Third Sector Leaders NefaYe) (onmsontesnstosrenen sey The Benefits and Challenges of Joining and Working Within a Consortium This case study shows how one Sheffield based civil society organisation, Point Blank has benefited from becoming a full member of several local third sector consortium that aim to deliver diferent types of public services. As well as considering the positive impacts it has had on their ability to provide services, it also considers the challenges they have had to overcome. Background Point Blank isa small arts organisation in Sheffield, It is establshed asa charitable company and has ts roots in applying the performing arts across a range of contexts. Ithas 3 main strands of activity: © a schools programme offering workshops, performances and artist residencies © a community programme offering traning, work placements and participatory performance projects; and © anational acclaimed touring theatre programme Ithas also purchased a public house, The Riverside, and transformed ths into a lve arts and entertainment venue, ‘Over the past 6 years the organisation has been actively involved in consortium working, being a member of 4 separate consortia: + VC Train (now called Sector Solutions), which isa consortium of voluntary sector providers of post-16 training and education programmes across South Yorkshire © Viva (the South Yorkshire Arts Consortium) which encompasses voluntary sector organisations delivering across a broad range of arts based media ‘* CS (Youth Consortium Sheffield), a voluntary sector consortium in Sheffield, comprised of 48 organisations that delver a range of children and young people's services and activities across the city © 38C, the national consortium that functions as a managing agent, securing national level contracts, for example, the Future Jobs Fund, and then subcontracting to a wide range of voluntary sector providers ‘All of these consortia are concemed with bidding for public sector contracts. Supported by xs improvir k The Social G The National Lottery’ e Hrerrceer meee Investment ‘through the ig Letery Fund 000: ‘The ACEVO Commissioning Support ServiceFinancial Benefits of Consortium-Working The most obvious benefit that Point Blank has secured through consortium working has been a financial one, Through these diferent consortium structures it has secured sub-contracts worth approaching £0.5m over the past few years. This funding has come from a range of sources — the Leaming & Skills CounclSkils Funding Agency, the Local ‘Authority, DWP and European sources. This is a considerable ammount of money for what isa relatively smal organisation. Before it started working in the consortia the organisation's annual tumover was around £125k. However, today its tumover is more like £400k and the funds it has been able to attract through consortiumsworking have made a significant contribution to this level of financial growth. Critical, tthas also provided core funding for the organisation and given it the platform to invest in new products and services Jon Maiden, Development Director at Point Blank. stated that there is no way the organisation could have secured any of this funding it had bid for it independently, outside of a consortium structure, as the contracts were simply too large. both in terms of the overall contract value and the breadth and scope of the services the commissioner wanted to purchase Other Benefits ‘As well as the funding it has received, Point Blank has achieved a range of wider, added value benefits from consortium working. © Access to strategic information & intelligence ‘As a member of the Youth Consortium, Jon Maiden is able to sit on the Strategy Board, which controls the work of the consortium. Jon reported that this has given him access to crucial and timely information and intelligence that has been vital tothe future development and on-going success of Point Blank. For example, he has been able to access information about what the latest local commissioning intentions are and therefore been in a postion to re-shape the ‘organisations services to match with these intentions. He stated that if he hadn't been involved in the consortium, he probably wouldn't have got access to this information, or if he had, it would have taken him a significant amount of time, energy and resources trying to source it. © Development of a mutually supportive inter-organsational cutture & ethos Jon remarked that before the establishment of Viva, the arts consortium, local arts organisations tended to be competitive and mistrustul in their interrelationships and that this culture obviously made it dificult for productive joint working to flourish. However, being involved in Viva has given these same organisations a real sense of collective purpose and ths has helped to foster a positive culture of mutual support amongst them — ‘organisations now feel they have a genuine role in supporting each other and there is much more honesty and openness between organisations This change in culture has started to manifest itself in progressive joint working intiatves, for example, shared approaches to venuelarts space hire. © Driving up standards and ensuring the best possible service to the end-user It has been evident to Point Blank how consortiumworking can help to improve quality and drive up standards across the network of collaborators. Providers are able to benchmark themselves against other consortium members’ performance and there is also a genuine sense of not wanting to ‘let your partners down’ by underperforming against the requirements of the contract. ‘The ACEVO Commissioning Support ServiceChallenges CConsortium-working, particularly on this scale, can be time consuming, whichis problematic for a small organisation with limited capacity. However, Jon felt that the costs associated with this were far outweighed by the range of benefits that Point Blank had gleaned, not least the significant funding that had been secured but also access to crucial strategic information and intligence. ACEVO Commissioning Support Helpline ‘Contact us for advice and support on procurement and commissioning issues E: commissioning support@acevo.orguk T0207 280 4937 We wwwacevo.orguklcommissioning ‘The ACEVO Commissioning Support Service