Hello all

Our council owns community asset that they are trying to attract funding for to refurbish to make it a health and wellbeing centre but are stumbling due to a lack of charitable status. They have approached CAVS to form a partnership so we can bid together for funds.

I do not want asset transfer of the property, I think the risks are too high around maintenance of the building for CAVS. Has any of you entered into such a partnership with your local authority and what gains were in it for you?

I am thinking this is the Council just using our charitable status to get more funding. As a new CEO I would welcome your views!

Many thanks

Tracy

Hi all, Claire from Voluntary Action Leeds here,

I'm wondering if anyone has any information or advice on banks who dont charge for small community groups. As you well know, a bank account is often a prerequisite for groups to access funding pots, I'm talking small amounts, ie under £1000. It used to be that we could share quite a long list of banks offering a business/community account for free. Found out recently from a group that Metro Bank will be charging £3 a month from December, which got us looking at other offers. Some will offer free to registered charities, but we couldn't find one bank that offers free for small groups.

VAL are looking at this from two ways, are there any banks we have missed from the list below that does offer free accounts?

Also, communication with funders asking for this to be considered, so, can the bank admin fee be accounted for in grant spend, and, where this is a blockage to group accessing, will they allow a larger charity to act as a holder of the funds.

Anyone any success with local Credit Unions??

Here is a list that we pulled togther:

• CAF Bank - charge £5 monthly fee.
• Co-operative Bank. Only registered charities and CICs can get an account
• Metro Bank. FROM DEC 25 Monthly charges of £3 per month will be introduced
• Charity Bank - have to put 10000 to open an account and only for registered charities
• Triodos Bank - You must have turnover of £50k or more. No longer available to new customers.
• NatWest Community Bank Account. Can only apply if you have a personal bank account already.
• Bank Of Scotland Treasurers Account. £4.25 each month
• Barclays Community Account - have to be registered charity, £8.50 per month
• HSBC Charitable Bank Account - Charges fees.
• Lloyds Bank - Now charge a fee - £4.25 pcm plus transactions.
• RBS Community Bank Account - have to have a personal account already
• Reliance Bank -registered charities only
• Santander - registered charities only
• Unity Trust Bank - business accounts only - charge £6 per month for an account
• Virgin Money - for registered charities.

I've had a group get in touch re Better Impact bill that has increased by 230% this year, for the basic package of 100-250 volunteers. The new annual cost is £852 which the group can't afford. Any one else heard anything about this?

Hello everyone,

Does anyone have an SLA where the Local Authority provides funding for 25% of your expenditure, but requests 100% of your statistics? Is this normal?

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for some insight into people's experiences with Local Authority tenders. We've been invited to bid on one, but the Local Authority has used our statistics in the tender document itself.

Has anyone encountered this before? Is this standard practice? Any information on how to handle this would be greatly appreciated.

Hi everyone,

I have begun researching a clear, simple and transparent way to recruit VCSEs to statutory boards and panels (where an existing system doesn't exist already, for example on some of our ICS panels VCSE members are elected by their peers).

This is where there isn't capacity for infrastructure to attend/do everything (and sometimes local VCSEs have better subject knowledge e.g. Autism).

I've had a good trawl of other infrastructure websites, but there's often nothing explicit about how this is approached.

Does anybody have a local system or way to approach this they'd like to share? We are looking at basic role descriptions and a voting mechanism via the sector, but nothing overly onerous as there are a large number of local boards/panels.

Many thanks in advance!

Lisa Rawlinson

Networks and Representation Lead - Solihull