Reflections

An insider's account of Leicestershire restructure

Reflections is an account of the restructuring of local support and development organisations in Leicestershire in 2009. Although an analysis of the experience in Leicestershire, it highlights many issues that are important to any charity considering greater collaboration or merger. The report is an absorbing and frank account written by Martin Gage, former Chief Executive of North West Leicestershire CVS, one of the organisations on the 'losing' side of the competitive tender. The report is NAVCA's second in-depth look at the restructure of members following 'Anatomy of a merger', examining the 2007 merger of infrastructure organisations in Cumbria.

The restructure resulted in Voluntary Action LeicesterShire (VAL) being awarded a £1m contract from the local councils, police and health statutory bodies to provide services across Leicestershire. The other seven organisations in the county became 'community hubs', responsible for providing a signposting service to VAL and working on representation issues at a district level.

The report looks at whether competitive tendering could have been avoided, how the organisations involved avoided a seemingly inevitable falling out and the prospects for the future development of infrastructure and support services in the county. Most importantly Martin Gage lists key lessons that should be learnt from this process by other charities and voluntary organisations, including stressing the important leadership role trustees need to take.

Download Reflections (pdf, 2MB)