Good Practice in Learning and Skills Consortia
Submitted by martind on Tue, 01/12/2009 - 16:26
Do you know of a learning and skills consortium that might be interested in sharing their experiences, partiuclarly with reference to becoming independent?
I'm currently working with a group of organisations in Sandwell called the Reach and Discover Consoritum. Currently the consortium (in name only) is supported by the Skills for Life Strategy Team.
To help the consortium to decide upon legal structures and accountability frameworks, they are holding a session on 21 January 2010, where they plan to invite a local learning and skills consortia along to share experiences. Reasonable expenses will be reimbursed to anyone who would like to visit and share their experiences on the day. Alternatively, Reach and Discover consortium members would be willing to visit other learning and skills consortia, in the run up to the workshop.
If you know of a consortium that might be interested in helping, please contact me via the contact tab on my profile, with details.
Many thanks
Hi Martin - is there a website with more information about this event? I'm not sure if you are aware of Funding Central. This is a free website managed by NCVO for the whole voluntary and community sector, providing access to thousands of funding and finance opportunities and a wealth of tools and resources, including a Partner Zone which may be of particular interest to you.
The Partner Zone allows registered Funding Central users to search for potential partner organisations to collaborate and share experiences with, including those with consortia. It also offers support and advice around collaboration. The website offers you the opportuntity to make direct contact with organisations via email.
You may also like to create a public profile to let others know about the group you are working with - this is easy to do when you register on Funding Central.
Hi Sally. Many thanks for your reply. I've now registered with Funding Central and will create a partner profile in due course.
The Reach and Discover Consortium now have guest speakers from other Black Country consortia but I would still be interested to hear from West Midlands or UK based organisations who might have a story to share. Just to clarify, the session on 21 January 2009 is not an open event. Its a special session for Reach and Discover members to learn more about how similar consortia operate.
My original post still stands, so if you are reading this and know of an employment and skills consortium that might be interested in sharing their experiences of going independent, please get in touch.
NIACE (www.niace.org.uk) supports Consortia+, a network of regional and sub regional learning and training consortia in the third sector. It is supported by Cheryl Turner, organises network events, has an email alert service and is very helpful for the sorts of issues you raise (if this is not too late).