[WiLT] Hubs to lose commissioning powers

Wed Nov 29 15:29:44 GMT 2006

Hubs to lose commissioning powers

The ChangeUp hubs are to lose their commissioning powers from Spring
next year but have been thrown a lifeline with the announcement that
Capacitybuilders will continue to fund them until March 2008.

At its meeting last Wednesday, the Capacitybuilders board adopted a
number of recommendations from chief executive Simon Hebditch as to
the most effective model for boosting the efficacy of the sector.

The biggest change to the existing hubs set-up is that from next
Spring, Capacitybuilders will take over the role of commissioner,
meaning that it will buy national capacity-building services from the
public, voluntary and private sectors using government money. Instead
of hubs, these services will be called national support services.

This removes commissioning powers from the hubs' accountable bodies,
which in four cases out of six is the NCVO. Much of the criticism
levelled at the hubs has been based on the fact that the NCVO both
commissions and delivers many of the hub services, meaning it has
effectively been awarding money to itself.

>From January to March next year, Capacitybuilders will consult with
the sector as to which programmes should be delivered by the national
support services from 2008 to 2011. These areas may be the same as
existing hub programmes - governance, finance, ICT and so on - or they
may be reconfigured and possibly new ones added.

The results of this consultation will form the basis of tender briefs
in a competitive tendering process for organisations that wish to take
the lead in delivering each of the programmes. These organisations,
which may be commercial and public sector bodies as well as charities,
social enterprises and community interest companies, will bid to
become 'main contractors' rather than 'accountable bodies' as they are
currently known. They may be single organisations or partnerships.

The tendering competition will take place from May to July 2007 and
preferred bidders will be notified by September. They will then be
expected to hammer out precise business plans to take them through to
2011, and, if they are different organisations to the existing
accountable bodies, they will have to work out a handover plan with
the incumbent.

Hebditch said he anticipated much more competition in the race to run
the national support services than there was when the hubs were first
proposed three years ago. He also expected many of the main
contractors to be new.

The hubs will be permitted to continue delivering their programmes
until March 2008, but after their current contracts expire in May
2007, they will have to negotiate new ones with Capacitybuilders that
will feature new budgets and incorporate some new requirements. These
include using common accounting and evaluation systems across all
hubs, and detailing how they might participate in a transition to any
new main contractors that emerge from the tender process.

Hebditch said Capacitybuilders had "got its own way" by taking a
greater strategic lead right across the ChangeUp programme, and taking
on the direct commissioning role. He also confirmed he had come under
pressure from the hubs to extend their lifespan but insisted this
lobbying played no part in his decision to leave them in place for an
extra year: "I simply sat down and worked out everything we needed to
do and came to the view that we would need next year to do it all
properly."

Mixed reactions

NCVO deputy chief executive Ben Kernighan said: "We are very pleased
that Capacitybuilders will continue to fund the hubs to March 2008. We
look forward to working closely with Capacitybuilders as they develop
a strategy for the new spending period. We will be consulting our
members and the wider sector on the draft road map to ensure this
strategy continues to meet the sector's needs."

John Tate, chair of Citra, the sector ICT coalition that was
cold-shouldered by the ICT hub from the outset, said he welcomed the
"fresh thinking" shown by Capacitybuilders. "Out of the debacle of the
last two or three years, the clear message to Capacitybuilders and the
government must be that there is a strong need for better
collaboration in the sector and the funding must go to the
organisations that share that objective.

"The NCVO has made a complete hash of its efforts in this area and
funding for future collaboration should go through new avenues. If the
NCVO has any ongoing role in delivering services in the future then it
must listen to the grassroots and respond in a different way."

In response, Hebditch said that the NCVO "has had to accept that it
would lose its commissioning powers, that the whole thing would be
opened up and tendered for again, and that there will be major changes
in the way support services are going to be offered".

Other reactions from the sector were broadly supportive of
Capacitybuilders' new path. The umbrella groups that wrote to
Capacitybuilders last month to express their support for a dilution of
the hubs' role, welcomed the proposals, though Ben Hughes, chief
executive of Bassac, admitted to some concern as to the degree to
which Capacitybuilders would seek to control the agenda. "It's a fine
line - we accept that the whole of the Capacitybuilders fund needs
strategic leadership, but this must be informed by, and done in
conjunction with, the sector. The devil, as always, will be in the
detail."

Hughes added he was pleased the hubs had been given more time. "The
hubs had quite ludicrous timeframes to deliver their outcomes," he
said. "A lot of money has been invested in them so it would have been
crazy and wasteful to just withdraw all their funding now."

Acevo chief executive Stephen Bubb said: "We strongly welcome
Capacitybuilders' announcements. Chief executives in the sector will
be delighted that common sense has prevailed, and a single body will
provide leadership and coordination through national commissioning.

"We intend to work closely with other key agencies to make sure we can
meet the sector's needs in the long-term."

  a.. Capacitybuilders will also seek sector views on a document
setting out its vision for transforming the voluntary sector by 2014.
Destination 2014, which will outline the priorities it will adopt for
meeting its strategic objectives, will be launched for consultation on
7 December.
Writtne by Tania Mason and published at
http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/charitynewsalert/issue8/hubs.asp