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celebrate the European Year of Volunteering 2011. Policy successes included work with Volunteering England to gain commitment from DWP that Work Programme providers should pay for VCS services that help people into work. Discussions were also initiated with trade unions to develop a regional understanding of the uses of volunteering in local public service reforms.
North West Equality and Diversity Group This network continued to provide a space to communicate and highlight the changes happening in the equality framework, build links with local authority equalities leads, highlight key equalities issues, promote good practice and build good relationships with organisations such as the General
Medical Council, the British Council and the EHRC. There are now over 300 individuals involved in the work of this network and regular network meetings have helped to maintain conversations between regional and subregional VCS equalities groups. Representatives from the network have attended the English Regional Equalities Network for Human Rights and built links with other national partners such as the Equality and Diversity Forum, Government Equalities Office, and the British Institute for Human Rights to increase the influence of the North West. The network partnered a wellattended North West Poverty and Human Rights Roadshow.
Environment Support for the North West Environment Link network remained healthy and the number of groups involved now exceeds 120. The Green Bullet ebulletin has been an important tool in growing the networks links to community groups by providing opportunities to respond on consultations and a space for groups to promote their work and events. The network lobbied on a number of significant environmental and social issues including a large campaign to influence the National Planning Policy Framework. It also provided information on the new local nature partnerships and supported VCS engagement in the development of bids. They built a strong relationship with the Environment Agency and engaged with the emerging local enterprise partnerships’ growth agendas.