VCS Matters Evaluation develops nine recommendations

Recommendations on the way forward for VCS Matters have been published following an independent Programme Evaluation carried out by Alun Severn from Third Sector Services.  The full Evaluation Report, an Executive Summary and Alun Severn's presentation to the VCS Matters Strategy Group on 21 April are attached at the end of this page.

Key conclusions

The main conclusions of the evaluation report include:

1) VCS Matters has established high levels of trust and credibility with statutory sector partners and is seen as a necessary part of the CYP landscape. As one statutory sector interviewee put it: "If VCS Matters didn't exist it would have to be invented."

2) The funder, Birmingham City Council, considers that the project has delivered successfully against its service level agreement (SLA) and does not consider there to be any need to ‘re-tender' the programme. It does feel, however, that the project "now needs to evolve and move on", especially with regard to:

• Improving its ability to represent and deliver a targetted audience for public sector partners, especially in terms of service commissioning and consultation around service redesign. A significant number of public sector stakeholders consider the programme to be underperforming in this regard.

• Improving leadership and governance and sharpening up delivery.

• Reviewing project team roles and responsibilities in light of a changing environment and to strengthen overall performance.

• Reviewing and focusing delivery priorities, and

• Developing a more proactive method of operation that enables it to strengthen its role as a ‘critical friend' to the local authority and in the context of children's trust arrangements.

3) Levels of satisfaction with VCS Matters' performance and effectiveness amongst its third sector participants is consistently high and the user survey carried out as part of this evaluation indicates that the majority of participants value the programme highly. Many do now want to see the programme develop further, however, particularly with regard to:

• Adopting a more proactive, challenging and critical role;

• Developing a distinctive third sector agenda;

• Further extending its reach and influence;

• Developing more effective thematic representation/activities; and

• Doing a better job of representing and supporting smaller and community-based organisations.

Recommendations 

Large-scale evaluations frequently highlight more issues than can be immediately dealt with and some prioritisation is required. For this reason, the recommendations focus on nine areas where improvements will significantly strengthen performance:

a) Focusing the VCS Matters ‘brand' and raising the profile.

b) Adopting strategic priorities.

c) Informing the workplan.

d) Sector intelligence.

e) Sector support.

f) Better support and utilisation of representatives.

g) Proactive and not reactive.

h) Improving leadership, governance and delivery arrangements.

i) Planning for sustainability & growth.

Process

The evaluation was commissioned by the accountable body and Officers of VCS Matters in November 2008. Its purpose has been to assess the overall performance and effectiveness of the VCS Matters programme.

The process was designed to be as participative as possible, with an interview sample which included all of the programme's various stakeholders - its wider third sector constituency (including VCS Matters representatives), statutory sector partners (including the funder, Birmingham City Council), programme delivery partners, staff team, VCS Matters Officers, and other accountable body key staff. A total of 60 contributions were considered.

The full Evaluation Report, Executive Summary and Alun Severn's presentation to the VCS Matters Strategy Group on 21 April are attached below.