Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council (EVOC) sits down with Lord Provost, Frank Ross to discuss the overarching vision for the city of Edinburgh.

In 2016, a conversation was sparked within the city of Edinburgh about what a vision for 2050 would look like, what are the city’s priorities and what kind of place should it be. Explaining the case for the Edinburgh 2050 City Vision, Frank Ross, Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, said:

“Edinburgh is a tremendously successful city on so many different levels, outside London we are the most economically successful city bar none. But we still have this issue where 20% of our population are still in poverty.”

An Over-Arching Vision

He continued: “Edinburgh as a city has never had an overarching vision, about what Edinburgh’s citizens want their city to be.”
Although everyone, even people who don’t live in Edinburgh but may work or have family here, is welcome to have their say – the Lord Provost explains that the city vision depends on being informed by younger generations.

“It is aimed at the 5 to 35 year olds who will be running every aspect of the city, it will be their future and their families that are living here. We need to understand what the ambition is.”

Continuing, he explained that understanding citizens’ priorities and creating a vision would help to inform how future investment can best be spent. “Over the next five to ten years, we are going to be making a significant investment in this city. We’ve just won a £1.2 billon city region deal, with the vast majority of this to be invested in the city.”

The vision itself will be based on opinions and data collected from respondents by Marketing Edinburgh. An initial market test of a few thousand people revealed that the emerging themes were that people wanted their city to be: fair, connected, greener and affordable.

Participation is Key

However, the Lord Provost pointed out that this was only a small sample and that the success of making sure the vision fits with what people actually think will depend on participation. He said: “If we don’t get a significant number of citizens engaged with this, it is pretty meaningless as a vision and it is key that we get young people across the whole spectrum of society to contribute.

“I would love to get 250,000 people contributing, that’s my target and I am going to do everything I can to get that done.”

The Purpose of the Vision

When it becomes clear what Edinburgh’s own view is of what its future should like, the 2050 vision will provide the city’s leaders with a ‘guiding light’ when taking decisions.

The Lord Provost continued: “The vision should give us a moral compass about what it is that we want our city to be. When I’m making a decision, is that what the city wants? The whole point of having the vision is to check decisions against a big bright light in the sky and say if that’s not compatible, I’ll need to look at it again. We’ve made decisions too myopically.

“While we are working away to address social inclusion issues now, we are putting a vision up there to stop the equivalent happening again.”

Business is Booming

It is hoped that the 2050 City Vision will provide the city’s businesses and organisations with a solid foundation upon which to build their strategies to meet the needs of the city’s residents.

Data collected from people’s responses will be anonymised and uploaded to an open resource, which businesses can access. The Lord Provost hopes that this sharing of information will create a joined up approach to putting the city vision into motion.

He said: “As a council, we will hold every strategy and policy up against that vision and ask is it consistent? I would expect most organisations to do the same, if you operate within Edinburgh and you have data about what the citizens of Edinburgh want, to ignore that would be crazy.”

It would seem that some of Edinburgh’s organisations are fully on board, as £450,000 to fund the project has been raised by the Council privately, invested by businesses who believe that they can benefit from an understanding of what the city wants.

Volunteering

The role of volunteering both for the Third Sector and for Edinburgh’s citizens is a very important one. Over 600,000 hours are donated every week and 159,000 people in Edinburgh regularly volunteer. Speaking about how active citizenship and volunteering will play a role in the 2050 City Vision, he said:

“Edinburgh is phenomenal for volunteering and volunteering will have its place in delivering whatever the vision turns out to be. We are talking about being integrated, about being a happier society, about being encouraging, inclusive and aspirational – these are things which I think volunteering can assist.

“What I want to do is to make sure all these people who volunteer engage because it is their ethos and their beliefs that I want to see coming through.”

The Bottom Line

The Council is confident that a city vision for Edinburgh can change the way that decision making is made, with mass participation in the consultation being the key factor.

“This has got real power. If this works properly, instead of me as a politician standing in front the electorate saying ‘this is what I believe’ and you as an electorate saying ‘I don’t actually agree with you but I will choose the least worst’ or don’t vote – the electorate can say ‘this is what I believe in, which one of you can deliver this for me?’

“This is seismic, and if we could get to that stage it would be true local democracy where the citizens are setting the agenda.”

With a view over Princes Street from the windows of the impressive Provost suite within the City Chambers, the conversation continued around the importance of the Third Sector in bringing voices seldom heard into the discussion.

How can I get Involved?

You can share your vision at https://www.edinburgh2050.com/ and encourage others to get involved.

Follow 2050 Edinburgh City Vision with #Edinburgh2050 on Twitter.

After 18 years in its home at 14 Ashley Place, EVOC has moved to new premises located at 525 Ferry Road.

Our main telephone number and email addresses will remain the same.

With the current building due to be demolished, EVOC has been able to secure a spacious and open plan workspace that it will share with other third sector organisations, fostering a spirit of collaboration and partnership working.

Ella Simpson, CEO of EVOC said: “Given that 14 Ashley Place was secured 18 years ago as a temporary home for EVOC, our time here has come to a natural end. We are very excited to move to new premises and about working creatively within a shared workspace.

“There is plenty of space for meetings and events in our new home, along with ample car parking and public transport links and we look forward to putting these facilities to use for meetings and training and offering our members access to hot desk facilities.”

Amongst others, EVOC will share this new space with Edinburgh Palette, the organisation responsible for the community of makers, designers, artists, creative enterprises and charities initially based at St Margaret’s House.

Dale Gibson, CEO of Edinburgh Palette, said: “EVOC has been very helpful and supportive of the Edinburgh Palette project since its foundation in 2007. Both organisations are constantly engaged in looking for ways to expand opportunities for people, communities and charities. We are delighted to welcome EVOC to 525 Ferry Road, and are excited by the possibilities this closer association presents.”

To celebrate, EVOC will be hosting an ‘Open Office’ day on Thursday 6th December between 10am and 4pm. Guests are invited to enjoy tea and cake and a tour of EVOC’s new home.

If you would like to attend or if you have any questions about the move please email info@evoc.org.uk or call 0131 555 9100

Edinburgh Integration Joint Board
Grant Programme 2019/22

Receipt of Applications

It has come to our attention that some applicants may not have submitted their application(s) successfully. If you have submitted an application to H&SCGrants@edinburgh.gov.uk and not received an automated e-mail receipt and have evidence to show that you submitted an application, please get in touch with Kate McVie at: kate.mcvie@edinburgh.gov.uk

In your e-mail please include:
• The name of your organisation
• The date and time which you submitted your application
• A copy of the e-mail which accompanied your submission
• The number of applications which you submitted
• The e-mail address it was submitted from

Please do not e-mail us if you have already been in touch regarding this or have received an automated e-mail receipt from H&SCGrants@edinburgh.gov.uk – this may have gone into your junk/bulk folder, please check before contacting us.

Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council (EVOC) is delighted to announce that Aileen Campbell MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government will deliver a speech at this year’s conference and AGM.

Now in its 150th year, EVOC will use its conference and AGM on 6th November at John McIntyre Centre, Pollock Halls to celebrate a long history of supporting Edinburgh’s charity and voluntary organisations and the city’s communities. We will also take this opportunity to look to the future of civic action and the Third Sector and discuss what still needs to be done in working towards more inclusive and fairer communities.

Ian Brooke, Deputy Chief Executive of EVOC, said: “We are very excited to welcome Aileen Campbell MSP to our conference. In her role as Cabinet Secretary, her remit includes: social justice, tackling inequality and community empowerment which perfectly reflects EVOC’s history, the wider work that EVOC does and the themes of this year’s conference.

“This will be a great opportunity for delegates to hear directly from a member of the Scottish Cabinet with such important responsibilities to the Third Sector and one of the country’s highest level elected representatives.”

As well as an address from the Cabinet Secretary, a series of interactive workshops will take place on the day. A range of organisations will deliver workshops around: Organising, Tackling Inequality, Protest and Campaigning and Working Together which form the themes of our EVOC 150 project.

Delegates will also be able to browse the ‘Third Sector Marketplace’, where a selection of Edinburgh’s charitable organisations will take stalls and be on hand to provide information about the services they provide.

Organisations confirmed for the marketplace are: EVOC 150, Volunteer Edinburgh, Edinburgh Social Enterprise, The Yard, Saheliya, Four Square, Media Education, Life Care, Big Hearts and Scottish Mediation Network, with more to be confirmed.

EVOC’s Conference and AGM, ‘Never Afraid to Challenge’ will take place on 6th November, 09:30am-4:30pm at John McIntyre Conference Centre, Pollock Halls, Edinburgh.

It is free to attend and open to all. Tickets are available via Eventbrite.

Police Scotland have issued some guidance on staying safe and avoiding scams online and over the phone. 

Online Safety Leaflet TSI circulation Sept 2018

 

 

On Wednesday 5th September, Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council (EVOC) staff, including a very elderly black Labrador called Sally, will deliver ‘thank you cards’ to voluntary organisations across the city.

The team will broadcast their journey, in a series of live Twitter video streams and provide information and insights into the charities that will be featured. This event is part of a yearlong programme of activities and events to mark EVOC’s 150th Anniversary. During this time, EVOC has gone from providing poor relief and improving sanitation in Victorian Edinburgh to supporting charities, community and voluntary organisations to make life fairer for people from all walks of life.

 

Ahead of the event, EVOC was joined by Ben Macpherson MSP and Leith Walk Councillors, Susan Rae, Marion Donaldson and Amy Mcneese-Mechan at Volunteer Edinburgh to mark International Day of Charity.

Ben Macpherson MSP said: “Days like the International Day of Charity are good chance for all of us to recognise and celebrate the contribution that charities make and that the staff and volunteers who work for and campaign for charities make. The difference that they make to people, and the contribution that they make to building a fairer and more inclusive society and towards the shared aim of social justice.”

Uncovering a shared past

Many of the charities that will form part of the route, have their origins in EVOC and as part of uncovering Edinburgh’s rich heritage of benevolent organisations, the team will be uncovering and explaining these links.

Lucy Ridley, EVOC 150 Programme Manager, said: “EVOC has been supporting Edinburgh’s residents through its work with charities for 150 years. What a lot of people don’t know is that organisations such as Volunteer Edinburgh and the Edinburgh branch of Citizens Advice Bureau were originally projects within EVOC. This journey is a great way to recognise these special relationships, and also to thank the people in these organisations for the work they do.”

The journey will start at the EVOC offices on Ashley Place from 09:30am and the route will cover charities based in Leith, Stockbridge and the New Town.

Get Involved 

We would invite you to watch our journey by following us on Twitter at @evoc_edinburgh and using the hashtag #EVOC150.

More information about the EVOC 150th Anniversary project can be found at www.evoc150.org.uk

The EVOC 150 team has been busy working with a diverse range of groups and individuals to uncover and reflect on the importance of charity and voluntary organisations and the third sector as a whole, as part of a celebration of 150 years of EVOC. 

We approached Media Education’s weekly film club held in Dalry with the idea to deliver a workshop that explained the fascinating history of medical pioneer and suffragist, Elsie Inglis. The group then used archive materials, information and props to create two fantastic shorts films paying tribute to this historical figure. 

Wide Variety of Skills

Shaun Glowa from Media Education said: “Media Education runs a young persons Film Club every Friday, where we watch, discuss and make films. We run practical film making challenges every week so that participants can get stuck in right away. We aim to create a fun, creative and welcoming social space for young people with a wide variety of skills and abilities, including those with additional support needs.

“The workshop with EVOC went really well. It was a fantastic opportunity for the young people to learn about the amazing life of Elsie Inglis through using and developing their own skills. Alea, Yasmin and Lucy brought a wealth of knowledge and supported the young people to interpret Elsie’s amazing achievements and life into film. It was a great experience for the young people to try something new and test their skills in different ways.”

The Finished Films

Elsie Inglis Remembered: Features of the announcement of Elsie’s death and her funeral, attended by royalty. 

A Lesson for Elsie: Takes a comic spin on the thinking behind refusing treatment from a female doctor

The EVOC 150 team is always looking for opportunities to work with individuals, organisations and groups to strengthen and encourage participation of the third sector and its rich history. 

If you would like to get involved please email 150 Programme Manager, Lucy Ridley on lucy.ridley@evoc.org.uk

The Edinburgh Integration Joint Board (EIJB) 2019 Grants Programme is now open for applications. The deadline for submission is Monday 1 October 2018.

The full set of documents for download and completion is as follows:

First of all there is the Prospectus which outlines vital information about the grants programme.  This document should be read first and is available here: EIJB Grants Programme Prospectus

The Guidance document describes how to complete the application form and answer questions – essential reading: Applicants’ Guidance Notes

There are two grant programmes:

• The Small Grant Programme, for applications of under £25,000 per year – SMALL Application Form (digital)
• The Large Grant Programme, for applications of £25,000 or more per year – LARGE Application Form (digital)

Finally, information about the Standard Impact Assessment Questions – SIAQs – IJB Grant Programme 2019-22

A live Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page is being maintained at this site (please check back regularly): https://trello.com/b/yb359m7A/edinburgh-ijb-grants-faqs

Information about contacts, websites, email address for submission etc can be found in the Prospectus and Guidance.

The launch of the new application process for the Employability Third Party Grants (formerly known as the Challenge Fund) will be on Monday 27 August.

An event will be held in the Business Centre of the City Chambers, starting at 2.30pm.

Information on the specification and how to apply will be provided, as well as a chance for providers to ask questions.

To sign up, please email craig.dutton@capitalcitypartnership.org.

 

Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council (EVOC) sits down with Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership’s Chief Officer, Judith Proctor, to ask about the importance of collaboration with the third sector and shifting the focus of investment towards prevention and early intervention.

The Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership is a public body set up to deliver the integration of adult health and social care services across the city. Its aim is to make sure that care and local services are delivered seamlessly, in a way that benefits service users and carers.

Q: You’ve been the Chief Officer at the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership for 3 months now. What opportunities for improvement have you seen that you are going to promote?

A: “I would say that whilst there are areas we can definitely improve, there are lots of areas where we’re doing a lot of really good and innovate work. I would point to the work that we are doing with our Links Workers, I think they are really innovative in working alongside our primary care practitioners to help people access the community and hopefully have an impact on isolation and loneliness.

“There’s definitely some areas where our performance could improve. There’s a well-known challenge of discharging people from hospital, we have quite high numbers of people who are delayed.

“We are making some plans in that direction and also in terms of people who are waiting for assessment in the community and we are working with our third sector and independent sector providers to improve that.

“We want to improve the way that we work with neighbourhoods, communities and third and voluntary sector organisations as well, that’s really important.”

Q: There is a strong, and widely accepted, evidence base to support a substantial shift towards investment in prevention and early intervention. In a time of austerity, what ideas are beginning to surface so you can achieve this shift?

A: “In a time where finances are under challenge it can often be an area that is overlooked and where, I think, we need to invest in those real upstream prevention and early intervention programmes because we do know that they work.

“Our whole ethos in health and social care is to create that shift in the balance of care, so that we are able to deliver more services on a community basis, help keep people safe and well at home, and promote their wellbeing and their independence.

“Our plans really do talk to how we invest in and build community capacity, how we help build resilience within communities and those low level, very local services that support people.

“We will be looking at how we develop our hospital at home model and how we do signposting so that people are able to access those services in the community that enable them to be safe at home.”

Q: The Care Inspectorate’s last review of older people’s services showed that one of the areas for improvement was engagement with the third sector. How can this be taken forward?

A: “How we work in partnership with the third sector is really important. The Health and Social Care Partnership do provide some of our own services but we are an organisation of partnership and that includes partnership with the NHS, City of Edinburgh Council and the third sector.

“I do think that before I came here some improvements were happening, I think EVOC has been engaged with in terms of their membership on the Integration Joint Board (IJB). Now we are doing some work on co-chairing working groups and strategy groups with EVOC and really looking to see how we can involve colleagues to tap into the expertise, experience and innovation in that sector.

“We’ve got four localities in Edinburgh, which really should enable us to work very locally with third sector organisations. We need to ensure that we are able to support our heads of localities and their teams to do that work, I think it’s a really important area for us to develop.

“We involve and think about the third sector across everything we do in adult services. It’s really important that we’re engaging in things like how we prevent working with people in drug and alcohol services, as well as how we are supporting older people and those with disabilities to link into their community and be active citizens.

“We have had some really good engagement with colleagues in the third sector in terms of our Primary Care Improvement plan.”

Q: There is national dissatisfaction with the way procurement currently plays out for health and social care services. Cost and volume contracts and competitive tenders can risk the quality of outcomes and tend to disadvantage established, local community based organisations. How can we move away from the conservative procurement culture prevalent in Edinburgh to a more creative approach?

A: “We are bound as a public sector organisation to work within the confines of the appropriate guidance and regulations around procurement and commissioning but, I think within that, we do have scope to broaden to a more co productive approach with the third and independent sectors.

“We have developed the whole process of our grants review alongside colleagues within the sector and on the next iteration of our Care at Home contract we are looking to involve providers to see how we can work together as much as possible. It’s beyond procurement for me, it’s about the creation of a stable, vibrant, innovate market of high quality care in Edinburgh.”

Q: Reflecting on the third sector, what do you think are its main strengths and where could improvements be made?

“The ability to work at a very local level, and that can sometimes be challenging, given our previous conversation about procurement. Also, the ability to focus on particular areas, neighbours and issues for people enables the sector to be far more agile than we can in the public sector and often quite innovative and imaginative in their approach.”

“I think improvements could be made in how we support colleagues, and EVOC have been particularly good in this, and how we can promote more of a collaborative approach across the sector, which is difficult when finances are hard and there’s increasing competition.

“But if we can work together as partnerships, we are able to get a degree of the sustainability that we all look for as well as the agile, innovative approach. EVOC has a real role in this, but we need to think about how we can bring together organisations that are in competition to work in collaboration.

“Otherwise some of the improvements are ours to make in how we support and enable the workforce and what can do to ensure that small organisations are able to benefit from some of the economies of scale that big, public sector organisations can bring. We all have a role to play in how we develop the workforce here in Edinburgh, and I think they are a really valuable commodity.”