Increasingly the Borough of Poole and its statutory partners work in partnership with the Poole voluntary and community sector, including the many faith groups in the Town.

Statutory agencies provide much needed funding and other forms of support. In return voluntary and community groups provide a variety of essential services, as well as enabling local people to become involved in tackling issues they see as important.

This close working can produce a number of challenges, and to help address them, Compacts (written documents) have been developed across the UK, detailing how best the two sectors can work in partnership.

In Poole, we have a Compact - the 'Working Together Agreement' as well as a concise summary - the 'Poole Charter' to help people. We also recognise that it is not enough to produce a number of documents and as a result hope that new partnerships will be made, and new services developed. Over the next year Poole CVS aims to do more work with colleagues in both sectors to improve partnership work, specifically focussing on:-

·        how we can improve the way in which services are funded and commissioned from the voluntary and community sector;

·        how the voluntary and community sector is involved in the planning of services, and how we can make this process more effective for everyone;

·        highlighting the good partnership work which already exists in Poole and how we can learn from it.

I am confident that because of the skills and commitment in both sectors, our partnership work will become stronger over the coming years.

Christopher Beale

Director, Poole Council for Voluntary Service

Poole Advice Centre

54 Lagland Street

Poole

Dorset

BH15 1QG

Tel: 01202 682046

Fax: 01202 667187

E-mail: director@poolecvs.co.uk

See also: FAQ's       Useful Links      Working Together Document    Poole Charter