Our 10th Birthday Event!
WYCAS held its ‘birthday party’ event on 13th October to celebrate 10 successful years of helping community and voluntary groups to take the stress out of managing their finances. Good financial management is all about looking ahead so WYCAS invited people in the know to talk about what looks like some tough times ahead. In front of an invited audience of staff from voluntary and community sector organisations, local government and social and health services, John Marshall, Policy Manager in the Cabinet Office ran through some of the practical changes that lie ahead in relation to the Big Society.
Our second speaker, Mary Weastell, Bradford’s Strategic Director of Performance and Commissioning, offered a Commissioner’s eye view of relations with the VCS, saying that achieving the differences that people want the Council and its partners to make in their lives will only happen with robust performance management between local authorities and the VCS. Our final speaker Councillor Bernard Atha, the seasoned Leeds City Council Labour politician provided a lively presentation on the theme ‘Can partnership working between public and voluntary sectors survive the cuts in funding’, saying that despite the choppy waters ahead cuts in local authority-provided services, could provide opportunities for the voluntary sector.
Along with 2 short films showing the impact of WYCAS’s work, the morning finished with an animated question and answer session, when our 3 speakers were joined by Caroline James the Regional Development Manager for the Big Lottery and Trudie Wright, Project Manager, Yorkshire and Humber Joint Improvement Partnership for a debate on the issues raised during the morning.
For links to the speech summaries please see below:
John Marshall Policy Manager in the Cabinet Office
Mary Weastell Bradford’s Strategic Director of Performance and Commissioning
You can also view the slides of the presentaions for John Marshall and Mary Weastell below: