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Executive BoardBoard RepresentationDostiBenefits and Constraints from LSP Engagement
  
Benefits and Constraints from LSP Engagement
Dosti
Organisational Purpose
The National and Regional Picture
Common Purpose with LSPs
Benefits and Constraints from LSP Engagement
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More Information
 
Benefits
 
  • The CEN’s reason for being exists in its contribution to the LSP.
 
  • CEN members can learn about the possibilities and limitations faced by agencies providing services, and how they can best influence and play more of a role in local service delivery.
 
  • The CEN provides a vehicle for community representatives to challenge decision makers, put their views, and feed back information to the local voluntary and community groups.
 
  • CENs are expected to help bring about coherence and direction across all community participation activities in an area.
 
  • Community representatives bring a different kind of expertise to the partnership which contrasts to the expertise of professionals working in public agencies.
 
 
Constraints
 
Constraints which small to medium groups in the VCFS face include a constant battle to secure funds for their core activities, to pay for spaces to meet and so on. Small groups have no staff, so are reliant entirely on volunteer time, and operate on incomes of between nothing and few thousand pounds a year.
 
Constraints which larger organisations in the sector face include the ongoing work involved in securing funding for their work, which includes funding for the costs incurred by hosting volunteers (volunteer time is free, but hosting volunteers requires resource). Some funding regimes are inaccessible to the sector due to the fact that they pay out at the end of delivery periods rather than in advance. Voluntary organisations don’t have the reserves or cashflow to pay out in advance for activity.
 
Constraints to engagement with the DCP and public sector, identified through Dosti’s work on community influence and through the ‘in it together’ consultation in 2008 include:
 
  •          Lack of resources to support engagement and lack of time to engage
 
  •          The attitudes and behaviours of public sector officers
 
  •          Organisational cultures
 
  •          Organisational structures:
    • In particular the DCP structure is seen as confusing, too big, too many meetings resulting, and a lack of information about what each bit does has been highlighted;
    • The DCP structure has the unintended effect of excluding geographically or neighbourhood based representation and involvement;
    •  There is a perceived lack of synergy and connection between DCP agendas and work and community agendas and work.
        
  •           Perceptions within the VCFS about the public sector’s motivations for 
                    engagement – which include:
    • To tick boxes
    • To get funding or resources, or achieve funding targets
    • To save money because the voluntary sector deliver services for less money
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