It has been confirmed that from 1st April 2017 Harrogate & Ripon Centres for Voluntary Service (HARCVS) will no longer receive funding from North Yorkshire County Council and the NHS North Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Groups to carry out their role as the local support and development charity for the Harrogate District, working with voluntary and community sector organisations and volunteers.
HARCVS has provided support for voluntary organisations and volunteers across the Harrogate District for over 50 years and has been fortunate to receive grant aid from Harrogate Borough Council, North Yorkshire County Council and the NHS for much of their history, which is supplemented by local fundraising and partnerships.
In 2016 a new competitive process for this funding was introduced by NYCC and the North Yorkshire NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups for their element of the funding, with the requirement for a single provider for the whole county. HARCVS therefore worked closely together with the six other CVS partners across the Districts of North Yorkshire to put forward a collaborative bid to continue to provide these services in partnership (the North Yorkshire Alliance). The result was announced in January 2017 and the three year £1.4 million contract has been awarded to a new provider, Rural Action Yorkshire, commencing 1st April 2017.
Chair of Harrogate and Ripon CVS Board of Trustees, Jackie Snape said:
“HARCVS was proud to be part of the North Yorkshire Alliance partnership which worked extremely hard to put forward an ambitious, authentic and achievable proposal, based on our substantial past experience of providing support to charities and volunteers across the county. Our seven independent charities are member led organisations based in our communities and it is a bitter disappointment to us that our bid was not selected. The impact of the loss of this significant amount of funding (£64,836) cannot be over-estimated and our board of trustees is now carrying out detailed work to review our position and decide on the future role of our charity.
Whilst we accept the decision of the commissioners we are waiting to find out more about the new service model and are very concerned to ensure that our local voluntary organisations, volunteers and partners will continue to receive the same high level of support and collaboration that they have received from HARCVS. The reputation and strength of our organisation has been developed over many years and is not something we wish to see diminished because of a decision made in Northallerton for the whole of North Yorkshire. We will now seek to ensure the best possible outcome for our customers, staff and volunteers. We will work with the newly appointed provider to ensure as smooth a transition as possible”.
North Yorkshire Alliance partnership members:
Coast & Vale Community Action
Craven Community & Voluntary Services
Craven Volunteer Centre
Hambleton Community Action
Harrogate & Ripon Centres for Voluntary Service
Selby District Association of Voluntary Service
Richmondshire Community & Voluntary Action
Contact details for further information:
Jackie Snape, Chair of Trustees, Harrogate & Ripon CVS via email
