As I approach my three-month anniversary at EVOC, I’ve decided it’s important to pause for a moment to reflect on what we have achieved so far with the EVOC 150 project and what’s in store over the next six months.

What is EVOC 150?

EVOC turned 150 years-old in March 2018 and was awarded funding by the Heritage Lottery Fund to deliver a programme of events, communications and initiatives to celebrate this milestone.
Originally established as the catchily-named Edinburgh Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, the organisation has morphed and developed over the last century-and-a-half to what it is today. You can find out more on our website.

Through the EVOC 150 project we will excavate the heritage of Edinburgh’s voluntary sector, celebrate the work and individuals involved so far, and look ahead to what could or will be in store for the sector over the next 150 years. No mean feat! Our project is focused on four themes: organising, tackling inequality, protest and campaigning, and working together.

This project has the exciting potential to make a major contribution to the profile of the third sector in Edinburgh and beyond, and as we face a period of transition and uncertainty in the UK it is a fantastic opportunity to research and document the importance of the sector. Sometimes the opportunity to simply explain what the third sector actually is, is enough, but I have bigger dreams than that!

What have we been working on?

Media Education has a team of young filmmakers creating a documentary on the history of EVOC. I’ll say no more on that as I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but it’s going to be fantastic! Young people from their Friday film club produced two short, silent films about the life of Elsie Inglis (see below). 

The Living Memory Association have digitised thousands of archive photos and are recording an oral history of EVOC and community/civic action in Edinburgh.

We have been attending events and meeting individuals across the city to spread the EVOC 150 word, and to consider ways to collaborate. We celebrated International Day of Charity by touring a small number of the thousands of charities based in Edinburgh to deliver thank you cards and profile their work with short videos on social media. We have also recently appointed three professional researchers who are soon to say goodbye to loved ones as they venture deep into various archives to interrogate the history of the organisation. They hope to be allowed to surface before Christmas to share some initial findings.

What are we planning?

We will focus on some of the causes central to EVOC’s mission by making a splash on various awareness days. I say this with a full appreciation that for anyone involved with: older people, young people, mental health, volunteers, eradication of poverty, human rights…to name a few, every day/year is their day.

We will present the research mentioned above in a public format early next year. This might be a touring exhibition, an interpretive dance or a projection onto the castle (some of these suggestions are definitely in jest). Watch this space! We are busy planning for the EVOC conference in November and are hoping to deliver an event as part of the Fire Starter Festival 2019.

We are also working with a volunteer storyteller who is deeply passionate about the importance of the third sector and the transformative potential of volunteering. I am delighted he found us and can’t wait to schedule his first engagements.

How can you get involved?

We would love to hear from anyone with an interest in this project and are open to all ideas and possible collaborations, creativity is encouraged! If this is too broad, below are some suggestions of who this might appeal to.
• You are involved with a school in Edinburgh looking for an interdisciplinary learning project
• You are involved with a youth group, community centre, care home, sports club, art group or similar and would like to host our storyteller at one of your meetings/events
• You would like to run an event for a relevant awareness day but would like some support
• You have a story of volunteering, fundraising, campaigning or similar that you would like to contribute to our Memory Box
• You would like us to feature your organisation or community in a case study
• You have a noticeboard we could display an A4 poster on, or a space to host some promotional postcards.

Get in touch by emailing me at lucy.ridley@evoc.org.uk and follow our hashtag, #EVOC150, on social media.

When a voluntary group hears that someone is coming to talk about their transport, the first reaction is often “please don’t take our bus away!” So I’ve been privileged to spend six months at EVOC supporting an innovative project to improve transport for third sector day centres and lunch clubs. Ageing populations and increasing expectations for community-based support mean growing transport needs and the Council is keen to find alternatives to simply paying more for expensive private minibus and taxi services or adding to the Council’s own Passenger Operations – the ‘white bus fleet’ which, with 73 vehicles is a substantial enterprise.

Increasing Demand

The Council therefore asked Edinburgh’s Community Transport (CT) providers for proposals to help meet this increasing demand for transport. Edinburgh has some of the best respected CT providers in Scotland (and the UK), several started as EVOC initiatives. Four groups – HcL (Handicabs), Lothian Community Transport Services, Pilton Equalities Project, and South Edinburgh Amenities Group (SEAG) – entered into a Public Social Partnership (PSP) with the Council in 2016 to work together to identify ways of improving efficiency, effectiveness and service quality.

My role at EVOC was mainly to facilitate the CT groups arriving at an agreed business case to meet the Council’s transport requirements. The proposed initiative, to be considered by Council Committee in October, may see new transport provision by CT groups beginning next year for a number of third sector day care services, lunch clubs and summer play schemes; A few personal reflections….

A Varying Appetite for Risk 

No one doubts the benefits of partnership working; but because it requires a consensus, partnership can lead to low-risk options being favoured. Different partners invariably have a varying appetite for risk – this can mean that it is hard to get agreement for more ambitious, but more risky options. It may be easier to generate really innovative solutions where there is no need to keep a range of partners on-side.

While the project was conducted in the spirit of co-production, power in a co-production environment is rarely equally shared. The dynamics of co-production where one party has more power, influence – and yes, money! – than the others can be challenging.

Before I became involved in the project, a lot of effort had been put into establishing PSP governance. Although this created a sound platform for collaboration, limited progress had been made in actually extending the role of the CT groups on the ground, while a lot of energy and goodwill had been consumed. Too much emphasis on ‘process’ and not enough on ‘outcome’ can stifle creativity, enthusiasm and practical delivery.

Finally, the success of the PSP partners in reaching an agreed way forward is highly dependent on the willingness of the Council to positively review funding to the CT groups. It is much more difficult to achieve a successful outcome to a partnership change initiative where resources are reducing.

My main motivation, initially, for getting involved in charities, was that I had recently moved to Edinburgh and didn’t know anyone in the City aside from my new work colleagues. I joined a charity as a volunteer and after finding out they were looking for a new treasurer, decided to join their board of trustees.

I hadn’t volunteered as a trustee before, but I had always been involved in students’ union work whilst at university, it seemed like a natural progression to go sit on a board after graduating. No one paid me to say this, but, going on EVOC’s training for charity trustees was hugely beneficial – I admit I was pretty clueless about charity rules and regulations, I had jumped into the role a bit head first!

New Responsibilities

Thankfully, I had supportive fellow board members beside me to help me learn about my new role and as I was working in a junior position at work, I enjoyed the new responsibilities that the role gave me. Working with the charity gave me invaluable experience; from grant writing, to writing business plans and understanding HR. I’m not going to lie and say it was plain sailing, it was an incredible learning curve, especially when I became co-chair with a fellow trustee.

Volunteering as a trustee gave me experience and examples of much higher level work than my paid job did, which helped me greatly when looking for new jobs and progressing my career. It also broadened my horizons outwith my career in admin. It gave me greater work-place resilience, made me realise my own capabilities and helped improve my own self-confidence. I volunteered with the charity for over two years as a trustee, and it was a difficult decision to step down when I did. I’ve since been volunteering in non-trustee roles, but I am currently looking into joining another board in the near future.

Isn’t it great when things really are learnt from good practice? 

When my colleague Katherine, David (from the Cooncil) and I set off on our 6 hour round train trip on a Friday morning to North Ayrshire I wasn’t absolutely convinced it was great use of more than one third of my working week hours – I could feel the emails stacking up in the inbox in the office.  It was a grey, bleak day and David had finished his lunchtime butties before we had even reached Haymarket… (you know the kind of trip).  We had heard that North Ayrshire Council had managed to get brilliant engagement with young people when they ran a participatory budgeting for youth work in the area. Over 50% of young people in North Ayrshire had voted, which translated into around 5000 participants between the ages of 12 – 25.  That is pretty impressive stuff, and we wanted to find out more.

Donna, the ‘one woman turbo engagement machine’ from North Ayrshire Council was responsible for running the show, was also impressive, but in her own words ‘not always popular’, when she added to the workload of the schools in the area.  Events were run in each locality and young people voted in schools, youth centres/clubs, residential units, job centres, homeless hostels etc.   In schools the voting was built into the school timetable – so they weren’t just relying on lunchtime activity.  Donna saw no barriers to participation that couldn’t be crashed through with a little effort and understanding, they hadn’t got it all right straight away but every year they were getting better.  Social media was used extensively to promote the voting, and a promotional video created for each project by the Council, so that each project could be promoted consistently, rather than expect projects to market themselves which can have varying outcomes depending on skill. 

The youth PB project was promoted as not just being about voting but active citizenship, community cohesion/participation.  As my 11-year-old is coming home with tales of how she is learning about parliament and voting, and how it’s all a bit dull, I try to instill in her how exciting it can be if you keep it real and believe that people can have a say. By being able to play her part in democracy rather than just hearing the theory might just make the difference to how engaged she is in the future. 

What have we learnt?  Well since that trip the Council have made some changes to their plans for the voting in the Participatory Budgeting Choose Youth Work 2018-2019 Grants programme.  This year Andy Gray, Head of Schools and Lifelong Learning, has written to all Edinburgh’s secondary head teachers asking them to nominate a teacher or member of staff with whom the steering group for Choose Youth Work 2019-19 can liaise directly and organise the voting.  

Perhaps taking the time out of our day to visit North Ayrshire PB made the difference, perhaps a bit like PB we needed the time to prepare and reflect for us to really take on the information, to make something happen and to make an impact.

With any luck we will see a real difference to the level of engagement with young people this year as they vote for the projects that they think sound like what they need.  The truth, of course, is in the participation in the voting…and we won’t hear back about that until the votes are cast in March.  Watch this space.       Read more here

This tongue twister of a workshop title comes from a Governance Institute paper called “Cultural Markers: Assessing, measuring and Improving Culture in the Charitable Sector”. I think it really captures the essence of good governance and why it’s so important and this was the focus of this workshop at our Conference.

We had a discussion about what good governance is, how it’s achieved, and some of the reasons it can be so difficult. Some of the fundamentals of a well-run board that workshop attendees identified were: trustees who understand their role, transparency, trustees who share the values of the organisation, good policies and structures – and ensuring they’re followed, inclusion, and a culture of healthy debate. Whilst these points are the ideal, we also identified some of the challenges to achieving these such as:

• trustees who lack time or commitment;
• trustees who don’t understand the role;
• disinterest or lack of understanding of the finances of the organisation;
• poor organisation – board papers not going out on time;
• not having a good understanding of the risks to the organisation or how to mitigate them;
• and the constitution not being referred to, understood, or being out of date.

Some of these can seem fairly minor, but in fact, they can create significant weak points in the organisation that can have serious implications.

We also discussed the importance of the relationship between the board and the senior management of organisations. Everyone had different ways of ensuring that relationship worked well – for some it meant having occasional board meetings where senior management don’t attend, for others they have a trustee only meeting for the first 30 minutes and senior management join after that. It highlighted the fact that very often there are not hard and fast rules for organisations to achieve the ideals of good governance – it’s up to the trustees to figure out what works best and to have the flexibility for that to change over time.

The workshop attendees were people from organisations just starting out and people who have been on boards or worked for charities for a long time, very small entirely volunteer-run organisations and larger ones. With such a diverse range of experience in the room, it was a good opportunity to have discussions about common issues and practical solutions that we found have helped in real life situations. As a bonus, our icebreaker was to name a favourite film so I’m hoping everyone came away with some good movie suggestions for the weekend!   

If you have specific queries you would like answered, then you can contact our Organisational Development team by filling in a referral form. 

 

At our Conference, Scottish Government presented an overview of the current landscape in terms of the devolution of £2.8bn of benefits from UK to Scottish Government, the new agency which will be established and the Experience Panels which have been set up to allow those with lived experience of the current benefit system to inform this process.

There was a discussion covering the following issues:

• Organisations are experiencing an increase in both the level of support needed and the number of people needing support.
• The risk of sanction when participating in volunteering and other opportunities which improve wellbeing.
• The benefit of welfare rights advice and advocacy services.
• Fundamental issues with the assessment process whereby such a short process can often be used to make knee-jerk judgements.
• The basis for targets which are seen to work against people’s best interests – for example, the DWP’s target to refuse 80% of mandatory reconsiderations (especially considering that in Edinburgh 75-80% of appeals are successful.
• The need for the new agency to try to address stigma and the culture which has been established around the receipt of benefits.
• How to help seldom heard communities have a meaningful voice in terms of influencing the new system in Scotland.

We agreed to remain actively in discussion as the new agency forms and follow up on specific opportunities to engage seldom heard communities.

In light of the forthcoming review of the Health and Social Care grants programme, we facilitated a workshop at our Conference to investigate the merits of a third sector lead Commission on Prevention.  The busy workshop explored issues and voiced opinions on what exactly we mean by ‘prevention’ and how might the third sector effectively lead on promoting the agenda through such a commission:

• Objective: to demonstrate what prevention would look like in Edinburgh, and to encourage collaborative work to move resources to recognisable preventive measures
• Strategy: to listen and gather evidence from individuals on what preventative measures would help them in their particular circumstance, (circa 500 Edinburgh citizens)
• Considering: Existing preventative spend – is it working and enough?

We asked what role grants play in promoting prevention and what do we know works well.

The results of the workshop are being written-up into a short report that will then be considered by Third Sector Strategy Group (TSSG) and inform the development of the Commission.

Jez Hall from PB Partners lead a workshop on Participatory Budgeting at our Conference, this workshop built on the work of EVOC to:

• raise awareness of Participatory Budgeting with the third sector
• continually evaluate PB projects being run across Edinburgh from a third sector viewpoint in order that learning from projects can be shared with city partners

EVOC has prepared a draft PB position paper which was circulated at this workshop framing the discussion on PB.  Views and thoughts on PB were sought from the sector. Jez Hall from PB partners ran the workshop which focused on the Scottish Government’s aspirations for PB in Scotland, whilst acknowledging the issues currently being experienced by the third sector.  Michael Traille also attended the PB workshop and is a community activist who is training to be a PB champion and is involved in the Leith Links PB.  Michael was interested to hear the third sector viewpoint as generally, he works with community activists who are extremely positive about PB. 

To end the workshop participants were asked to come up with good challenging questions to ask those organising PB events if they were to believe that PB could help to solve a set of problems in Edinburgh. 

These were the responses.

What are your intended outcomes?

What are your expectations of the PB process?

How do we ensure that all those that should be included are included?

How could we contribute as a sector?

What change is possible from doing this PB?

Where is the learning process?

What limits are being set on this PB process?

These questions have further informed EVOC’s position on PB and a final position paper will be circulated in the coming months. 

At our Conference, Paula Swanston and Lyn Williams from Home Link Family Support presented about systemic change within a school community, drawing on their experience from a pilot project with Lawfield Primary School in Midlothian. This project was a partnership between Play Therapy Base, Home Link Family Support, Children 1st, Midlothian Sure Start and Midlothian Council. The partnership provided a variety of interventions to tackle challenges with pupil attendance, violent incidents, staff support and parental engagement with the school.

Paula and Lyn discussed in detail how this innovative partnership was set up, in particular how the school was encouraged to see the wider issues within their community which impacted on a pupil’s ability to learn. A whole shift in culture was needed within the school, which took time, expertise and flexibility from all partners. The result of this pilot was a reduction in absconding, exclusions and lates, an increase in reading attainment and parental engagement, and a single referral pathway for supporting pupils within the school.

In addition to the presentation, attendees to the seminar were able to be involved in playing the roles of different partners within a wellbeing meeting, normally chaired by the head teacher within the school. This provided attendees with a brilliant opportunity to reflect upon professional perspectives, whilst also discussing how parents would be involved in these deliberations.

Overall, this seminar provided an excellent opportunity to hear about a highly successful partnership between the voluntary sector and education, the challenges which arise during this situation, and the impact this can have upon both a child’s wellbeing and their attainment while they are in school.