The Hub of the matter
29th March 2006, 10:11 am
More comment on the launch event for the national hubs of expertise (Brum, 28th March), roughly in ‘order of appearance’. (Note to Lizzie - I’ll find a news item in here somewhere, I promise.)
Firstly, it was good to be reminded by Chris Pond, the chair of the new CapacityBuilders body, that all ChangeUp funding will go through them in future, rather than the present disjointed affair where the national hubs get dealt with at one level, while regional/local sector infrastructure projects go via Regional Offices with varying understanding, capability and priorities in managing the process. On the other hand it was disappointing that CapacityBuilders itself is having its own launch in the same venue in a few days time, so that Chris couldn’t say anything new here.
Back on Finance Hub, somehow I had missed that this was even further delayed in development than the ICT Hub. It seems unlikely that contracts for work (mainly research) that were only sorted last week can deliver quality results in just 3 months. Most of the sector doesn’t work at that speed, however much certain ‘voices’ for the sector claim, unless it is an absolutely crucial issue.
One quote of note from the governance session (not word for word) “a step change in trustee diversity is needed”, in contrast to most of the other good governance issues.
And from NCVO boss Stuart Etherington’s winding up (or perhaps winding down, as there were some drooping heads): “In part, this (Hubs) programme is devised to re-engineer aspects of the (sector) infrastructure” - a deliberate strategy from NCVO, and that it is crucial that there is a better relationship between national, regional and local ‘capacity’ (we presume he means capacity building organisations, such as NCVO, regional forums and local CVS). These comments were interesting partly because this event was aimed at frontline organisations rather than infrastructure bodies, as supposedly the latter had already been involved and informed. But the many Council of Voluntary Service and other ‘LIOs’ present somewhat undermined that statement.