http://www.independentaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Volunteering-final.pdf
A study has concluded that the roles of volunteers are increasingly becoming marginalised as they are treated as employees and overburdened by bureaucracy as more voluntary and charitable organisations take on contracts to provide statutory and social services. This diminishes the value to volunteers of freely giving their time.
It found that there has been an exodus from large ‘corporate' agencies as they professionalised
their services and replace volunteer managers with paid staff in order to be confident of meeting their contractual requirements.
"Volunteer managers no longer welcome all comers or see it as a key part of their role to find ways in which those who come forward can be helped to find ways in which they can contribute to the work of the organisation. Instead they use formal methods modelled on the processes used to appoint paid members of staff and using tools very similar to job descriptions, person specifications and the taking up of references to try to ensure that the volunteer is equipped – often after a period of training - to carry out a specific and pre-determined function within the agency."
"Nearly half (49%) of those who were not current volunteers but wanted to get involved
said they had been put off by the degree of bureaucracy involved."
Thursday 20 November 2014
Wednesday 22 October 2014
Bike racks approved for UK buses
In 2009 I investigated why UK buses don't have the sort of bike racks they do in the USA and Canada. I found there was a UK pressure group that was trying to do this but apparently bike racks were not allowed under EU legislation. I banged my head on it for a bit and then gave up. Now somebody at the DfT had another look at the issue and on October 17th the IVS unit informed Bikes On Buses UK that buses CAN have a bike rack on the front or back as long as the vehicle remains within its maximum permitted length. This could have a real impact on the use of rural buses as it will extend their range and ridership. Moral of story: never take no for an answer.
http://www.bikesonbuses.com/recent-news/
Monday 20 October 2014
MP backs blue badge regulation change
Repost from http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk published: 14th October 2014
A Suffolk MP has put further pressure on the Department for Transport to change the regulations regarding the issuing of blue badge parking permits to community transport providers.
Earlier this year, Suffolk Community Transport (SCT) called on the Government to review its policy after some of its members were refused a permit despite the vital role they play providing transport to the elderly and disabled.
The issue hit the headlines in May when Halesworth Area Community Transport (HACT) where refused a permit despite holding one for several years, with Suffolk County Council stating:
“Under the Government Blue Badge eligibility criteria that we are required to work within, the Regulations state that an organisation will only be issued with a Blue Badge if they both care for and transport disabled people who would themselves be eligible for an individual Blue Badge. Unfortunately as your organisation only transports and does not care for disabled people, I regret I am unable to authorise a badge for you.”
The HACT decision was overturned following a second appeal, however other community transport operators have faced similar difficulties when apply for the permit - which allows parking in restricted areas.
As a result SCT, which champions the role of the community transport sector in Suffolk, called on the Government to change its policy.
Now, SCT has received the support of Waveney MP Peter Aldous, who has written a letter directly to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department for Transport Robert Goodwill MP. In the letter Mr Aldous says:
“I believe SCT has put together a strong case and therefore I would be most grateful if the DfT could review the eligibility rules around organisational blue badges, amending the rules to state – ‘Community Transport Operators offering services predominately to disabled people should automatically be given an organisational blue badge’.”
SCT represents Suffolk’s 14 community transport operators including those in Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket, Hadleigh, Stowmarket, Haverhill, Sudbury, Beccles and Halesworth. Its Chief Executive, Susannah Waters, said: “We are delighted to have received such strong support from Mr Aldous in our pursuit for a regulation change and we hope the DfT gives serious consideration to our request. It seems a very strange decision to prevent services providing transport for people with disabilities from parking is spaces reserved for people with disabilities. Our view is that the guidelines for local authorities, issued by the DfT, require fundamental change.”
Wednesday 30 April 2014
Letter to Richard Drax MP
Richard Drax MP - Member of Parliament for South Dorset
Dear Mr Drax,
I have viewed on the BBC website your speech in parliament yesterday 29th April 2014 on rural bus services and I thank you for speaking so clearly and eloquently to raise those issues with your fellow MPs.
(I cannot embed the BBC video but it is available here or read the Hansard here.)
I am a town councillor for Halesworth in Suffolk and a volunteer with Halesworth Area Community Transport, one of the many community bus operators of which you spoke, as well as chair of my local community rail partnership. So I feel I am* dealing directly at the coal face of the rural transport problems you highlighted.
In terms of localism: I find great difficulty in enabling passenger participation in rural (or urban) route design.
A contributor to a recent House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee report on transport and accessibility to public services said:
"Too many authorities choose to ‘do things’ to communities rather than spend the time finding out what they actually need and want first ... local people should be correctly liaised with prior to any changes being made, it is them that have to live with any consequences and they should be listened to correctly about how they will be impacted but also so they properly shape services..."
Independently I had proposed a solution to this very problem at the following link which I kindly ask you to consider.
timetable-design
I posit that what passengers and communities need is free access to a software application that displays all the current bus, train and other public transport schedules and actual ground-covered routes in a given area on a simulator to visualise service and modal connections. On this they could enter proposed timetables and route variations so service alterations can be modelled and compared.
Another challenge facing the Community Transport Operator which you did not raise is the licensing of drivers and the cost of training volunteers to meet the EU driving standards (which incidentally were designed with countries which have no community transport systems of their own). The Community Transport Association has made many representations to ministers on this issue and there are informative papers in the House of Commons library.
I cannot find any statistics that support that volunteers in community transport that are D1 entitled (without PSV licenses) are any more dangerous than drivers who have had to take the PSV test. I recently took my PSV and it cost the taxpayer something in the region of £2500 for just one individual. This was the test fees and the travel and the subsistence for the three days of training I had. Yet we offer our own volunteers very much the same standard of training in-house through the MIDAS scheme, a good scheme for skilling our volunteers but which has no bearing on operating a minibus legally on the road.
(It appears to be the view of my local MP Dr. Therese Coffey that more funding for this PSV training is the way forward - to which I disagree).
Again, I outline the problem in detail at the link below. I have proposed a legislative work-around the EU barriers by adjustment of weight limits for a certain kind of transport service and I urge you to consider this issue and share it with those in parliament who are responsible for making the decisions that will solve the problems that you have thankfully raised.
weight-rules
With kind regards
Nat Bocking
Dear Mr Drax,
I have viewed on the BBC website your speech in parliament yesterday 29th April 2014 on rural bus services and I thank you for speaking so clearly and eloquently to raise those issues with your fellow MPs.
(I cannot embed the BBC video but it is available here or read the Hansard here.)
I am a town councillor for Halesworth in Suffolk and a volunteer with Halesworth Area Community Transport, one of the many community bus operators of which you spoke, as well as chair of my local community rail partnership. So I feel I am* dealing directly at the coal face of the rural transport problems you highlighted.
In terms of localism: I find great difficulty in enabling passenger participation in rural (or urban) route design.
A contributor to a recent House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee report on transport and accessibility to public services said:
"Too many authorities choose to ‘do things’ to communities rather than spend the time finding out what they actually need and want first ... local people should be correctly liaised with prior to any changes being made, it is them that have to live with any consequences and they should be listened to correctly about how they will be impacted but also so they properly shape services..."
Independently I had proposed a solution to this very problem at the following link which I kindly ask you to consider.
timetable-design
I posit that what passengers and communities need is free access to a software application that displays all the current bus, train and other public transport schedules and actual ground-covered routes in a given area on a simulator to visualise service and modal connections. On this they could enter proposed timetables and route variations so service alterations can be modelled and compared.
Another challenge facing the Community Transport Operator which you did not raise is the licensing of drivers and the cost of training volunteers to meet the EU driving standards (which incidentally were designed with countries which have no community transport systems of their own). The Community Transport Association has made many representations to ministers on this issue and there are informative papers in the House of Commons library.
I cannot find any statistics that support that volunteers in community transport that are D1 entitled (without PSV licenses) are any more dangerous than drivers who have had to take the PSV test. I recently took my PSV and it cost the taxpayer something in the region of £2500 for just one individual. This was the test fees and the travel and the subsistence for the three days of training I had. Yet we offer our own volunteers very much the same standard of training in-house through the MIDAS scheme, a good scheme for skilling our volunteers but which has no bearing on operating a minibus legally on the road.
(It appears to be the view of my local MP Dr. Therese Coffey that more funding for this PSV training is the way forward - to which I disagree).
Again, I outline the problem in detail at the link below. I have proposed a legislative work-around the EU barriers by adjustment of weight limits for a certain kind of transport service and I urge you to consider this issue and share it with those in parliament who are responsible for making the decisions that will solve the problems that you have thankfully raised.
weight-rules
With kind regards
Nat Bocking
*I should have also acknowledged local bodies like ESTA, The Going Green Partnership, Sustrans etc. who are very active locally.
P.S. I shall have to write again to Stephen Hammond The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport to address a few points. He obviously isn't getting it. The innovation he wishes for isn't coming from our councils and in my experience, they haven't been very supportive of innovation such as the Handy Bus model when it is presented to them.
ADDENDUM
Below is the latest response from my MP Dr. Therese Coffey who I copied in into this letter and who I have written to before.
You can write to your MP and most other politicians from here www.writetothem.com
Richard Drax MP responded by email on the 7th May:
"Thank you for contacting me regarding my adjournment debate on rural bus services. May I also thank you for your kind words regarding my speech.
Your idea is interesting; however I would encourage you to write to your own MP, Dr Thérèse Coffey, to see if it has practical application for your local area."
In turn I replied to Dr. Coffey:
P.S. I shall have to write again to Stephen Hammond The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport to address a few points. He obviously isn't getting it. The innovation he wishes for isn't coming from our councils and in my experience, they haven't been very supportive of innovation such as the Handy Bus model when it is presented to them.
ADDENDUM
Below is the latest response from my MP Dr. Therese Coffey who I copied in into this letter and who I have written to before.
You can write to your MP and most other politicians from here www.writetothem.com
"Thank you for contacting me regarding my adjournment debate on rural bus services. May I also thank you for your kind words regarding my speech.
Your idea is interesting; however I would encourage you to write to your own MP, Dr Thérèse Coffey, to see if it has practical application for your local area."
I understand from our prior
correspondence that the present government will not seek to amend the weight
rules as I propose. However, our correspondence has not elucidated how this
government will solve the problem of the declining numbers of volunteer drivers
in community transport. I am open to discussing other ways forward. It would be
useful to have an indication that this government recognises our concerns on
this issue, even if considers just one proposed solution is not
viable.
Also, in the debate Mr Drax talked of
enabling the ‘localism’ agenda. I think my suggestion for route modelling is a
viable contribution to delivering on this government’s policy in public
transport so I would be glad to know if you or Mr Drax had passed that
information to the relevant minister.
Tuesday 4 March 2014
Suffolk cuts subsidy to community car schemes
Suffolk County Council have informed local Community Transport Operators that the
2014-15 Budgets & Service Level Agreements have now been finalised.
"A
review of mileage between 2010-11 and 2013-14 has highlighted that hospital
appointments are not within the service specification of supported Community Car
Services. The majority of these journeys are high mileage, moving services away
from local service provision. Therefore from 1st April 2014 the mileage subsidy will no longer be
supported. Subject to operator’s volunteer availability, passengers may continue
to access car services for hospital appointment journeys at 45p per mile. The
council will continue to support the operator’s admin support for each passenger
journey covered. In line with these changes, the 2014-15
car service budgets have been adjusted in relation to the current year end
hospital appointment mileage forecast..."
What this means is that for hospital journeys, the county council will no longer pay the 10 pence per mile subsidy, thus that will have to be collected from the passenger or borne by the non-profit operator of community car schemes. County have confirmed that "car service operators will not be subject to a reduction in budget as such, as it is the passenger who will be supporting the drivers mileage rate." SCC have not announced what this will save them per year.
Many CCS work using volunteers drivers in their own cars and they reimburse the volunteer at 45 pence per mile. The passenger is charged 35 pence per mile and the 10 pence of council subsidy makes up the difference. The schemes also get 40 pence per journey taken to cover the administration of claiming back mileage.
So now CCS might have to offer passengers two different charging scales: 35 pence for local journeys which are subsidized and 45 pence for hospital journeys which aren't.
Figures from the AA and RAC show that the real cost of car ownership per mile can be over 50 pence per mile. Many volunteers don't mind shouldering this cost, in the same way they don't mind travelling to volunteer somewhere, but on taking long journeys to hospitals, that can be significant.
So now CCS might have to offer passengers two different charging scales: 35 pence for local journeys which are subsidized and 45 pence for hospital journeys which aren't.
Figures from the AA and RAC show that the real cost of car ownership per mile can be over 50 pence per mile. Many volunteers don't mind shouldering this cost, in the same way they don't mind travelling to volunteer somewhere, but on taking long journeys to hospitals, that can be significant.
This action will certainly reduce the number of options that patients have to get to hospital appointments and increase the difficulties many have of attending them, especially when changes to commissioning of services have moved them to ever more distant hospitals, such as the proposal to close the liver resection department in Norwich and move it to Addenbrookes. In that case it may be a small number of cancer patients but it could be a death sentence to some of them.
According to the Department for Transport; 21.1 % of people in rural Suffolk live more than 60 minutes by public transport from hospital compared to 9.9% of rural England overall. Source: OCSI 2011 Department for Transport (DfT) 2009.
There are 35 LSOAs (each averages a population of 5000 people) in Suffolk more than two hours travel time from a hospital by public transport.
Between 2009 - 2012 there were 184,947 missed NHS appointments in Suffolk, costing£17.6 million. There is no hard data on the reasons why people miss appointments but local anecdotal evidence shows that poor transport, particularly in rural areas, is one reason. The West Suffolk Hospital says the cost of each 'DNA' to them varies according to whether it is a first or follow up appointment and for which speciality but the estimated loss is about £110 per appointment.
I feel the voluntary and community sector is not being served by the arbitrary fixed rate the HMRC sets for mileage reimbursement they will accept without question of employees making profit, which is also applied to volunteers using their cars in community car schemes.
Since 45p per mile (for the first 10,000 miles) is now below the RAC /AA rate of car operation, as fuel and insurance costs rise, volunteers using their own cars in CCS will continue to subsidise these schemes, leading to increasing difficulty in recruiting volunteer drivers into schemes or forcing schemes to be capitalised in a way they provide their own vehicles. This is a huge barrier to establishing schemes and has many attendant costs beyond the vehicle. For a start it is quite a complicated five-step calculation for volunteers to work out if they might be making a profit or not.
I have brought this up with Dan Poulter MP but I did not get a satisfactory response as he didn’t see the difference between employee use and volunteer use and the legislation is framed around the taxable benefit of using a car for work. The Chartered Institute of Taxation had suggested in 2011 that 50 pence was fairer when the rate of 40p then "was below the cost of running a car". After a comprehensive consultation in 2008, the Community Transport Association concluded that low tax-free mileage allowances combined with rising fuel prices was deterring potential voluntary drivers. It asked the Government to increase the tax-free rate to 45p per mile which was realised in the 2011 budget.
Raising the allowable rate again to 50p or 55p per mile for volunteers using their own cars will have no impact on the costs of SCC and community transport schemes yet the schemes might be able to operate and charge lower rates or offer sliding scale on longer journeys but fixing it at 45p per mile does not allow any flexibility because it is for many volunteers and schemes less that their true cost, especially for short journeys.
I feel the voluntary and community sector is not being served by the arbitrary fixed rate the HMRC sets for mileage reimbursement they will accept without question of employees making profit, which is also applied to volunteers using their cars in community car schemes.
Since 45p per mile (for the first 10,000 miles) is now below the RAC /AA rate of car operation, as fuel and insurance costs rise, volunteers using their own cars in CCS will continue to subsidise these schemes, leading to increasing difficulty in recruiting volunteer drivers into schemes or forcing schemes to be capitalised in a way they provide their own vehicles. This is a huge barrier to establishing schemes and has many attendant costs beyond the vehicle. For a start it is quite a complicated five-step calculation for volunteers to work out if they might be making a profit or not.
I have brought this up with Dan Poulter MP but I did not get a satisfactory response as he didn’t see the difference between employee use and volunteer use and the legislation is framed around the taxable benefit of using a car for work. The Chartered Institute of Taxation had suggested in 2011 that 50 pence was fairer when the rate of 40p then "was below the cost of running a car". After a comprehensive consultation in 2008, the Community Transport Association concluded that low tax-free mileage allowances combined with rising fuel prices was deterring potential voluntary drivers. It asked the Government to increase the tax-free rate to 45p per mile which was realised in the 2011 budget.
Raising the allowable rate again to 50p or 55p per mile for volunteers using their own cars will have no impact on the costs of SCC and community transport schemes yet the schemes might be able to operate and charge lower rates or offer sliding scale on longer journeys but fixing it at 45p per mile does not allow any flexibility because it is for many volunteers and schemes less that their true cost, especially for short journeys.
Wednesday 26 February 2014
Town Council Funding Guidance
Town or parish councils can provide small amounts of grant funding for local community organisations however they also have a duty to ensure their council is not spending the precept on something which
could be funded or part-funded by another means. Whenever possible, all
applicants, especially for larger grants or to fund ongoing services, would be well advised to present evidence of research into other sources of funding and the outcome
of any other applications with their application to their local council.
I would also suggest that grant applicants should contact local enterprise
or community development agencies to access the free advice available on making
grant applications and if the activity needing funding is likely to require
ongoing funding from the public purse; to consider how that activity can be
delivered on a sustainable basis.
To prevent any delay in obtaining a decision, it's a good idea to check with the clerk when your application will be
considered by the council and if possible, be available to attend if any questions arise at the council meeting.
It is worth noting that nearly all funders want to know
about the impact that their funding has had. It is good practice to describe in
the grant application how the outcomes of the funding will be monitored and
reported on afterwards. A follow-up report to the council is always appreciated.
Funding
County councillors have a Locality Budget Grant for local projects in their division which
benefit the community such as village halls, sports and social clubs and
toddler groups.
If you would like to apply for a locality budget grant, please
contact the county councillor who represents
the area where your project is based.
Hundreds of big and small charitable grants are administered
through the Suffolk Community Foundation.
For up to date information please visit:
www.suffolkcf.org.uk
Telephone 01473 602602
Grants for Waveney, Holton and Halesworth from the Bernard Matthews Fund are administered
by the Norfolk Foundation. Grants are normally made in May and November
each year.
www.norfolkfoundation.com
Telephone 01603 623958 (Wednesday-Friday)
Halesworth is fortunate to have a Co-operative store and so
can apply for cash grants from the Anglia
Cooperative Community Foundation as well as for raffle prizes from the
store.
The Halesworth and
Blyth Valley Partnership is an independent charity (number 1099489) that
exists to promote, support and encourage any charitable purposes for the
protection of health and improvement of the social, cultural, economic,
educational and environmental well-being of Halesworth and the Blyth
Valley
Contact: Mr. Ezra Leverett ,
Telephone 01986 874551
The organisation Lions
Clubs International has a Halesworth branch which makes donations to good
causes. Contact Lions Clubs
International District 105EA thorough their website:
Green Grants Machine is
a website for identifying environmental funding.
Suffolk Libraries provide online and library terminal access
to Grant Finder where a short
registration form gives users immediate, free and unrestricted access to a
comprehensive national database of funding opportunities.
Application Support
The voluntary and community sector support agency Community Action Suffolk is funded by
Suffolk County Council to support applicants to access funding from the
National Lottery, charitable trusts, local, national and European government
under a wide variety of schemes.
Community Action Suffolk can access Grant Finder to conduct
funding searches and provide advice and signposting for applicants.
Telephone 01473 345300
Provided by the
United Kingdom Government, businesses and community groups can find a wide
range of grant funding and support information at:
Funding Central
is a free resource for charities, voluntary organisations and social
enterprises that lists thousands of funding and finance opportunities, plus a
wealth of tools and information to support developing a sustainable income
strategy.
Waveney District
Council has a Community Development Team to support community and voluntary
groups to develop and seek funding which will help deliver the Sustainable
Communities Strategy. There are a number of specialist officers for different
groups and objectives. The Funding Manager of the WDC
Funding Team has access to Grant Finder and can conduct funding searches.
Email: volgrants@waveney.gov.uk
Telephone 01502 523182 / 01502 523186
Suffolk County
Council also receives funding from Central and European government to make
grants for community purposes such as economic, sport, leisure, cultural and
educational development often in partnership with other agencies. The
priorities and availability and pathways to such funding are constantly
changing. There are a number of specialist officers and many council staff can support
community development in their local area through the council’s Our Place scheme. Ideally your first
contact for support from the County Council will be your elected member.
Email ourplace@suffolk.gov.uk
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