Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector
Annual Report 2012 / 13
AnnualReport 2012/ 13
Chief Executive’s report: our operating context
2012/13: The Operating Context
Sector overview We have had an extremely busy and challenging year, as have all our member organisations!
The operating environment for the Third Sector (TS) in Glasgow continued to be a pressured one in 2012/13, with the Third Sector facing an overall climate of financial uncertainty and increasing operational difficulties.
A high level of re-organisation and service cuts also took place within public agencies during the period, along with an unprecedented level of exit through voluntary redundancies of many of the most experienced public sector staff and managers within Glasgow agencies.
In funding and activity terms, UK-wide DWP employability programmes, to which the TS used to make a major contribution, now have little or no TS engagement within Glasgow.
Meanwhile, reducing budget allocations for most public agencies in Scotland led during 2012/13 to the imposition of a range of cost-cutting
GCVS BOARD
Anne Jarvie Chairperson Helen Cunningham Treasurer Jackie Hothersall Peter Kelly Gordon Kennedy Margaret McIntyre Alexander Meikle Sandy Farquharson Etta Dunn Duncan McTavish Shona Stephen Andrew Lyon
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measures which began to bite at local community level, and thus impacted directly and indirectly on TS activity.
Feedback from our members told us that levels of client need and client numbers being supported by TS organisations in Glasgow generally increased over the period, even as most funding streams to TS organisations either remained at standstill, or were cut.
The majority of staffed voluntary and community organisations with whom GCVS worked reported that sustaining their operations was proving a continuing challenge. Many were planning further cut backs in their services, and were continuing to implement short-term working and pay freezes. Conditions within the TS care sector were particularly difficult, and for the first time we recorded the implementation of zero-hours contracts. On a positive note, some organisations reported that they had now succeeded in stabilising their operations, and had found alternative - often short-term funds -
Partners
Glasgow Volunteer Centre CEiS The Scottish Government Glasgow Life Big Lottery Voluntary Action Scotland Glasgow City Council Glasgow Community Planning Partnership GSEN NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde SCVO
to continue their work. The rate of organisational mergers increased significantly, as TS organisations ‘pooled’ resources to continue delivery of their services at the necessary scale.
Procurement and commissioning processes - particularly around health and social care - continued to impact adversely on small to medium sized organisations in the city, and so became a key priority for GCVS staff to address, both at capacity building and policy level.
More information emerged during the course of 2012/13 about the impact which the impending UK Government’s Welfare Reform programme would have on levels of welfare benefit and access to benefits from 2013 onwards for thousands of Glasgow citizens, children and families. Many TS organisations raised with GCVS their fears and concerns about even greater levels of client need, and new services that would be required within the city to help clients cope. As a result, GCVS began to plan for the introduction
Funders
The Scottish Government Glasgow City Council Glasgow Community Planning Partnership NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde Education Scotland
Annual Report 2012/ 13 of additional practical support measures to the TS, to enable the re-shaping and development of these new services.
Policy Input Within our External Affairs Teams, a key priority during 2012/13 was to continue to provide accurate and timeous information to the sector, particularly seeking to keep them abreast of the substantial changes taking place over the year within public sector structures programmes, and informing them of changes to personnel, policies and processes happening at local, city-wide and national level.
In recognition of the growing needs of our members, we further expanded our Policy content. We provided monthly Policy Briefings, and weekly bite-sized news snippets, and undertook a wide range of consultations with our members and key networks, surveying them to sound out their views. We improved the member ‘offer’ on our services, to encourage greater uptake, and we saw our membership grow steadily as a result.
In terms of consultation and ‘connectivity’, 2012/13 was a very active year, with GCVS and its members and networks involved in a range of Scottish Government consultations, and participating in round-table discussions and shortlife working groups, seeking to shape the content and focus of as a wide range of Bills which were being developed and enacted, and of guidance that was being produced. Along with our members, GCVS contributed to the Community Empowerment Bill, and the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, to the development of legislation on procurement and to early discussions on TS contribution to the future integration of Health and Social Care.
Chief Executive’s report: our operating context Our contribution to Reshaping Care for Older People began to grow, both within the strategic partnership, and operationally, with the successful roll-out of our ‘community capacity building’ Transformation Fund investing £1.5 million to market-test a whole new generation of preventative services in the city.
Capacity Building and Sector Support During 2012/13 we continued to work closely with our Third Sector Interface colleagues and other development agencies in the city – and with key public agencies such as Community Planning - to maximise the range and quality of support services accessible to third sector organisations, and to continue our capacity building, ‘change management’, ‘mainstreaming equalities’ and organisational development (OD) support programmes. As our Report this year demonstrates, overall, throughout the year 2012/13, GCVS provided in-depth specialist technical support to well over 1,000 separate organisations in Glasgow and environs.
Our work helped many thousands of volunteers, staff members, managers and Board members of Glasgow’s Third Sector to access continuous professional development opportunities, to up-skill and seek to ensure that they could continue to meet need, offer high quality provision and cope with an ever-changing and ever more challenging environment.
Albany Centre Developments We continued to operate from two locations - Queens Crescent, where all our back-office services are located, and the adjacent Albany Learning and Conference Centre, where our ‘front of house’, customerfacing services and membership activities are located. Footfall within
our Albany Centre continued to grow, and we were delighted to be able to programme in community events in the evenings and weekends, to begin to make the Albany a local community resource within Woodlands.
Internal GCVS Governance processes As a leading Third Sector organisation in the city we work hard to have strong, effective internal governance, leadership and management within our processes, so that we manage risk effectively and that we are capable of reacting and adapting to the changing external environment.
We had a very positive IiP assessment in February 2013, which praised our inspirational leadership and the quality of our management, and which acknowledged the strength of our investment in learning and focus on developing and up-skilling our staff through a planned learning programme.
Overall, despite a difficult funding environment for TS infrastructure locally and nationally, we had no redundancies during the year, and we were successful in retaining our mix of self-generated and grant funding and keeping our broad funding base, enabling us to spread financial risk.
Future Development In terms of future development work, we were delighted to secure new funding from the Scottish Government through to March 2015, to support capacity building and engagement work with organisations servicing Children, Young People and Families in the city, to support and strengthen TS input to the Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) agenda. All in all, a busy but positive year!
Helen Macneil Chief Executive
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AnnualReport 2012/ 13
Connect
Delivering our Connect Agenda
Connect reflects the work we do to support strong, collective input by the sector to partnership activity, coordinating and linking organisations together and providing opportunities for networking and joint working. It encompasses our policy, communications and research activity, and reflects the key representational and facilitation role we play, undertaking consultation and stimulating discussion and debate, seeking to engage the sector effectively with public agencies and impact on public service delivery in the city. In 2012-13 we had even more direct dialogue with public sector partners around key Scottish Government priorities such as Reshaping Care for Older People and Welfare Reform.
We continued to engage in positive dialogue with the Community Planning Partnership around improvements to the Integrated Grants Fund, lobbying for longer term funding on behalf of our members, and we actively supported the priorities which our members helped to shape through the content of the Third Sector Manifesto, via our representation on the Third Sector Interface Executive Committee. Connecting Equalities event
Communications and policy work: supporting our members
Within our Policy and External Affairs teams, a key priority during 2012/13 was to continue providing accurate and timeous information to our members and the wider Third Sector in Glasgow.
We particularly sought to keep them abreast of the substantial changes taking place over the year within public sector structures, programmes, and inform them of changes to personnel, policies and processes happening at local, city-wide and national level. In recognition of the growing needs of our members and networks we sent out a weekly Members Bulletin and improved the member ‘offer’ on our services, to encourage greater uptake.
During 2012/13 Member’s News went weekly to over 700 organisations, containing news items, info on events as well as links to website resources, consultations and publications. We specifically focused on briefing GCVS members on policy and operational issues which would directly affect them. We also built the content of our communications with the wider Third Sector in Glasgow through our ‘Special Events’ programme, and our e-newsletter Interchange, which went to over 2,000 subscribers.
Mainstreaming Equalities
Specialist Equality Updates GCVS continued to support good equalities practice in the City and of a strong equalities voluntary sector by providing a quality, targeted, and timely current awareness equalities information service.
We provided three weekly specialist e-bulletins – on equalities, funding and jobs - on behalf of Glasgow’s Equality Forum, making use of a range of online communications tools to deliver a valued equalities resource, relevant and useful to a wide range of subscribers, browsers and researchers. These reached over 3,000 readers.
See www.enf.org.uk/blog
Connecting
Equalities
In the autumn of 2012, we were awarded funding from the Scottish Government to deliver a project designed to improve understanding and collaborative working between the Third and Public sectors around equalities legislation.
Our Connecting Equalities work enabled us to consult widely with key public sector and Third Sector stakeholders during early 2013 to identify issues and barriers to partnership working and to lay the groundwork for an implementation plan in the year ahead.
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AnnualReport 2012/ 13
Connect
Reshaping Care for Older People
Research
The Change Plan saw an additional £12 million awarded to Glasgow to enable partners to implement local plans to shift the balance of care from acute services to early intervention and community-based, preventative approaches.
Our Annual Audit during 2012 provided updates on 650 of these organisations, providing additional information on core activities.
2012-13 saw us build significantly on the groundwork laid during the first year of the Change Plan for Older People. This key Scottish Government initiative gives the Third Sector a place as an equal partner and decision-maker - with health, social work and the independent sector - in determining priorities for Change Plan investment in older people’s services.
Third Sector Interfaces in all local authority areas are tasked with signing off Change Plans on behalf of the Third Sector, and GCVS undertook this role in Glasgow. During 2012/13, the focus began to shift from the Change Plan to the new Joint Commissioning Strategy and Plan for the city, which takes account of the totality of spend invested in older people’s services in Glasgow.
Through consultation with the sector, we contributed to and signed off a draft plan in February, with a series of conditions, including commitments to grow a new generation of community based services co-produced by older people as well as to review commissioning processes to ensure alternative funding mechanisms which support and sustain local services.
Our Third Sector Transformation Fund supported investment in twenty projects supporting older people, bringing circa £1.5 million additional investment to the sector during 2012-13. In addition, learning from the first round, we secured an additional £100K to support smaller organisations who had been unsuccessful to bid in the next round.
In November 2012, we published our research report on the Mapping of Older People’s Services in Glasgow. This report highlighted the scale and scope of Third Sector activity in the city, much of which was unrecognized and unknown, with an estimated 1000+ organisations and groups working to support this agenda across Glasgow. The research helped to shape and inform the priorities in the Transformation Fund and the report is being used to inform the development of the Joint Commissioning Strategy as we move forward.
We continued to update and capture new data on the broad range of Third Sector organisations in the city, through our mainstream Infobase / Engage data sets which contain information on over 1500 organisations and groups.
Together, these data sets provide crucial, easily accessible, extensive, accurate and up to date information about the Third Sector in Glasgow and the contribution the Third Sector makes to the city. This material is made freely available by GCVS, through reports and aggregated figures, to voluntary and community sector staff, volunteers, statutory agencies and the wider Glasgow community.
In support of our co-ordination and advocacy role, we continued to provide briefings and impact analyses to MSPs, Councillors, policy staff, researchers, consultants and academics, to reflect the sector’s positive contribution.
GCVS Social Media
We have increasingly embraced the use of Social Media, via GCVS Twitter and Facebook accounts.
During 2012-13, these tools continued to extend our communications reach and enabled us to engage with other Third Sector organisations as well as individuals. Our audience continued to grow steadily over the period and we reached over 1000 Twitter followers and over 200 Facebook contacts.
Reshaping Care for Older People
All articles on www.gcvs.org.uk are shared via social media channels and we display GCVS Twitter feeds on our news and events pages.
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Annual Report 2012/ 13
Policy and influence
In 2012-13 we continued to target our Connect resources to help strengthen the sector’s voice and make the views, concerns and ideas of our members heard by politicians and policy makers on a wide range of important subjects. We monitored policy developments at local, city and national level, highlighting areas of interest and impact to members through our briefings, newsletters and members meetings.
In August 2012, we held a consultation event on the Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill. Discussions from this event combined with our online survey helped shape our members response to the Scottish Government. In November, we held a packed event on Welfare Reform, which informed our members about the impact the policy would have on the city. From this, we went on to establish a Third Sector Welfare Reform Group early in 2013, with key Third Sector organisations from across the city, which aims to share information, research the ongoing impact and campaign against Welfare Reform and its devastating effect on many of Glasgow’s poorest citizens. We also joined the GAIN network.
And in January 2013, we ran another busy event in partnership with Samaritans Scotland, on Men and Suicide, which brought our members and networks together to consider the findings of research by Samaritans, highlighting the key factors in determining men’s risk of suicide and of particular interest to front line workers in the Third Sector working with men who could be at risk. In addition to the CER Bill, we produced briefings for the sector on key areas of proposed legislation including the Rights of Children and Young people, the Integration of Adult Health and Social Care, the Scottish Government’s reform Programme and the Early Years and Reducing Offending Change Funds. We also continued to support the work of the Third Sector Forum by informing our members on developments in community planning, including the new areas and structures and the development of the SOA. And we have continued to campaign on behalf of members on Concessionary Rents through our work with the Third Sector Forum.
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Connect
Glasgow Third Sector Interface activity
The establishment and further development of a strong, effective, inclusive Glasgow Third Sector Interface (TSI) was a major organizational objective supported through both our Thrive and Connect activity, pursued by all our staff and our Board throughout 2012-13.
During 2012/13 we fully implemented our TSI Agreement and delivered a two year Business Plan jointly with the Volunteer Glasgow, (VG) and Community Enterprise in Scotland, (CEiS). Altogether we successfully carried out the three support functions of an Interface – voluntary and community sector support, social enterprise support and volunteering development.
During 2012/13, GCVS supported the further development of the fourth TSI function - positive engagement of the Third Sector with Community Planning – by contributing to the Third Sector Forum (TSF) through which consultation took place with the wider Third Sector in Glasgow – i.e. all Third Sector organisations.
GCVS helped to recruit and appoint a full time Coordinator for the TSF and its Executive Committee (TSEC) and we hosted this post on behalf of the Third Sector Interface.
Our website
www.gcvs.org.uk continues to be an important and reliable source of information for our members and the wider sector. During 2012-13, our content was updated daily to reflect news about Glasgow’s Third Sector, GCVS services, events, consultations, policy publications and resources. With 1700 registered users of the site, our web traffic continued to grow steadily throughout the year and the website received over 54,000 visits, 40% of which were return visits.
During 2012/13, traffic to the website increased by 30% as compared with the previous year, with over 4500 monthly visitors to the website. This increase was largely attributable to our growing use of Social Media and an 28% increase in volume of referral traffic.
Annual Report 2012/ 13
Thrive
Delivering Our Thrive Agenda
Thrive reflects the services we deliver to support strong thriving Third Sector organisations in Glasgow.
We do this through a range of organisational and workforce development services many of which we deliver in partnership with other third sector organisations or other support agencies. We also offer a number of technical and back office services.
We deliver training, learning, employer’s advice and capacity building services as well as those which provide more technical support, such as our payroll service. We try, as much as possible, to build on the strengths of the third sector, as well as develop programmes that help meet the ever changing needs of organisations as they seek to navigate the challenges of the dynamic environments they work in.
Our services seek also to support our Connect agenda so we seek to run learning events which encourage understanding of policy and planning in the city and which support consultation and engagement in decision making.
Our Albany Learning and Conference Centre has gone from strength to strength and significantly moved towards our vision for it as a hub for third sector learning and development. Last year we achieved an ambition to open up the Albany in the evenings and weekends to the community in the Woodlands area where it is situated and as a result we succeeded in attracting 2600 visitors in a six-month period.
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Albany Centre audiences
I cannot believe the amount of work and direction you are willing to put into this small charitable cause. Imagine one day - with your help - we may be a charity in the full legal sense. And then we can really help!
GCVS Capacity Building Service user
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AnnualReport 2012/ 13
Employers Advice Service
The Employers’ Advice Service has had a busy year assisting employers and managers with the HR challenges and day to day issues that they face. First, the figures. We:
. dealt with around 700 requests for help or advice . delivered 24 days of scheduled and bespoke . . .
training, on topics including Employment Law updates, Supporting and Supervising Staff and Employer Responsibilities welcomed 18 new subscribers to the service ran 9 workshops on Workplace Pensions Reform provided hands-on consultancy to 45 organisations
Consultancy work has included restructures, redundancy procedures, employment contract variations, dismissals, absence management, reviews of policy manuals, staff handbooks and employment contracts, Health and Safety audits, risk assessments and dealing with conflict. Pension Workshops We ran a series of Workplace Pensions Reform workshops devised to raise awareness of the major changes in pensions provision that will eventually affect all sizes of employer, and help the sector to get prepared well in advance.
We were also commissioned by Glasgow City Council to run three sessions for grant recipients, all of which got good feedback on their usefulness. In addition, we ran HR guidance sessions for GCVS members and for our sister organisations in Fife and East Renfrewshire.
At the start of the year we said goodbye and good luck to Jacqui Tough, who moved on to be a trainer for St Andrews Ambulance. Her expertise in HR and Health and Safety, as well as her general good cheer have been greatly missed.
Linden, our Employers Advice Service Manager joined a working group of the Third Sector Forum which aims to assess the impact that membership of Strathclyde Pension Fund is having on the sector, and explore ways of addressing this. The work continues.
Employer’s Question Time Our fifth annual Employers’ Question Time in February proved as popular as ever. Our audience fired a full range of challenging HR and employment law questions at our willing and able panel members - Tony McGrade of McGrade and Co and Karen Harvie of ACH Shoosmiths.
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Thrive
The GCVS SVQ Centre
In 2012/2013 we were forced to restructure our SVQ Centre due to continuing pressure to make ends-meet financially.
The remodelling saw the loss of two internal SVQ Assessors and a move to an Associate Consultant Assessor Model. We are currently working with 19 external Assessor/Verifiers.
While there have been challenges in ensuring quality standards and continuing to meet the needs of our members, the new model is now well established and working for us and our customers.
We continue to grow in the range of awards we are offering. New developments this year has been gaining approval to offer PDA Promoting Excellence in Dementia, which was as a result of the Scottish Government drive to ensure workers were skilled in providing care to service users with a diagnosis of Dementia. The SVQ Centre also gained approval to offer Youth Work Level 2 and 3. The SVQ Centre has gained in the diversity of its assessors who come from many different backgrounds, from Investigators at the Prosecutor Fiscals office to College lecturers with many years’ experience in Social Care. Other successes this year include: • we secured sole provider status to GHA to deliver 30 Assessor awards • we provided consultancy Internal Verification to GHA in relation to the CIH award • we secured a tender with an NHS recovery project to deliver 9 SVQ’s to individuals in recovery.
We also delivered: • 30 MA places for the 20 years and over category in Customer Service, Business Administration, Health and Social Care. • 86 fee paying candidates completed an SVQ in a range of subjects . SVQ Health and Social Care level 2, 3 & 4 . SVQ Health and Social Care level 3 & 4 . SVQ Advice and Guidance level 3 & 4 . SVQ Administration Level 2, 3 & 4 . SVQ Customer Care Level 3S . SVQ Learning and Development Level 3 & 4 . SVQ Management Level 3 & 4 . Assessor/Verifier awards
Key developments next year will be delivering Modern Apprenticeships in Youthwork and commencing delivery of the PDA Dementia Skilled Practice.
Annual Report 2012/ 13
Thrive
Glasgow’s Learning
GCVS participates in Glasgow Strategic Learning partnership and two of its sub group Adult Learning and Community capacity Building. Specifically, we support Adult Literacy work in the City and have a significant role in supporting Community Learning and Development (CLD) through networking practitioners and CLD training.
The Adult Literacy & Numeracy (ALN) Support Service Team experienced changes in 2012, welcoming Sallie Condy as the new coordinator. We currently support 25 specialist literacies projects in the Third and College Sectors.
• The service conducted 56 individual support visits and acted as an information portal for ALN providers.
• We developed our on-line presence via our own webpage, our GCVS ALN Facebook page and contributions to Glasgow’s Learning website. • Six of our popular Providers’ Network meetings and Tutors’ Swap Shops were held, giving literacies staff the opportunity to share good practice and keep informed of local, national and international literacies matters. 56 literacies staff participated. • We have held 3 specific staff development events, i.e. Equality Act 2010, Understanding Glasgow and How to Take Advantage of the Untapped Pool of Volunteer Tutors.
• In response to requests, we also held two successful joint learner events - one to complete applications for volunteering at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and one in preparation for the annual Aye Write event. For the latter, 29 learners and tutors attended, along with staff from Glasgow Museum Service who brought along reminiscence kits. GCVS ALN Support Staff respond to the needs of providers and seek to work collaboratively, as themes emerge. Specifically:
• Literacies work within reducing offending and the criminal justice system was a key focus. We led, jointly with Glasgow Life, on a Scottish Government funded project (£43,000 from the Reducing Reoffending Change Fund) to provide mentoring support to those learners previously involved with the criminal justice system. • We also have a fledgling Arts, Culture and Literacies grouping of providers who seek to both incorporate arts methods into their literacies classrooms and to engage their learners in arts & culture in the city. We have facilitated discussions and hosted a number of pilots, e.g. a taster session at the Citizens Theatre and a singing and literacies event in Castlemilk, attended by 50 people.
Glasgow CLD Network
2012 saw the inception of the Glasgow CLD Network which is managed by GCVS. This has been made possible by funding from CLD Upskilling monies from Education Scotland. Throughout this year the Network has grown in strength and size and now there are over 100 people on the Network mailing list covering all sectors of the CLD field.
Learners and staff discussing history kits Arts, Culture & Literacies thematic group
As well as hosting a series of networking events, members of the Network have contributed to several consultations including one on the implementation of CLD Strategic Guidance for Community Planning Partnerships and the Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill consultation from the Scottish Government.
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AnnualReport 2012/ 13
Capacity Building support
Building the capacity of new and small organisations continues to be a priority for GCVS. We have been grateful for funding support from Glasgow City Council which has helped us provide a range of free services.
Early Start up support We worked with over 220 new and small organisations on the following issues: • Becoming a charity (SCIO) • Funding support • Governance support • Board recruitment support • Charity law and charity accounting and reporting to OSCR • Reviewing and renewing constitutions Bespoke support Through GCC referrals we have provided a range of Capacity Building Bespoke Support services such as: • Governance • Diversifying Funding • Employers Advice • Strategic and operational planning
Learning days Throughout this year several capacity building events have been made available for organisations to access free of charge. Over 130 people attended sessions on the following topics: • Pension reform briefing • Funding • Governance • Board recruitment and induction • Monitoring and evaluation
Feedback was very positive, with many attendees finding the tools, expertise and knowledge highly useful and informative.
First Funding Stop Glasgow funding portal GCVS continues to manage the First Funding Portal which is part funded through Glasgow City Council. The site continued to receive a very high usage over the year. The site has around 1000 registered users to date, and the administrators, IDOX, report that Glasgow has one of the highest traffic volumes in Scotland, with only two English sites having a higher volume of traffic. There were average of 50 new registrations per month, and 2432 funding searches were carried out, with over 1600 of those being attributable to charities and over 400 from community groups.
First Tuesday funding workshops Last year we introduced First Tuesday funding workshops once per month. These continue to be y popular, with an average of 13 groups attending per month.
Over this summer, we were delighted to have Mhairi Owens from Big Lottery attending the sessions, where she has hosted a funding surgery on Lottery programmes as part of the session.
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Thrive
GCVS Payroll service
At the end of March 2013 GCVS maintained a Payroll service for 257 separate projects. We lost 22 projects over the year, 16 of these because they lost their funding, but this loss was almost matched by 19 new clients coming on board - several of whom we were happy to welcome thanks to recommendations by existing clients. We also received ten unsolicited and first-rate testimonials from projects who would recommend us those thinking about using a payroll service. As systems become more and more complex, our friendly, straightforward and supportive service is becoming more and more appreciated by our hard pressed clients. As the financial year ended, we had a busy time preparing ourselves and our clients for the introduction of RTI by the Inland Revenue - which thankfully has gone smoothly!
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You are a good contact to have, and I feel safe in the knowledge that everything we need will be taken care of.
GCVS service user
AnnualReport 2012/ 13
The Albany
Learning and Conference Centre
The Albany Learning and Conference Centre entered its fourth year of operation in good health, and we have gone from strength to strength as a flagship hub for Glasgow’s Third Sector and also as a comfortable, low-cost and friendly events and conference venue. In June 2012, thanks to funding secured through the Scottish Government Enterprise Growth Fund, we closed the Albany Centre for six weeks in order to undertake a significant refurbishment. We were able to create a full cooking kitchen, upgrade the Albany lift and redecorate and refurnish the training and meeting rooms. Despite the six-week closure, the Albany Centre continued to prosper and grow, and external room hires beat targets for the third year running.
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Thrive
I have used the Albany on quite a few occasions. It is a fabulous venue!
Hirer of the Albany Centre
GCVS day courses at the Albany Centre
One of the Albany's key functions is as a centre for our training and learning events, and our short course training programme grew significantly through the year. During 2012/13, we hosted 154 one-day training courses, up from 125 the previous year. Of these, one important new initiative was our suite of six New Media courses, which have proven immensely popular with our membership and beyond.
We also established a significant partnership with Indicia training, leaders in the field of IT training. They now provide around a dozen different IT courses for us, at significantly reduced cost to comparable providers, and they have also contracted to provide a one-year phone troubleshooting service for all attendees at our IT courses. Rehearsing a presentation
Learning Events at the Albany Centre
Since the Albany Centre opened in 2008, we have hosted an impressive series of learning events, each intended to skill-up or simply inform our Third Sector audience on topics as diverse as equalities issues to welfare reform or employment pension legislation. In 2012/13 we hosted thirty-two such events, up by ten on the previous year. Highlights included;
. . . .
A consultation event on the Community Empowerment Renewal Bill
Two Health & the City events - two separate consultation events on future health provision in Glasgow.
Two separate runs of Social Media for Social Good, our innovative day of expert talks and workshops
A ground-breaking event, Men and Suicide, co-hosted with Samaritans, and an event on reducing
reoffending, co-hosted with Glasgow Criminal Justice Authority.
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AnnualReport 2012/ 13
Community Outreach at the Albany Centre
Thanks to the funding we secured from the Scottish Government Enterprise Growth Fund, we were able to fulfil a long-term ambition and open up the Albany Centre for the local community at evenings and weekends for community use. We began the programme in June 2012, informed by extensive research and consultation with local groups and we delivered a variety of services and activities catering to the needs of the community, including:
. a community cookery club for families . a range of Trade School Glasgow classes focusing on community-building and social care.
. workshops from Universal Comedy for people with mental and
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Thrive
An excellent and much needed resource for the local area
GCVS Outreach participant
physical health problems.
. a Citizens Advice outreach clinic . a pilot programme of activities for young people aged 15 – 24.
We also developed strong relationships with local community organisations and our core GCVS membership through our community programme. Those delivering their outreach activities at the Albany Centre included:
. . . . . . .
Maryhill Citizens Advice Bureau Social Care Ideas Factory Wise Women Universal Comedy Woodlands Community Garden COPE British Red Cross
These relationships have been positive for all involved – with Third Sector organisations being provided with a venue to host their activities for specific audience groups. In total, from June 2012 to March 2013 we ran 231 outreach events, with over 2600 people taking part.
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A GCVS learning event
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IT training at the Albany Centre
This is a very good initiative for building community cohesion and links, as well as teaching new skills.
GCVS Outreach participant
AnnualReport 2012/ 13 Human Resources
Our overall staff numbers have remained relatively stable over the past three years, ranging from 46 to 56, including work placements. In our drive to keep costs down and relieve pressure and reduce workloads, we are employing more part-time workers, and using more work and training placements and volunteers, as like many other third sector organisations we try to do the same level – or an even greater - level of work, with less, and less permanent, staffing resources.
Human Resources, IiP, Finances
GCVS Income and Expenditure Accounts 2012/13 Income
GRANT GENERATED OTHER
TOTAL INCOME
Generated income 34%
Investors in People
We went through an IiP review in 2012 and got a very positive and favourable report, citing real strengths in key areas.
. clarity of vision, purpose and strategy
equality and diversity firmly embedded within organisation and its processes
. strong, inspirational leadership by the
£1,682,732 £879,570 £29,923
£2,592,225
Other income 1%
Expenditure
STAFF COSTS PROPERTY COSTS OTHER COSTS TOTAL COSTS
Grant income 65%
£1,200,473 £140,329 £1,289,704
£ 2,630,506
Other Costs 49%
Senior Management Team, demonstrating an open, honest and trusting management style
. staff members with strong loyalty to the
organisation and to the membership, very commercially aware, and very committed to GCVS’ future success
. multi-skilled staff members, with a culture of continuous learning and development teamwork and co-operation demonstrated at all levels in the organisation effective one-to-one supervision processes in place, where feedback is given to members of staff on a regular basis
We received IiP recognition at the end of April 2012 for another 3 years, expiring in 2015.
Property Costs 5%
Staff costs 46%
The GCVS Accounts for the year ended 31st March 2013 have been audited, have received an unqualified audit opinion and are available in full from GCVS on request.
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Employers’ Advice Service
Very few small-to-medium sized organisations can afford to employ a personnel specialist, and that’s what this service offers you.
Help when you need itD and before!
Helping employers to be good employers
Talk to us today to find out how we can help you
Bespoke training from the experts
Linden Stables
Employers’ Advice Service Manager Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector 11 Queens Crescent, Glasgow G4 9AS
linden.stables@gcvs.org.uk Tel: 0141 354 6515
We’re here to help!
albany The
Learning and Conference Centre
GCVS delivers over 200 day courses at the Albany Learning and Conference Centre every year. But did you know that we can also tailor training content so that it fits precisely with your own needs?
We work with a wide range of trainers and consultants, all of them proven experts in their fields, and we are always happy to discuss how best we can deliver bespoke training that suits you. We can provide training rooms at the Albany Centre or, if it suits you better, we can deliver training at your own premises.
We will be delighted to tailor our training to your own needs.
If you are interested in bespoke training, or would just like further advice on the subject, please contact our training team on
0141 332 2444 Or email us at : training@gcvs.org.uk
Ask us about our Training Needs Analysis service when you contact us. 14
The Albany Centre is available for your own conferences and events Situated in the leafy and quiet Woodlands area of Glasgow, just five minutes from the city centre, the Albany Learning and Conference Centre is a fully equipped venue for events, training and conferences.
Whatever your event, and regardless of whether it is for eight people or eighty, the Albany Centre has light, airy and welcoming spaces to suit your needs Our rooms can be arranged to meet your needs, and our professional, welcoming staff will be available both before your event and on the day to make sure that everything goes perfectly!
Glasgow’s welcoming, comfortable and fully accessible venue
Event and conference spaces for up to eighty people Extremely competitive pricing on room hires and catering Quiet rooms, with no city-centre traffic noise On-site catering served in the award-winning Albany cafe Naturally-lit and welcoming rooms, with flexible set-up An IT suite for your bespoke training Just minutes from Glasgow’s Charing Cross and the M8 motorway
To find out more
Ask us about current promotions, or discounts for block-bookings and new customers.
Call: 0141 332 2444 Email: albanyinfo@gcvs.org.uk Visit: www.gcvs.org.uk/albany
Our staff 2012 /13
Andy Heede Angela Raeburn Bridgid Corr Charlene Tannock David Cowan Dominic McGonigle Donna Laird Erica Taylor Farah Portela Fiona Mowat Gillian McCamley Helen Macneil Helen Scammell Iona Macaulay Isabel Mcarthur Isobel Winning
James Rodger Jamie Farquharson Joe Rose John Robertson Joseph Gallagher Joy Andrew June MacLeod Karen Armstrong Kate Henderson Lauren Douglas Linden Stables Liz Mccall Liz McEntee Lorien Ewing Magloire Sanou Marie Murray
Matthew Dawson Maureen McMillan Melissa Duffy Natalie Gray Nina Honeyman Patricia Scott Philip Horsfield Pietro Sabatini Roberta Downes Ruth Farquharson Sallie Condy Samira Adris Stephen Downey Toni Watson
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Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector
Annual Report 2012 / 13