4Sx Information

It is a membership organisation that brings together voluntary sector partners in Essex in a new vehicle to bid and deliver contracts. The changes currently happening across the public sector financially and organisationally are indirectly having an effect across the Voluntary and Community Sector. With the cutting of statutory bodies' budgets and a redefining of traditional relationships between the VCS and government, the Essex VCS CEO Forum believes that the countywide VCS must present a unified front to respond to these changes. A consortium designed to facilitate funding applications to statutory bodies will provide fresh possibilities for charities and social enterprises in Essex and will work to create new and innovative ways of delivering services. The newly constituted Board of Directors is made up of steering group members. It was established by the Essex VCS CEO Forum and given a mandate to drive forward the consortium initiative. The Board members are all not-for-profit agencies working to tackle disadvantage and improve health and quality of life. Though the partner agencies share a lot in common, they are all separate, independent agencies with their own management and accountability structures and with their own unique ways of working. This difference and independence will be protected and strengthened under the consortium arrangement. The Essex VCS Consortium will embrace organisations across a wide spectrum of service sectors, such as health and wellbeing, children and young people's services, learning and skills, social welfare advice, arts and culture etc. In this way the consortium will be expressly geared towards providing services that map to the 'whole person' agenda. This would involve mobilising the full range and breadth of the consortium membership to provide seamless, joined up services, so that an individual can benefit from access to a range of services appropriate to her/his needs. The consortium will work towards building the capacity of member organisations through opening up ...