The grant application process for carers and community voluntary services for 2008/09 is now complete. Please see update on developments below. The application process for 09/10 will commence in October 2008

• The single funding approach for carers and community voluntary grants process was successfully implemented in October 2007.
  
• All recommended funding awards to third sector organisations from these two grant funds have now been awarded for the financial year from April 2008 to March 2009.
  
• Letters confirming awards have been issued to 204 schemes who have been funded to the value of £1,903,463.
  
• A revised Memorandum of Agreement is now in place and has been sent to 178 schemes.  The other 26 organisations already have a contract in place for 2008/09.
  
• Two feedback days were held in April for organisations that were not successful in funding awards this year. This gave the opportunity for organisations to share information and consider how they could improve their applications in the future. All the schemes that attended said they found this process very constructive.
  
• A lesson learnt session for the grants panel has been held to assess the development of the system for the future which will enable the process to be further improved.
  
• Further improvements to the process are now being discussed based on the feedback received and the outcome of the lessons learnt exercise ready for implementation for the next round of funding from April 2009.
  
• A commissioning strategy for third sector funding is now being developed to better coordinate and prioritise the funding streams across Adult Health and Community Wellbeing. This will link with the corporate third sector strategy being developed.
  
• We are working in close collaboration with the Public Engagement service for ECC who are developing the corporate single portal for funding applications ready for April 2009.
  
• Further work is now being explored to support and develop training opportunities across the voluntary sector so that organisations are better equipped to respond to a commissioning approach in the future.  Further updates on this will be posted on this site in coming weeks.

For further information please contact Chris West  christopher.west@essex.gov.uk or Sue Hawkins  sue.hawkins2@essex.gov.uk