We believe the Third Sector plays a crucial role in the development of strong communities across Cumbria. We support third sector organisations in a number of ways as detailed in our Third Sector Strategy and want to work as a Council and with partners to promote a ‘thriving third sector’. The success of our collaboration will depend on supporting the sector to develop capacity in key areas of mutual concern.
To do this we believe we need:
- more effective strategic collaboration with the sector
- a more strategic and sustainable relationship with and support of the sector.
The County Council has funded Infrastructure support in the third sector for a number of years. Initially this was through a number of grants many of which have developed successively into service level agreements. Some of these were with the CVS’s, who provided a range of support to voluntary groups. For many organisations we now have contracts subject to open tender.
The Council is now intending to proceed to open tender for a contract as per the Public Contract Rules and our own Procurement rules. This is in the interests of quality of service, best value and transparency. The development of the tender work started in June and a contract is expected to be awarded before Christmas. You now have the opportunity to influence what that infrastructure support will look like as the county council is seeking views on the content and design of the contract for Third Sector Infrastructure Support from April 2009 – March 2012.