We were joined by Venice from SC and Toby from RM teams who updated us on what is happening at the moment.

Toby told us they are 5 months into the new model for offering support – keen to hear feedback from us on how it works – one RM per LCA on a regional basis – working quite well for the team atm – how is it going for us? They are Creating a space to be a sounding board, a connector and an advocate.

Re the sounding board is for anything that will be helpful to us individually with understanding of CA perspective- a safe space, confidential, to think things through or offload – whatever we need.

Re advocate role – the RM function is to make sure that feedback is shared widely through the network . Change with Callum moving to his new interim role – Dawn is now holding that post and the team is working on how to make sure that all messages and ideas are shared widely.

Re connector role – workplace covers some of this and peer group some other elements – again happy for feedback on how it works. One of the newer elements is trustee engagement –

We then discussed what the RM team offer to local Trustees. Session at conference was a chance to explore scenarios – with some good responses from the trustees involved. We thought about the working relationships between CEOs and TBs and noted that this can be a key trigger for undue stress for CEOs – Toby confirmed that this is being considered – more work to do… 80 Trustees at conference out of about 2000 people so a challenge to get a good level of engagement across the network.

We talked about partnerships and a sense that some peopoe at conference were not as keen as others. The majority view is that partnerships are vital. They will be a big part of the way forward for us and the Strat change team are working on ways to gather and share good examples and to offer an overview and details of how partnership might work. The team are interested in the detail of how CA can support us in this which is seen as a big growth area.

We noted that it would be good to have a simple MOU about how we might work together with external paretners (what we are going to do and how we are going to behave). Also data sharing can be a challenge – lengthy documents difficult for other partners to engage if they are small agencies. A particular issue for social prescribing type activity. Venice is looking for a way to bring materials together – examples of good practice already being used by us. The data team may be able to help on this.

We also discussed LCA partnership models about what has worked well when and where. We noted that we should be working out options and pros and cons of each of them where there are external challenges which might lead to failure of LCAs – what can we do together and ahead of time on what structures might help in times of cuts to core funding. It is important to do this before a crisis – to increase the chances of survival/sustainability..

We then discussed the challenges of clashes between CEO and TBs – it is understood that often issues arise from working relationships between CEO and Chair and these can easily become the cause of a failure of a local CA. It was felt that mediation and conciliation may have a role to address these challenges. Is there a possibility of division in the RMs team for those who would support/deal with TBs and others who would work with CEOs. Peer support may have a role to play here. A possible option is for us to become members of ACEVO ( Association of Chief Executives of voluntary Organisation) which has a scheme to support CEOs in crisis -someone to be our champion and to represent and support us in challenging situations. this may not be open to all of us due to finances. It was considered that this is a wider issue than for us in CA – it is within the wider VCS so NCVO may have a role to play as well as ACEVO.

Next steps will be to check if we can put in place a system to address challenges for CEOs in local working so that there is good support for any of us in this situation.

We also chatted about exit interviews with CA staff so that a picture is there for what triggered a departure for anyone who felt that would be useful. This would help to identify trends and address any concerns that could be resolved.