Information for Candidates for the Post of Chief Executive

Information for Candidates for the post of Chief Executive

Summary Extracts of:

• Strategic Plan 2014 - 2024
• Business Plan 2014 – 2017

ContentsPage

Planning Cycles and Involvement2

Strategic Plan 2014 – 2024

Organisation Status6

Charitable Objects6

Charity Beneficiaries7

Vision, Values and Mission7

Strategic Aims12

Long Term Financial Outlook13

Business Plan 2014 – 2017

PESTLE Analysis15

SWOT Analysis18

Aims, objectives and actions20

Planning cycles and involvement

York CVS is a complex organisation, with many and varied stakeholders, which aims to make significant and lasting change.

Strategic planning (long term) – the next 10 years

The Strategic Plan is underpinned by a clear vision of where we want to get to, our values, mission and strategic aims.

Led by the Board, our Strategic Plan should have input from all our stakeholders.

Success is likely to be qualitative in nature; judged against our vision, values and mission statements. Impact statements will be developed to show progress.

Business planning (medium term) – the next three years

Our Business Plan sits within this strategic context and sets out our objectives for the foreseeable future, giving a shared sense of what we will do, who will be involved, what resources will be applied and what we expect to happen as a result.

Led by the Chief Executive and Senior Managers, our Business Plan will have strong input from managers and delivery staff and volunteers. Key stakeholders should be engaged in relevant aspects of the plans, including partners, funders and importantly service users or beneficiaries.

Implementation planning - annual

Our Implementation Plans outline each team’s actions for the coming year, with resources, timescales and clear outputs. They ensure coherence within and between teams. Implementation Plans clearly show where every member of the team fits into the planning process.

Led by team managers, each team will work together to develop its own Implementation Plan. Managers will ensure coherence across their Implementation Plans and determine how shared staff and resources will be used.Implementation Plans will mirror annual budgets in detail.

The Planning Cycle with our current position highlighted

Strategic Plan / Business Plan / Annual Implementation Plan
2014 - 2024 / 2014 - 2017 / 2014 - 2015
2015-2016
2016-2017
2017-2020 / 2017-2018
2018-2019
2019-2020
2020-2024 / 2020-2021
2021-2022
2022-2023
2023-2024

Planning Cycle Diagram

Involvement in Planning

Stakeholders include:

• Board of Trustees
• Staff
• Volunteers
• Members
• Non-member VCSE organisations, especially potential members
• Funders
• Statutory partners, especially City of York Council
• VCSE Sector Partners eg York Cares, Your Consortium
• Neighbouring CVSs / infrastructure organisations and NAVCA

York CVS will use a variety of forums and methods to support participation in the planning process. Key opportunities include:

• Board meetings
• Trustee and staff away days
• Managers’meetings
• Full staff meetings
• Team meetings
• Staff and volunteer surveys
• Staff supervision or individual meetings
• Customer/beneficiary surveys and/or focus groups
• Partner/funder surveys or meetings

Strategic Plan 2014 - 2024

Organisation Status

York Centre for Voluntary Service (York CVS) is governed according to our Articles of Association (single governing document adopted November 2013), by an unpaid Board of Charity Trustees (also Company Directors) drawn from our membership or co-opted for their specific skills or experience.

York CVS is a Company Limited by Guarantee, Registered in England (no. 493550) which must report annually to Companies House.The Company Secretary role is currently undertaken by the Chief Executive.

York CVS is also a Registered Charity (no. 225087) which must report annually to the Charity Commission.We comply with the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) 2005 for financial reporting purposes and must undergo an independent audit of our accounts each year.

We are bound by a number of other local and national authorities covering a range of legislative and regulatory functions including Health and Safety, Safeguarding, Data Protection, Environmental Protection, Employment Law, Financial Regulations and Equalities Legislation. These requirements are managed through a set of policies and procedures agreed by the Board of Trustees and implemented by the staff and volunteer team.

Charitable Objects

The charitable objects of York CVS have not been significantly updated since the organisation formed in 1939. They currently stand as follows:

(a)To work for the benefit of the City of York and its neighbourhood, and, in particular, by quickening the spirit of fellowship and social service and undertaking and assisting in social work and activities, and the promotion of social welfare of every kind in the said City and its neighbourhood.

(b)To initiate, promote and assist any schemes, enterprises or activities for the benefit of the inhabitants of the said City and its neighbourhood, or otherwise calculated to advance the practice of good citizenship.

(c)To promote assist and encourage the advancement of education in the City of York and its neighbourhood and especially on matters concerning social welfare.

(d)To assist and collaborate with national, municipal, regional, local and other authorities, bodies, persons or agencies doing work for the public welfare or benefit, to facilitate co-operation and co-ordination between such authorities, bodies, persons or agencies, and to act, on request, as the local representative or agent of, and to provide office accommodation and clerical assistance for, any such authority, body, person or agency.

(e)To procure train and supply voluntary workers for social work of all kinds, and to assist them in doing such work, and to act as a focus for personal service for the public good.

(f)To provide information and advice for those who may be in need of it and to act as the neighbourly counsellor and helper of any persons who may be in difficulty or distress.

(g)To undertake and execute any trusts or obligations for the furtherance of the foregoing objects or any of them.

Charity beneficiaries

The defined beneficiaries are those most broadly encapsulated by the objects as being any person within the City of York and its neighbourhood.

Our vision

York will be a place where happy, healthy, creative, diverse and inclusive communities flourish. York CVS as a workplace will reflect this.

Our mission

York CVS will enable people to make a difference to themselves and others through community action, voluntary organisations and social enterprise.

Our values

Local: We believe that local decision making and delivery is generally best

Empowerment: We believe that people are best placed to positively influence the decisions which affect their own lives and the communities in which they live

Learning: We believe all people are capable of growing, learning and developing throughout their lives

Working together: We believe that people working together have greater potential to achieve their goals

Diversity: We believe that our society is enriched by diversity

Sustainability: We believe in living well today without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same

Interdependence: We believe in the interdependence of voluntary and community organisations

In 2014 Staff and Trustees developed our Values statements further as follows:

Local

We believe that local decision making and delivery is generally best.

Local knowledge, experience, resources, relationships, accountability and established trust make local decision making better and local delivery more successful, more often than not. However, the needs of the community should be taken into account and some services do benefit from a wider geographical notion of ‘local’ to meet the demands of communities of interest as well as communities of place. In general we believe local means York and Yorkshire, but some services are appropriate to offer across the whole of England.

York CVS expresses its commitment to ‘local’ every day:

• Membership of York CVS, and therefore free support and subsidy, is focussed on local organisations working in and around York.
• 40% of the Priory Street Centre customers are from York and we always source our catering from local independent caterers.
• York CVS advocates for local funding to recognise the value of local knowledge, relationships and trust as part of the scoring criteria.

Empowerment

We believe that people are best placed to positively influence the decisions which affect their own lives and the communities in which they live

Empowerment applies both within the organisation and to the work we undertake with members and customers; and sometimes these two can be in a delicate balance. Empowerment is about respecting, trusting and giving confidence to people to make their own decisions based upon their own knowledge, experience and skill. To do this effectively we also believe in having a solution focussed approach which builds on individuals / organisational strengths, whilst providing clear and well communicated parameters, roles, defined boundaries and the right support to maximise success for the individual and the collective. With empowerment comes responsibility for the consequences of your own decisions upon others, and a commitment to take that impact into account when making your decisions.

York CVS expresses its commitment to ‘empowerment’ every day:

• Our Advice and Learning team aims to give others the skills to help themselves rather than repeatedly charging people for us to do all the work for them and making them more dependent on our ‘expertise’.
• Through our thematic forums we empower representatives to speak on behalf of the sector, rather than relying on York CVS staff to have to do it for them.
• The York Independent Living Scheme has been hosted and supported by York CVS for over 20 years; helping hundreds of individuals to take control of their own support.
• Through flexitime working arrangements we trust our staff to manage their own workload.

Learning

We believe all people are capable of growing, learning and developing throughout their lives

Again our values apply both within the organisation and in respect of those we work with and for. We believe learning to be dynamic and ongoing; it does not stop when you leave school or college, and we believe this is a good thing. We aim to foster a learning environment where it is encouraged to try things you have not done before and learn from the experience even when that sometimes involves making a mistake. We have systems and processes that support this and feedback and reflection is made time for. That said, we have to balance learning with high demand, constrained resources and an expectation of a certain level of pre-requisite expertise.

York CVS expresses its commitment to ‘learning’ every day:

• We support individuals and groups to become active in their community by learning the skills they need to achieve their dreams.
• We support our own volunteers to grow their skills and confidence.
• We have established a staff development budget for all staff on top of mandatory training.
• Several staff joined York CVS in one role but have developed into another.

Diversity

We believe that our society is enriched by diversity

Diversity can be interpreted in many ways including references to what are usually called ‘protected characteristics’ (gender, age, race etc) as well as wider diversity of culture, ability and experience. We are all different, therefore diversity includes us all.

York CVS recognises the diversity of wider society as a given and a positive feature, that enriches the cultural and personal experience of life; requiring greater understanding, tolerance and acceptance of difference than has historically been the case in our society in general.

York CVS seeks to reflect this diversity of wider society in its workplace whilst balancing the primary need for specific skills, experience, knowledge, capacity, integration and teamwork in its workforce; which will include seeking agreement and unity, as well as valuingthe differences already committed to.

York CVS expresses its commitment to ‘diversity’ every day, for example:

• Offering opportunities to volunteers with additional support needs, some of whom have gone on to volunteer with us independently.
• Working with partners in the city including YREN, Dementia Action Alliance, the LGBT Forum, and Joseph Rowntree Foundation to improve access to all.
• Making our building accessible and constantly improving this, for example making it more Dementia Friendly.

Working together

We believe that people working together have greater potential to achieve their goals

York CVS came into being when a group of people got together to help each other. We recognise the social nature of human beings and our connections and interpendence upon one another for almost every aspect of our existence. Everything we do involves working together to better the outcomes for all involved. In particular we recognise that working together we can come up with solutions to problems, we can learn and we can develop new knowledge and understanding, that would not happen working alone.

York CVS expresses its commitment to ‘working together’ every day:

• Running four thematic forums, the Voluntary Sector Forum and the VCSE Leaders Group to bring together our members.
• Running the Healthwatch partners programme, recognising the important role of member and service user led organisations and patient representative bodies.
• We only work with organisations looking to form an organisation, involving local communities and other stakeholders; we don’t work with sole traders who don’t want to develop into a social business.

Interdependence

We believe in the interdependence of voluntary and community organisations

York CVS recognises that in the round, it can only achieve its vision as outlined, through working with other organisations and wider society. We believe this to be true for the majority of the voluntary sector and public sector and some parts of the private sector also. This makes us ultimately interdependent upon each other and that working in partnership or collaboration is the right thing to do. Within this overall context we should sometimes act independently, including at times with a strong and challenging voice. We should also sometimes act with varying levels of dependence on others, with whom we may collaborate. The importance thing is to act appropriately to the circumstances and not allow that action to compromise our ability to act differently in other circumstances when required, even in some cases applying a different sort of relationship at different times with the same partnering organisation.

York CVS expresses its commitment to ‘interdependence’ every day, for example:

• We work closely with City of York Council, in particular through our secondment into the Rewiring Pubic Services team; as well as other local public sector bodies such as NHS partners.
• We work closely with other VCSE organisations, especially York Cares on Strategic Volunteering issues and Your Consortium on Strategic Funding issues.
• We hold regular team, managers and whole staff meetings recognising the interdependence of our respective roles at York CVS.

Sustainability

We believe in living well today without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same

Sustainability means environmental sustainability but also economic and social sustainability. These three are intrinsically linked and often in conflict with one another. Sustainability for ourselves and for our beneficiaries are also interdependent. In the past York CVS has focussed on social issues of sustainability. In more recent years we have needed to focus internally upon economic sustainability. In general we have not focussed very much on environmental sustainability. York CVS now seeks to find a balance or compromise between the conflicting factors as outlined in the diagram below:

York CVS expresses its commitment to being ‘sustainable’ every day, for example:

• Making our budget balance in the long term and avoiding boom and bust economics
• Maximising the recycling at Priory Street Centre
• Having family friendly and good practice employment policies to sustain our own workforce

Strategic Aims

In order to achieve our vision, operating within our values and carrying out our mission we have generated five Strategic Aims:

• Aim 1: Providing Local Leadership

• Aim 2: Delivering Support and Development Services

• Aim 3: Enabling Voice and Influence

• Aim 4: Investing in People

• Aim 5: Being a Sustainable and Well Run Organisation

Long Term Financial Outlook

York CVS was significantly restructured during 2013-2014 with long-term financial sustainability as a key driver of change.

The total collapse of central government funding for voluntary sector infrastructure services from late 2013 after 10 years of sustained investment (£30m per annum), alongside ongoing pressures on traditional sources of local funding from local authorities and the NHS has had a major impact upon infrastructure across England.

National trusts and foundations, notably The National Lottery, have mirrored this decline, reducing the total value of funding programmes from £150m (BASIS) to £6m (BigAssist).

Behind the funding arrangements sit national government policies that directly and indirectly influence our work. In particular a policy of marketisation (which is mostly closely associated with the Conservative Party) that seeks to apply the more general principles of market forces to our sector; an opening up, sometimes through deliberate market shaping and intervention, of CVS-like services with spending power placed in the hands of the recipient ‘customer’ instead of with the provider. Labour and Liberal Democrat policies are less clear, but historically have been more favourable.

Unfortunately there has been relatively little research undertaken to backup this policy driver (see ‘A brave new world for voluntary sector infrastructure...’, Walton and Macmillan, Third Sector Research Centre, March 2014 for the latest research). NAVCA has initiated, funded and is administering an Independent Commission on the Future of Local Infrastructure which it is hoped will give a clearer evidenced based approach to national policy.