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Compact

Established in 1998, the Compact is an agreement between Government and the voluntary and community sector in England. It recognises shared values, principles and commitments and sets out guidelines for how both parties should work together.

Many areas including Bromley have developed local Compacts between local public bodies and the voluntary and community sector.

The Bromley Compact - a summary

Bromley has a Compact agreement between the voluntary and statutory sectors.
The Compact is a formal document agreed by all parties. The document is called Working Together Better: Compact on Relations Between the Statutory and Voluntary Sectors in the London Borough of Bromley.

The document sets out the key principles and values underpinning the statutory / voluntary sector relationship, and state the commitments to be given by the voluntary and statutory sectors. The purpose behind the Compact is that by working within these principles the people of Bromley have better services.

The Compact's ownership is with the Local Strategic Partnership and the partners are:

The document sets out some agreed principles in the following areas:

Partnership

The Compact builds on the long history of partnership working in Bromley. It highlights how partnership working has changed in recent years, with all partners recognising the importance of partnership at strategic as well as operational levels.
One of the principles in this section is that the statutory sector recognise the independence of the voluntary and community sector and its right to campaign within the law.

Resources

This section sets out commitments by partners to be clear, consistent and open about the way resources (funds and support) are provided for voluntary organisations. The commitments here include a recognition by the statutory sector that voluntary organisations will require support to participate in the commissioning process (where funding is awarded by tender rather than grant).

Consultation, Participation and Involvement

This section sets out the agreements around user and public participation in activities. The commitments here include the principle that voluntary organisations require at least 12 weeks to respond to major consultations (where reasonable and practical within imposed timescales).

Volunteering

This section places emphasis on the importance of volunteer contribution to Bromley's voluntary activities, services and economy. The voluntary sector commits to implement good practice in the management of volunteers.

Monitoring and Review

This section recognises that this is our first Compact for Bromley and a starting point rather than a finished exercise. The Compact sets out general principles. Detailed codes of good practice will be produced via the Local Strategic Partnership to deal with specific issues.

The Bromley Compact - full version

If you would  like to read the full version  you can do so by downloading one of the two formats  below.
The full Bromley Compact - Working Together Better:
The Bromley Compact - full version - 58 KB
The Bromley Compact - full version - 58 KB
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What do these mean in practice?

Resources 

By having transparent  and open systems to identify need  and  purchase services form a  wide range of  providers   you design the  best value services provided by the  best organisations  -  and public  bodies have a range of providers to choose from.

Consultation

The 12 week consultation period places responsibilities and gives benefits on all parties. By giving a long time to community groups it allows them the time to meet their obligations to engage meaningfully with their members – and to ensure that their views are heard. This leads to more information and evidence on which public bodies can take into account and so reach better decisions.

Volunteering

The work that volunteers do is by definition a free choice.  Public bodies working with volunteering organisations and using volunteers in their own work need to have an appreciation of what is reasonable to expect from volunteers and not take people for granted. Organisations using volunteers need to give them support to be an attractive place to volunteer and to have all sections of the community involved.  
More examples
The Commission for the Compact has published some research on the Economic and social benefits of applying Compact commitments

Making it more than a document

There are two groups of people who are working to turn the Bromley Compact from being another document to delivering improvements for local people.  

Bromley Compact Steering Group  This is a group of senior decision makers in partner organisations who set priorities for Bromley Compact work, report on progress to the Local Strategic Partnership and guide the Bromley Compact Champions

Bromley Compact Champions Network – people from both voluntary sector and public bodies whose work involves partnership and together contribute to implementing the Bromley Compact and its priorities.

Bromley Compact Steering Group

The Bromley Compact Steering Group members from all the signatories to the Bromley Compact – the Council, Police, PCT, Oxleas and South London Healthcare trusts as well as the voluntary and community sector represented by CLB, the Voluntary Sector Reference Group and the Volunteer Co-ordinators Forum. 

The first meeting agreed terms of reference identified following priorities:

  1. Consultation
  2. Resources (commissioning)
  3. NI4 (percent of people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality)
  4. NI7(environment for a thriving third sector)
  5. NI6 (participation in regular volunteering)
  6. Equalities outcomes in collaboration with the LSP Equalities review group

NI4 and NI6 are targets in the Bromley Local Areas Agreement and the Compact is an important part of achieving them – and will deliver benefits for the community as a result.  NI7 and the Compact go almost hand-in-hand.

The second meeting last week agreed a “direction of travel” identifying a range of tasks dealing initially with consultation, participation and engagement as this was the issue of most interest at the Compact Champions network. Stephen Blann Policy & Networks Officer at Community Links Bromley and Andrew Favell Partnerships & Planning at London Borough of Bromley will be working on a more detailed action plan with the Compact steering group and Champions Network.

The group also agreed on some monitoring arrangements. This includes a “Compact Way of Working scorecard” and an interactive pdf  reporting template for the LSP showing examples of good practice and “Compact wins” and also areas for improvement. Champions will be asked to identify examples of good Compact working to share.  

Bromley Compact Champions Network – your chance to play your part

There are now 36 champions from all the public bodies and a wide range of voluntary organisations but many hands make light work so we are always looking for more champions. The essential role of the champion is to raise awareness of Compact undertakings with colleagues and other organisations and if you are in a position to do so to help your organisation to meet its Compact undertakings.

Here is the full Champions Terms of Reference. You don’t need to be an expert in everything - and we are asking each champion to give a pledge of one simple thing they can do to help implement the Compact. 

Sign your Pledge Card and return it to Stephen Blann today. 

Part of the role of the champions will be to record where the compact and good partnership is producing benefits   - and also where we can improve.    For this reason there is a simple reporting template we would like as many champions to use.  It is in an interactive pdf format that you can still add text to.  Once you have completed it return it to Stephen Blann  and they will be compiled and considered by the Compact Steering Group. You can download a blank copy in the resources section.  

 We are developing a range of resources to support champions – some of these are available below.   We will also be  undertaking a skills audit to find out what  more resources and support  champions need.

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Bromley Compact Champions resources

Below are some Bromley resources

More resources will be added as Champions identify needs.   We are also launching a Bromley Compact blog for champions to share ideas and good practice.

Other resources from the Commission for the Compact and others include:

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Previous Compact Events in Bromley

Bromley Compact Champions Network Launch

The Bromley Compact is a document that sets out how public bodies and the voluntary sector can work together for mutual benefit. Vital to turning the Bromley Compact from a document into something which has an impact, is to have “Compact Champions”. The launch of the Bromley Compact Champions Network on 15th January 2010 was very successful. Nearly 40 people attended and 21 people signed a Compact pledge. 

The Local Strategic Partnership agreed last year to “refresh” the Bromley Compact following the “refresh” of the national Compact in the autumn.  A  Bromley Compact Steering Group was set up (see below), but Compact Champions are needed to turn change into a reality. The event on the 15th January was to launch the Compact Champions network. 
   
There were potential champions from most council departments, the PCT, police, fire brigade and a wide range of voluntary sector organisations.

People learnt about the Bromley Compact and found out about how other parts of the country used their Compact to bring benefits to their communities.  They also found out about what being a Compact Champion is all about – and many people found it wasn’t as scary as they thought.

21 people signed a compact pledge that they “support the principles of the Bromley Compact and will use them as part of my every day working.” They also gave examples of how they would do this. The most common were:

There were three discussion groups on issues facing the Bromley Compact. Common themes from the three sets were:

A full feedback report of the launch has been written and sent to the participants and to the Bromley Compact Steering Group.  For further information contact Stephen Blann, Policy & Networks Officer, Community Links Bromley on 020 8315 1907.


Police consultation event

60 people attended the event from a wide range of disability, minority ethnic and other community groups.

The event was opened by Eithne Rynne, Director of Community Links Bromley who also acted as Chair for the day.

There were introductory speeches from Charles Griggs, Borough Commander Bromley Police and Doug Patterson, Chief Executive of Bromley Council
This was  followed by a presentation from LB Enfield  talking about the  work that they had done engaging  different  faith communities with the police  as  part of their Compact.

Everyone then broke up into small workshop groups which ran twice during the day. There were 3 workshop themes:

Each workshop considered 3 questions:

The last activity before the workshops was a plenary feedback session.
After lunch there were further presentations: 

The event ended with a panel question and answer session and agreeing an Action plan for future action.

Commissioning II Conference

Resources and commissioning were identified as one of the key issues for the Bromley Compact.  As a demonstration of Compact principles there is a joint event between CLB, LBB Adult and Community Services and Children & Young People’s Trust organised on 25th February 2010 from 10 - 4pm. This is a follow up to the Commissioning Conference held in the autumn. There will be a series of presentations including:

This event, was very well attended. The morning session concentrated on how commissioning works in Children and Young People’s services. The afternoon session was focussed on Adult and Community Services. The panel discussion at the end of the day provided opportunity for delegates’ questions, with a great deal of interest in the new commissioning opportunities through the new Transforming Community Equipment Services launch in Bromley.

Other Compact news

National Compact Annual Meeting

Every year there is an annual Compact meeting reporting on progress and issues concerning the Compact nationally and locally.  The tenth Compact Annual Meeting was held on Monday 1 February and was attended by Stephen Blann, Policy & Networks Officer at Community Links Bromley attended the meeting and picked up some good ideas for what we could do in Bromley.  

Sir Bert Massie called on all voluntary sector organisations to publicly announce their commitment to their Compacts (local and national). A number of pledges from the Compact champions network launch in Bromley (above) involved a commitment to raising the Bromley Compact with trustees. Sir Bert also said he was disappointed at the response to a survey about awareness of the Compact among government departments and non-departmental public bodies - including several that made no response. Mark Davies from the Department of Health and Compact Voice’s chair Simon Blake announced they will be working together on new ways to ensure widespread Compact-compliant working and commissioning in the Department.  
Compact Voice also launched their Impact Report for 2009. 

This indicated that they had recruited 22 Compact champions in London - the same as were recruited by the Bromley Compact Champions Network launch. The big message this year however was about the “implementation debate”, with all the speakers emphasising the importance of recognising and sharing real positive outcomes from Compact working.

This is the approach that will be adopted in Bromley. You can see examples at the Compact Voice Compact Stories webpage - including Bromley being one of the first to take advantage of the national Compact refresh to refresh its own Compact.
A number of key questions emerged from the round-table discussions held in the latter part of the event, where the more practical aspects of implementation were dissected. These included:

  1. How can smaller voluntary groups build relationships with Government departments’ and are there examples of this happening?
  2. How are voluntary groups involved in scrutiny of new local legislation? for example when brought in as advisers
  3. Are there examples of ‘parcelling’ contracts - for example getting a local voluntary group to run its local park, as it’s not only better connected within the community but more efficient and motivated than a private contractor
  4. How will the next year’s Annual Meeting report a year of Compact successes, particularly around implementation and embedding?

Sir Jeremy Beecham, from the Local Government Associated reminded the public sector to view voluntary groups as partners, not as “cheap alternative options” – recognising that the Sector gives greater value and efficiency, and that such relationships represented good investment in local economy and local skills.

Links

www.thecompact.org.uk/ - the main Compact website with all the documents, more resources and examples of the Compact in use.
www.compactvoice.org.uk/ -  the voice of the voluntary sector on the Compact – and lots of useful resources and discussions.

Page updated: 23 July 2010