Received a telephone call from Welsh Government last Friday to confirm the bid that we developed and submitted in partnership with South Denbighshire Community Partnership has been approved for £249,520. As you can imagine we were over the moon as previous attempts had failed and so there is a motto there - never give up. I remember once when I was in Flintshire we only succeeded on our fourth attempt for £300,000 for a village/memorial hall and so it does pay to persevere where you believe you have a strong case backed by the community. The Corwen Healthy Living Centre will now be subject to a significant transformation and I am sure will go from strength to strength. As they say the work starts from here.
At times like this you do look around to thank those that have contributed to the success and to be honest there is always the danger that by naming individuals you will always miss one or more out by accident and so I am not going to fall into that trap. However its fair to say that this project would not have happened without the enthusiasm and commitment of the Trustees/Directors of the SDCP, the Corwen Town Council, Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board , Local Councillors and the Denbighshire County Council. Denbighshire County Council support has been significant in that they have offered to transfer the freehold to SDCP at NIL cost, they are supporting the building by renting rooms, they produced the architectural drawings and all other associated survey work to make this bid happen and succeed .
Clearly a huge thank you to Welsh Government for the cheque for £249,520 and I am sure that whenever the Ministers visit the Centre there will always be a warm welcome together with a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits. I also know that the local Assembly Member Ken Skates has been very supportive of the Healthy Living Centre and I am sure his influence down in Cardiff will have played a key role in this award.
So as you can see a lot of people and organisations have helped which I am sure will prove inspirational to other communities elsewhere in Denbighshire who may have redundant , tired buildings just waiting to be revived and brought to use for the local community.
The next step is to secure revenue funding to continue to have a full time presence at the Centre because unfortunately the funding has been reduced by 50% which means we can only employ a co-ordinator to look after the centre for 20 hours a week from 1.4.12 although we are working on this to see if we can get the funding reinstated.
I just hope I haven't forgotten anyone in my list above - if I have my apologies - it was not deliberate.
Monday, 26 March 2012
Friday, 2 March 2012
Families First - the results of the tender submissions
I am sure by now everyone who submitted a tender will know the result. Firstly can I extend congratulations to those third sector organisations who successfully secured a contract with Denbighshire County Council.
In every competitive contest there will be winners and there will be losers. I am not going to comment on the procurement process as clearly the time for that debate has now elapsed in the sense that the Council made a decision many months ago about commissioning in this fashion and whilst I expressed concern at the time as to the possible outcome it was difficult to set out a feasible alternative. This is due to the fact that my fears relating to the new system were simply that - fears rather than concrete evidence. Well those fears have materialised as I have had organisations telling me they failed to secure the contracts and therefore the funding. These organisations will be known to many families, volunteers and third sector organisations and as such are highly regarded and valued with excellent services. Well no matter how highly valued they are in the community those organisations are now faced with the prospect of approximately 80% of their funding vanishing overnight i.e. gone by 1.4.12 - just under a month left.
Those organisations I imagine will battle on to the end probably living off their reserves, perhaps making staff redundant or reducing their hours, moving possibly to smaller and cheaper premises and possibly cutting back on volunteers as they won't have the staff time to supervise them. Whatever they do is simply putting off the inevitable because without funding they cannot survive to deliver services that families access and while we are talking about families these are families with young children who for whatever reason turn in the first instance to those respected voluntary organisations. So who do they turn to in the future after having built a strong, caring relationship with the volunteers and staff of the voluntary organisations?.
What are DVSC doing , well we are helping organisations with funding applications to bodies such as Big Lottery but given the Lottery have a turnaround period of about 9 months it is likely that for many of the voluntary organisations their reserves won't last that long and so their future is bleak to say the least. The funding demand placed on Big Lottery and similar will increase as many organisations I imagine in Denbighshire and beyond will be applying as I know of one other Authority who went the same way as Denbighshire and that Council is in South Wales and there too there have been casualties involving at least one highly valued voluntary organisation which I was told about three weeks ago.
We did submit a proposal to the Welsh Government in July last year , as we could see how events were unfolding, suggesting that a 12 month safety net be established for those voluntary organisations who failed to secure a contract and during that 12 month period the organisations could then apply and hopefully obtain alternative funding . Our suggestion was not taken up. Maybe the key decision makers couldn't see what we were forecasting. Well they certainly will see it now as organisations begin to unravel as their reserves diminish. "I told you so" is not in my vocabulary although I have to say I am sorely tempted.
In every competitive contest there will be winners and there will be losers. I am not going to comment on the procurement process as clearly the time for that debate has now elapsed in the sense that the Council made a decision many months ago about commissioning in this fashion and whilst I expressed concern at the time as to the possible outcome it was difficult to set out a feasible alternative. This is due to the fact that my fears relating to the new system were simply that - fears rather than concrete evidence. Well those fears have materialised as I have had organisations telling me they failed to secure the contracts and therefore the funding. These organisations will be known to many families, volunteers and third sector organisations and as such are highly regarded and valued with excellent services. Well no matter how highly valued they are in the community those organisations are now faced with the prospect of approximately 80% of their funding vanishing overnight i.e. gone by 1.4.12 - just under a month left.
Those organisations I imagine will battle on to the end probably living off their reserves, perhaps making staff redundant or reducing their hours, moving possibly to smaller and cheaper premises and possibly cutting back on volunteers as they won't have the staff time to supervise them. Whatever they do is simply putting off the inevitable because without funding they cannot survive to deliver services that families access and while we are talking about families these are families with young children who for whatever reason turn in the first instance to those respected voluntary organisations. So who do they turn to in the future after having built a strong, caring relationship with the volunteers and staff of the voluntary organisations?.
What are DVSC doing , well we are helping organisations with funding applications to bodies such as Big Lottery but given the Lottery have a turnaround period of about 9 months it is likely that for many of the voluntary organisations their reserves won't last that long and so their future is bleak to say the least. The funding demand placed on Big Lottery and similar will increase as many organisations I imagine in Denbighshire and beyond will be applying as I know of one other Authority who went the same way as Denbighshire and that Council is in South Wales and there too there have been casualties involving at least one highly valued voluntary organisation which I was told about three weeks ago.
We did submit a proposal to the Welsh Government in July last year , as we could see how events were unfolding, suggesting that a 12 month safety net be established for those voluntary organisations who failed to secure a contract and during that 12 month period the organisations could then apply and hopefully obtain alternative funding . Our suggestion was not taken up. Maybe the key decision makers couldn't see what we were forecasting. Well they certainly will see it now as organisations begin to unravel as their reserves diminish. "I told you so" is not in my vocabulary although I have to say I am sorely tempted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)