Charities Evaluation Services

The National Performance Programme is the Improving Support workstream for performance management. Led by Charities Evaluation Services, the programme partners are acevo, New Economics Foundation, New Philanthropy Capital and Voice4Change England. 

Welcome to our summer e-bulletin.  In this issue...

• Half price training

• News from the NAO, DSC and Charity Commission

• New publications from nef

• Free support from acevo

Half price training for you and a friend

With the recession has come an increase in demand for sector support services.  Be better equipped to support your groups through these challenging times by updating your knowledge on performance management practices and tools, and developing your facilitation skills - for half the price!

Refer a friend who is not on our mailing list and if they book you'll both get 50% off the price of a course this autumn.

Our courses will help you ensure the groups you support have robust plans, deliver quality services and are able to demonstrate their effectiveness to funders and other stakeholders.    

"Absolutely first rate. Really loved it... Totally spot on and great fun. Inclusive, modern approach."

Strategic planning course participant, Bristol

"Great balance of theory, practical examples, activities and exercises."

Introducing performance course participant, Leicester

For information on courses and to book your place, contact Peter Norgate on 020 7078 9394 or peter@ces-vol.org.uk, or visit our training pages.

Offer is valid on any open NPP course in October and November 2009.  Please quote the name of the person who referred you when booking.

Performance in the news

Proportionate monitoring 

Many of you have probably already seen the National Audit Office's June guidance for public bodies on better monitoring. 

The guidance is clear, concise, and covers a wide range of topics. There is much here to cheer the sector. NAO stresses the value of proportionate monitoring (i.e. only asking for what you need), the importance of allocating sufficient funds to cover monitoring costs, and letting organisations know how their monitoring returns are used with other evidence to report progress towards higher goals. 

NAO's guidance has the backing of the Office of the Third Sector, HM Treasury and the Commission for the Compact and, we hope, will lead to fewer monitoring headaches.

Transparency please      

Having read the NAO guidance, we were very happy to see Directory of Social Change's new report Critical Conditions, a call for greater transparency in grant making. DSC are asking funders to publish the terms and conditions of their support to prospective applicants, and let them know where there is room to negotiate. Laudable stuff and helping to avoid nasty surprises after the grant recipient has been chosen. Transparency would cover all terms and conditions, so giving people early note of the monitoring returns expected of them. 

We thought that Critical Conditions chimed with this note from the NAO guidance:

"Be clear about your monitoring requirements when you invite applications or tenders and be prepared to discuss them at that stage. Too often, the discussion about monitoring starts during the tender or application process, or even after the award. This does not allow time for proper planning. It makes it hard for the provider to cost the monitoring requirement and build that cost into its proposal for funding. All this tends to lead to disproportionate and badly-managed monitoring"

Quality accreditation  

The role of accredited quality standards is growing in importance for the sector, as the Charity Commissions recent endorsement of the PQASSO Quality Mark suggests.  

Dame Suzi Leather, Chair of the Charity Commission, said

"Without evidence of both beneficiary need and a charity's ability to meet that need in terms of quality and fitness-for-purpose, there is no compelling reason for a funder to hand over cash or a commissioning authority to award the contract."

Publications

Competitive tendering 

From extensive experience of working with both commissioners and third sector organisations, nef (the New Economics Foundation) has compiled a guide to demystify the competitive tendering process for third sector support workers. 

This new guide features a clear description of what competitive tendering involves and provides a step-by-step guide to how third sector support workers can best help frontline organisations that are faced with the switch from grants to contract. It also contains a section that explains how support workers can engage with commissioners to make sure that the process is more open to third sector organisations. 

Download the full guide here or for more information, contact Eva Neitzert at eva.neitzert@neweconomics.org

Triple Bottom Line measurement and the third sector

There is increased recognition that third sector organisations should demonstrate how they are performing not just in relation to their primary objective, but also across wider social, environmental and economic objectives or what is sometimes called the ‘triple bottom line’. 

Yet, despite this recognition, there are still few third sector organisations using such approaches. In this research report, nef sketches out the history and context of triple bottom line measurement, the main approaches in the third sector and ways in which organisations can be supported to overcome common barriers to the use of such tools.

Download the full report here or for more information, contact Eva Neitsert at eva.neitzert@neweconomics.org

Campaigns

Free consultancy for support providers

ACEVO’s valuing performance campaign is aimed at making the case for leaders in the third sector to invest in performance management.

ACEVO is offering five leaders of support providers the opportunity to access a programme of free consultancy support to implement new performance management frameworks within their organisations. This support, which will run for the next 9 months, is funded by the National Performance Programme and is aimed at 

• working with leaders to identify and solve a particular performance management problem within the organisation,
• achieving genuine buy-in from the host organisation so that the interventions will be sustainable, and
• facilitating wider learning so progress will be evaluated.

We are looking for nominees from leaders of support providers to receive this free support. If you are interested in finding out more please contact Seb Elsworth, Director of Strategy at ACEVO, at seb.elsworth@acevo.org.uk, or 0845 310 9469.

If you would like to include news items in our next e-bulletin, please write to Nicky Coward at nicky@ces-vol.org.uk

To subscribe to our e-newsletter and have it delivered directly to your inbox, email performance.management@ces-vol.org.uk with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line.