As Police and Crime Commissioner, I have a modest budget of £3.3m to award grants and commission services to fund activities to support victims, prevent crime and keep our county safer.
Most of this budget is used to support local voluntary and community organisations which do fantastic work to provide services and advocate for local people.
A few months ago, I launched a new commissioning and funding strategy. This strategy recognises the independence and innovative nature of the voluntary and community sector.
The feedback from the local voluntary and community sector is that the new strategy will be fundamental in fostering a vibrant range of service provisions. The biggest opportunities noted were “the power to mentor, innovate, plan ahead and collaborate.”
I will use funding to build the strength and resilience of the voluntary and community sector not simply to ‘buy’ services from them.
I regard the voluntary and community organisations as genuine partners, not commercial suppliers. I want them to contribute to policy development and offera voice for victims and communities. I welcome them challenging me too.
We will adopt a relational approach to commissioning and grant funding. The default will always be relational grant funding.
Competitive procurement will only be used sparingly for very large contracts of which there will be few.
In these cases, there will still be dialogue and proportionate processes – we must not expect voluntary organisations to jump through hurdles designed for large commercial contractors, and we will not. There will be few times when there is a competitive process.
Social value as well as value for money is core to the strategy. Recipients of funding will be expected to demonstrate social value.
Wherever possible, the aim is to jointly commission services and grant fund groups with local authorities, the NHS, other public sector partners and other funders.
The source of funding for my grants and commissioning programme comes from several streams, including the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), focusing on victim support.
The Home Office provides funding opportunities for the Violence Reduction Unit (VERU) in my Office, which leads and coordinates the local prevention of serious violence and funds organisations to address this objective.
I allocate £1m to a Community Safety Fund from the funds available to me from local council taxes and government grants to bring the overall total to £3.3m.
Funding is awarded after a fair, transparent, proportionate process, The aim is to ensure quality outcome-focused services including advocacy with recipients of funding held to account for delivery.
Funding opportunities have been made available within the VERU, as they seek to deliver a Schools Navigators programme countywide. It is an initiative aimed at providing tailored support to young people within schools who are showing the first signs of disengagement from education.
Broader commissioning opportunities will be released in the next couple of weeks and can be found on the OPCC website here.
The approach which I am adopting does not assume that I or my OPCC team always know what is required and what is available from the voluntary and community sectors. Therefore, I have established an innovation fund £200,000.
Organisations and community groups will be invited to submit proposals in line with Police and Crime Plan missions. I hope that this fund will encourage new organisations to set up and come forward with innovative ideas.
I am ready to fund experiments not always more of the same. And to fund development costs where appropriate.
All of this will be vital to delivering my missions within the Police and Crime Plan and is representative of the collaborative approach that is essential to drive towards a safer and fairer Bedfordshire.
I look forward to commissioning and grant-aiding effective, efficient, innovative, and local services to serve, engage, and advocate for the communities of Bedfordshire.
This is a monthly guest column provided by
elected Police and Crime Commissioner, John Tizard (Labour).
It is published unedited and does
not reflect the views of the Bedford Independent.
