Consultation

It is really important that we get the views of the voluntary and community sector on what we are doing currently and what we would like to do in the future. Sometimes, we will target organisations regarding specific consultations, although we welcome input from across the sector on a range of more general issues.

For details of planned and current consultations visit our Have your say pages.

Place survey

Each year we, with the Audit Commission, send a survey to a proportion of our residents. The survey asks a number of questions to try and understand what our residents feel about the place they live in.

One of the questions, we ask in the survey is “how often over the last 12 months have you given unpaid help to any group(s), club(s) or organisation(s)? Please only include work that is unpaid and not for your family.”

The most recent results indicated that 30.1% of respondents said they volunteered at least once a week or less than once a week but at least once a month - which was the 5th highest council nationally.

But we are not resting on our laurels - we are working with Community Impact Bucks to implement an action plan to increase this participation even further.

Voluntary and Community Sector newsletter

It is really important to us that you are fully informed of everything that is happening so that together we can build a thriving voluntary and community sector. We are producing a series of newsletters which will keep you completely up to date on everything that is going on.

Copies of previous issues are available on the VCS Hub homepage. If you would like to receive future issues, or if you have any comments on its content, please contact us on 08453 708090 or email vcs@buckscc.gov.uk.

Community Impact Bucks Participation and Partnership Programme (3Ps)

Community Impact Bucks are creating forums for VCS organisations to:

Provide information to the sector on the latest Local Area Agreement developments
Gather the views of local VCS organisations and use these to influence key decision-makers
Advocate for and lobby on behalf of the VCS
Create opportunities for organisations to exchange ideas and work together

Visit the Community Impact Bucks website

Your say on health and social care

The Buckinghamshire Local Involvement Network (LINk) has been set up as part of a national initiative to improve public and patient involvement in health and social care.

The LINk is a network of local people, organisations and groups, and aims to:

Give everyone the chance to say what they think about their local care services
Give people the chance to check how health and care services are planned and run
Feed back information to the people responsible for commissioning, providing, managing and checking up on health and social care services.

The LINk has a number of powers it can use (such as the power to enter and view care premises) and links with the Primary Care Trust and the county council, so should be an effective way to engage and advocate on behalf of service users.

For further information please visit www.buckinghamshirelink.co.uk or contact your LINk Officer on 01296 678526 or email buckinghamshirelink@hapuk.co.uk.