Tower Hamlets is looking at how we can continue to sustain the VCS and support its recovery as we move into a new phase in the crisis and beyond. I am sure we are not alone and I am therefore doing a round robin to see whether there are ideas and good practice we might all share. I am very happy to collate and circulate responses to everyone.
The particular areas we are looking at are,
- Flexibility around funding agreements/contracts with VCS providers;
- Rent holidays/deferred payments for VCS organisations in council premises;
- Emergency funding provision;
- Retaining volunteers who have responded to C19 appeals;
- Support for non-council funded VCS organisations, and
- Learning from new ways of working that have been developed during the crisis.
I am working to a tight deadline of the end of next week. I will try to circulate the summary of responses early the following week. If you are not able to respond within that time frame, I am happy to collate further responses and send out an updated version later on as well.
As a starter for ten, for those of you still thinking about support for organisations leasing premises from you, this is the LBTH initial response, http://democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/documents/s166363/IMD%20Community%20Organisations%20Rent%20Relief%20revised%20cleared%20report.pdf. We are now looking at a month by month extension with slightly tighter criteria around financial need.
Many thanks in advance.
Best wishes
David