportunities to build better understanding of roles across the different sectors and how these influence working relationships. It also provided a space for cross sector networking and identification of new and creative opportunities for collaboration. The commissioning and funding task and finish group have identified Social Value as a priority. They had identified current barriers to valuing the inherent social value of the sector through procurement and were developing proposals for how this could be done differently in future.

Oldham’s Live Well Implementation Plan had identified cross sector workforce development as a key enabler for the delivery of the Live Well approach at scale and plans around this are in progress. This includes the development of leadership skills and capacity withing the VCFSE sector, led by Action Together.

Through the Borough’s Engagement Framework, the Council was exploring how it could use digital insight platform (Big Oldham Convo) to ensure that insight gathered through our VCFSE was valued, and that the infrastructure was in place to capture and utilise it more effectively. 

The 2026 Priorities were:

·       To develop an action plan around the Borough’s workforce development priority, including a focus on improving understanding between sectors.

·       To test and implement proposals developed by the commissioning and funding task and finish group for an alternative model to ensure the inherent social value of the VCFSE sector is valued in procurement.

Options/Alternatives considered:

No alternatives were presented.

Resolved:

1.    That the Council commits to the vision and values of the Greater Manchester Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise Accord.

2.    That an SRO for the implementation of the Accord in Oldham be identified, along with officers within the Council, Integrated Care Board and Action Together who will be responsible for driving change.

3.    That all partners recognise the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise Accord and Public Sector Forum as the means of delivering on the accord commitments and establish clear lines of accountability and reporting through relevant organisational and Oldham Partnership governance structures.

4.    That the Oldham Partnership sets out the Council’s local commitments and measures of success, aligned to the Greater Manchester Accord, through the Oldham Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise Strategy and Action Plan.

5.    That public sector leaders in the Borough, be requested to commit to being active participants in the Forum and to supporting the development and delivery of the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise Accord Strategy and Action Plan.