Party conference report part 3: Conservatives

Twenty-one voluntary and community organisations have the opportunity to rub shoulders with politicians and opinion formers at this year’s Party Conferences as part of NCVO's Party Conference Bursary scheme. NCVO asked three bursary winners to write a guest blog post about the conferences. Here is the third and final post.

Allison Agius

Wow!  It was all a little overwhelming when I arrived and I was glad to see the small NCVO group I belonged to waiting for me in the hotel lobby.  The orientation was additionally useful.  It was an amazing personal experience and one I could not have experienced without the bursary.
 
I should say a little about who I am, where I'm from and why I wanted to attend the conference.
 
My name is Allison Agius and I am the Executive Director of Catalyst.  Catalyst is a new model of infrastructure support to third sector (can I still say that?) organisations in Stockton on Tees.  We don't do any delivery ourselves.  We horizon scan, interpret policy and consider the impact on the sector.  Then we take a look at the support currently being given to front line organisations and, working with delivery partners, try to ensure the support given will meet the new challenges.  Not delivering anything ourselves means we're free to create links with all sectors: public, private and third to ensure the best deliverer is in place to deliver exactly what the sector needs when it needs it.
 
I always thought the conference was all about those speeches in the hall but that's only the tip of the iceberg. There were numerous debates and talks on the 'fringe' as well as a vast hall with stands and stalls from all sorts of organisations raising awareness of their particular agendas.  It was heartening to see a number of charities but they were all large national ones and I was reminded of the potential plight of the smaller more local charities in the coming cuts.
 
Stockton Borough Council are one of the few councils in the country not cutting - in fact, they are increasing their support to the sector.  I'd like to think that in some small way Catalyst has had an influence in that but much of the credit has to go to the progressive nature of the council I work with.

Back to the conference. My primary aim in attending was to understand a little more about what the conservatives mean by 'The Big Society'.  What does that mean in terms of action?  I also wanted to ensure that if part of the Big Society was commissioning out services the politicians understood the real barriers to the sector - the complicated procurement process, the TUPE regulations, the short turn around times, aggregation, and also the barriers to the procurement officers - the complex regulations, the push to be more and more risk averse, the drive for efficiencies in what is inherently a largely inefficient process (largely due to these complex regulations).  I have a procurement background in both the private and the public sector so I understand the issues for the public sector officers. Finally I wanted to share our model of infrastructure in Stockton on Tees because it's been working really well for the last two years.
 
I'm not sure I got all the answers.  I took a lot of information in and if I'm honest I'm still processing it.  In truth I don't think the government are clear in terms of details about what the Big Society is.  There's perhaps a long term vision there but I'm not convinced they have a clear way through yet, and one could argue that that's our role in the sector - to seize this 'Big' idea and claim it for ourselves. Having said that, isn't that what our sector has always done?  Are still doing?  Will continue to do but probably on even less resources?
 
I like the idea of empowering people and communities to take action for themselves but I'm not convinced that anyone can empower another, doesn't that have to come from the grass roots up?  But perhaps that's why the more concrete ideas are not coming from government...perhaps that's the idea.  I'm still to be convinced it's isn't a smoke screen for cuts to essential services but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.  For a while.   We shall see.
 
 
Allison Agius
Executive Director
Catalyst