A strong Voluntary and Community Sector is an asset to any local area. The Sector contributes in many ways to developing and maintaining quality of life for local people.
In Northamptonshire County Council (NCC) we recognise that the Voluntary and Community Sector plays an important role across the county as:
- A deliverer of services;
- An advocate for communities;
- An enabler of communities in order that they identify their own needs;
- Support for the public sector to understand the needs of communities it works for;
- A builder of social capital.
NCC has identified the need to help the sector through Support and Development Agencies (also known as Infrastructure Organisations). The collective role of these organisations in broad terms is to:
- Support the development and sustainability of the Sector;
- Be an advocate for the Sector to funders and policy makers;
- Enable best practice to be shared within the Sector;
- Work to develop services to deliver against unmet need;
Develop and give support to volunteers.
NCC, in partnership with NHS Northamptonshire invests in a support and development (infrastructure) framework and there are currently four local Support and Development Agencies within the County and (as of 1st October 2010) a countywide organisation.
Countywide Support and Development Agency
The NCC countywide support and development contract has been awarded to Northampton Volunteering Centre (NVC). This work provides strategic support to the four local Support and Development agencies across the county, who together support over 2000 organisations and over 120,000 volunteers in Northamptonshire. It provides leadership to the sector as a whole and will help identify the gaps in the voluntary sector, support other organisations fill those gaps and support new emerging organisations.
Local Support & Development Agencies
These provide services to support the Voluntary and Community Sector in terms of information, advice and assistance, advocacy and representation, partnership building and brokerage, policy and research, promoting and developing volunteering, and support for implementation of the Local Area Agreement.
The organisations currently contracted to provide this service and the areas that the service is provided in by each organisation is shown below:
- Corby & Kettering - Groundwork North Northamptonshire are delivering the contract through Kettering Voluntary Network for Kettering Borough and Corby VCS Ltd for Corby Borough
- Daventry & South Northamptonshire - South Northants Volunteer Bureau (SNVB)
- Northampton - Northampton Volunteering Centre
- Wellingborough & East Northamptonshire - Nene Valley Community Action
Links to each of the organisations websites, which include contact details are shown on the useful links section on the right hand side of this page.