Norfolk County Council budget consultation: the sector’s response
Voluntary Norfolk’s Annual Review is now available
Norfolk County Council recently identified potential savings of £140 million and, via its Putting People First consultation, which closed on 12 December, asked the people of Norfolk (including representatives from voluntary organisations) what the impact of those cuts were likely to be should they be implemented.
Our Annual Review 2012-2013 provides details about the many services Voluntary Norfolk provides and the diverse projects it manages but, more than that, it shows how our commitment to supporting volunteers and voluntary organisations makes a real difference to people in Norfolk: a difference to the delegates who attend our training courses; to the voluntary groups we assist when they are making funding applications or looking for volunteers; to the volunteers themselves, who we recruit, train and deploy.
Voluntary Norfolk encouraged the county’s voluntary and community groups to respond in several ways: to send in individual responses to the Council; to write to Voluntary Norfolk to express their views or to attend one of the three consultation meetings that we held in Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Dereham. Voluntary Norfolk also collected views as part of its day-to-day contact with groups on the front line. We promised to collate the key points that we heard in response to the consultation and to submit them to the Council. This has now been done and you can find our response to the Putting People First consultation on our website.
And, of course, our commitment makes a difference to the people our volunteers assist, whether in hospital wards or by visiting them in their homes, staving off falls, preventing loneliness and addressing the problems that arise from isolation. That is why people like Sheila, Edward and Maggie, whose stories are contained in the Annual Review, make the case for what we do far more eloquently than bare project summaries and cold statistics ever could. Voluntary Norfolk members should have received the Annual Review by post, but if you would like an additional copy, do contact us.
Norwich City Council budget consultation Norwich City Council is preparing its budget for 2014-15 and is facing a number of challenges and choices. This is your chance to tell the council what you think about these important issues. In order to make sure your responses are kept confidential and the reporting of results is fair, the council has asked BMG Research, an independent market research agency, to carry out the survey on its behalf. This public consultation started on 21 October 2013 and will end on 6 January 2014. Councillors will then use this information to help them make decisions about the budget and the council tax reduction scheme in the new year.