Strategic work

VAWD is involved in many of the strategic and partnership initiatives taking place in the district:

Local Strategic Partnership 'Wakefield Together'
This group comprises representatives from the statutory, private and voluntary & community sector. VAWD's Chief Executive is a member and so are two representatives from VOX. This is the partnership that creates and oversees Wakefield District's Community Plan, and has worked on the development of Wakefield District's Local Area Agreement. 
www.wakefieldlsp.org.uk

Wakefield's Compact
The Compact is a Government initiative to set out guidelines and codes of conduct for dealings between Government and the voluntary and community sector. The Government published the national Compact in 1998 and has produced 5 Codes of Good Practice underpinning it in relation to volunteering, working with community groups, working with black and minority ethnic groups, funding and procurement and consultation & policy appraisal. The Government is encouraging local statutory agencies to work more closely with the voluntary and community sector and encourages the development of local Compacts. 

VAWD took a leading role in developing Wakefield District's Compact which was signed in February 2004. VAWD is now taking a leading role in work relating to the Compact with its signatories, which include Wakefield District Partnership, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, the new Primary Care Trust, the Children's Fund, Wakefield College, West Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Probation Board, along with VAWD and VOX.

In 2005/06, VAWD delivered 3 CompactWise training sessions for the Voluntary and Community Sector in Wakefield District. 

For national information on the Compact, visit:
www.thecompact.org.uk

  Click here to download the Wakefield District Compact 2008-2011 leaflet

Wakefield's Local Area Agreement (LAA)
Wakefield's Local Area Agreement is part of the second round of LAAs. The agreement was drawn up during the winter of 2005/06 with VAWD's input. The LAA was signed off by Government Office for Yorkshire & the Humber in March 2006. For more information about Local Area Agreements nationally, visit www.communities.gov.uk. Dowload a copy of the Wakefield District LAA by visiting www.wakefield.gov.uk/CouncilAndDemocracy/Policy/LAA/default.htm.

West Yorkshire Learning Consortium
This is a membership organisation that is a key link between the voluntary and community sectors and the Learning Skills Council in terms of workforce and skills development. As well as acting in a strategic role the WYLC has in the past bid for and received funding from the LSC to fund specific learning activities and programmes. For more information visit their website at www.wylc.org.uk

Wakefield Infrastructure Partnership Group
This group comprises all voluntary and community sector 'infrastructure' organisations, in other words, groups who provide support to frontline voluntary and community organisations, such as help and advice with constitutions, registering as a charity, managing money and raising funds. This group is now the 'Delivery Group' overseeing the implementation of the voluntary & community sector capacity building element of the Local Area Agreement. Current membership of the group is:

VAWD

VOX
www.voxnet.org.uk

Charities Information Bureau
www.fit4funding.org.uk

DIVA
www.diva-arts.org.uk

Groundwork
www.groundwork-wakefield.org.uk

Pre-school Learning Alliance
www.pre-school.org.uk

West Yorkshire Community Accounting Service
www.wycas.org.uk/aboutus.htm

Young Lives Consortium
www.ylc.org.uk

Pay & Employment Rights Service (PERS)
www.pers.org.uk

At the end of 2004, this group published its development plan for the voluntary and community sector in Wakefield:

 Click here to download the development plan in PDF format (112k).