Narrative for WNC financial bid 2008/09

Background

The WNC has operated for a number of years with a baseline funding level of £330,000. This has remained consistent through several Machinery of Government moves and consequent changes in policy priorities. My letter to Janice Shersby of December explained that this had meant a year on year decrease for WNC in real terms. Last week I forwarded details of the impact a £330K budget would have on WNC activity this year.

2008-09 Bid

I attach a bid for funding for 2008-09 which covers work considered essential following on from the Light Touch Review which includes: increased events, additional 1.5 EO posts, increased printing/publications and T & S; better communications; new website, improved database and information/stakeholder management; anticipates the expansion of the WNC Board of Commissioners which requires increased support, administration, remuneration and T & S; and discusses the reasons for the increase on last year's spend due to vacancies carried at all levels; business manager and outreach posts part time for some of the year; no WNC Chair for a while; little staff training; few outreach events; no post CSW meeting and no awaydays. In previous years, WNC was able to secure money for various projects like Muslim Women's Network, Iraqi Women's Internship, VAW, Gender and Trade. In addition to the above, this year, the essential bid is also higher due to a 5% increase for inflation in working group costs, attendance at CEDAW for Chair, Commissioner and Director, an Awayday and training for staff.

The detailed business plan examines individual areas in greater depth.

Following on from the uncertainties of the LT Review and the Chair's post, Baroness Gould is keen that both staffing and funding are put on a more permanent and consistent footing. A great deal of resources are consumed by balancing budgets and planning staffing which could usefully be diverted elsewhere.

Governance

WNC has drawn up new and more transparent processes for Governance procedures, following on from the recommendations in the light Touch Review. These are to be maintained and worked up further, eg the MOU and finalising the LT Review recommendations.

Commissioners

For a Chair and Board of 12 Commissioners, costs will rise substantially from previous years. This rise is unavoidable and the level has been calculated as closely as possible to the expected amounts.

Assumptions have been made on the number of Commissioners who will be based outside of the London and South East region and hence will require overnight costs for attending Board meetings and London events. Board T&S costs are set at £5,600 for the four meetings per year, which is a conservative estimate. Since all Commissioners will now be expected to undertake work, for which they will be paid a daily amount, this work will carry a cost in terms of their T&S also. This has been set at £9,600, which is assuming that 12 Commissioners will undertake an event or attend a meeting every three months. Administering all this along with the increased participation of Commissioners will of course have a staff cost.

Staff

Staff training is a key part of their work and ensures skills are updated and staff are motivated and able to function effectively. We understand that GEO as the legal employer of WNC staff has a duty to support staff and offer training. This figure is relatively low, given that WNC may have one or more new G7/G6 staff and a number of HEO/EO staff, all of whom may require some training to take up their roles fully. This figure may increase, depending on circumstances.

This section of the bid, is to fulfil contractual obligations on behalf of GEO and is not subject to capping. The Director would need to look at each request for training on its merit, given the circumstances, which includes the overall financial situation. For that reason, the figure may exceed this during the year.

With a permanent Director, potentially a new Deputy-Director, new policy staff and changes in responsibilities, all of whom are tasked to deliver a challenging programme of work, we need to plan how this work will take place, and integrate the individual staff into their teams and WNC as a whole. An awayday is planned which will deliver efficiency savings through improved working.

The impact of not implementing this section of the bid, would be to delay progress on the LT review recommendations and to lose the momentum generated by appointment of a permanent Director and the need for them to provide a strong lead to the team towards meeting WNC's refreshed remit.

Salaries

Over recent years, staffing within WNC has been funded from two sources: directly by its sponsor unit; and also by funds transferred from other departments and bodies, as part of a joint work programme. The main cost for any organisation is staffing, WNC is no different and over the last decade staffing has remained between 12 and 15. However, salaries overall have increased with inflation, while at the same time allocations from our sponsor unit have remained fixed at £330,000. This has led to a situation where WNC has needed to secure annual external funding to deliver its minimum core work programme, the WNC budget has been insufficient for a number of years on this basis. This was recognised in the LT review and WNC was asked to re-examine the impact that this continual search for external funding has on the direction of policy development.

To illustrate the gap between funds provided to WNC and the changes in salaries over this time, a directorate of just seven f/t staff (Director/Deputy-Director/Three Policy Managers/Business Manager and a person combining PA/admin/finance/Board liaison roles) would exceed a £330,000 budget by itself. That is before Chair's honoraria or the cost of holding Board meetings. WNC remained within its agreed budget for FY2007/08 because of the large number of posts left vacant or partially covered by part-time agency staff. Staff managed to hold the required number of Board meetings and to carry out essential work. However, all work that required significant staff time was delayed or reduced in scope. This has had an effect on staff, with individuals needing to work late into the evenings and at weekends to meet deadlines.

The WNC has ten staff working within it: only four are permanent and are available to WNC for the full year, and of those, only one person is working in their official post, the other three are temporarily covering other posts at higher grades. The combined effect of this is that WNC has the equivalent of eight full-time staff working in the office. This has a major effect on dealing with peaks in workload or staffing the office at the same time as attending working group meetings.

The permanent staffing budget for FY2008/09 is set at £469,555, with a further £12,385 for agency staff. There are a number of assumptions made on the exact breakdown between the grades employed, but this is the minimum level of staffing required to carry out the work in the `essential' bid. T&S costs for WNC staff to attend events would fall into this area of the budget, however these have been included within the overall Outreach budget for clarity. The bulk of the visible increase in costs is the result of removing the reliance of WNC on external funds from other bodies to carry out its core workplan and placing its finances on a transparent and sustainable basis. The true increase in staffing from FY2007/08 is an increase in the Outreach team from 1 FTE to 2.5 FTE posts. These are dedicated posts for Outreach and are essential to carry out the challenging workload for the year. The staffing for the year would be as follows;

The impact of not implementing this section of the bid or reducing it, would be some or all of the following;

General Administration

Costs for general administration, IT and stationery have been kept at the FY2007/08 level of £5,000. This is because the large increases in printing and publications required for this year have been budgeted for in the separate workstreams. This figure is conservative, since printer cartridges, etc. are a major cost and unlike in previous departments, CLG does not provide these as part of the building services.

Outreach Workstream

The annual decrease in real-term funds for WNC has meant that the resource intensive nature of Outreach work has suffered and now needs strengthening The Light Touch Review emphasised that building stronger links with Partners, broadening the spread of stakeholder networks and engaging directly with individuals and organisations at all levels are core to the WNC remit. This has been reflected in the priorities of the Outreach strategy and all areas of WNC work have been examined to gain the maximum coherence with Outreach activities. This work is critical to the future of the WNC. For this reason, eight of the planned events are marked `essential' for WNC.

In order to implement this, a corresponding increase in funds is needed. Building links to Partners and extending the Partnership base are time- intensive and require staff to analyse records and to pro-actively contact potential organisations to become members. Each Outreach event requires several weeks of staff time to plan, arrange and implement; and significant time to follow up contacts and generate reports. For that reason, the Outreach team of a single post is being expanded by 1.5 EOs. This level of work will be required on an ongoing basis and the work will take place over more than 12 months, hence these are to be permanent and established posts, with the aim of filling these as soon as the budget is approved.

Work on expanding the regional and sector-specific contacts includes events in each of the three Devolved Nations, in under-represented areas of English Regions and an event to target under-represented sectors of the community. These are essential and are part of the LT review recommendations. Together with meeting Ministers in the devolved administrations, these will begin the process of expanding WNC's influence.

With a new and expanded Board of paid Commissioners, their specific regional knowledge and expertise will deliver relevant targeted improvements in Partner density and networking. There are two Outreach events designated for this work, the impact of not carrying out these events, would be to undermine a key reason for increasing the size of the WNC board.

There are funds allocated for a single `consultation event', which would include an online survey of Partners and wider stakeholders. This is planned to be similar in nature to the MfW priorities work, the theme of this is not finalised, but could be related to the Corston report and the MfW priority on `Improving the way we deal with women who commit crimes' for instance.

The increase in Outreach work carries with it an associated cost in providing hard-copy booklets, publications and related material for use at events and for distribution to Partners. While publications will also be available online, the cost of producing sufficient printed copies is extremely high. For that reason, and as the costs are shared across a number of workstreams, a single cost has been given for WNC Printing & Publications during the year.

WNC, in providing an up to date and effective tool for managing it's Partner network, is also a unique tool for government's use in contacting particular strands of the women's sector and equality generally and for producing the Women's Organisations Directory (WORGS). The current Partner Database, although useful, has in-built limitations and has become subject to errors, following transfer to the CLG IT system. A new database, together with the time required to data-cleanse the existing information and re-canvass Partners to identify their themes and equality strands will bridge this gap. This will cost approximately £5,000 based on quotes for `off the shelf' packages. CLG are currently investigating if any existing software on the CLG network is available for WNC to access. This could reduce the cost and speed up implementation. The cost (£1,500) of printing WORGS is separated out, to illustrate the funding required for this as a normally hidden cost within the overall bid. There are annual requests totalling several hundred copies for WORGS, since it provides a service not matched elsewhere in the UK.

WNC's report on the consultation on the Minister for Women's priorities, is due to be published soon. Given that these priorities are central to GEO and WNC for the year, and that there is already substantial interest from the sector on her response, the report will need to be printed and distributed to a large number of stakeholders. £4,000 has been allocated for this, which is the lowest quote found for 800 copies.

Improving communications with Partners, especially through more intelligent and interactive electronic methods, was a core recommendation from the LT review. After looking at different methods of taking this forward and mindful of the need to prioritise funds to gain the maximum impact, it has been decided to continue to renew the existing contract for the WNC website and associated services for the FY2008/09. This can be achieved at a cost of £525, but is heavily dependent on the skillset of current WNC staff to setup and maintain. Future years will require a move to a more expensive system, that includes ongoing technical support and which transfers the risk to an outside organisation. This risk is considered acceptable for the FY2008/09, and does not restrict WNC moving to a different system during the 12 months.

The infrastructure of a new and interactive website, together with systems for newsletter distribution and online surveys are now in place. They require substantial staff time initially to populate, together with a weekly commitment by all work areas to update content. That cost appears within the overall staffing expenditure elsewhere in the bid.

VAW and Equalities Workstream

The existing VAW workstream has been up-rated by the recruitment of an experienced secondee from the sector into the post filling a five month long vacancy; this is also in line with the priorities of the MfW. While non-staff costs are being kept at the FY2007/08 level, with a 5% increase to cover inflation the bid fills the vacant EO post and the existing part time AO is being moved to this area, this allows the workstream to be enhanced to include areas of the GED, Single Equality Act, liaison with the EHRC and the Migration & Asylum working group. The M&A group is also being kept at the FY2007/08 level, also with a 5% increase for inflation.

The impact of not implementing this area of the bid would mean not allowing WNC to take on several core areas of work, eg liaison with the EHRC and influencing equalities legislation. Not funding the VAW workstream at all, would be a major blow for existing work and mean that WNC would not be able to advise GEO and Ministers on VAW issues, as it regularly does.

International Workstream

The existing International workstream requires an increase in funds from 2007/08 to cover the cost of attending CEDAW. Funding for CSW, is being increased by £200 to cover the costs of a pre and post meeting; stakeholders have identified this as a valuable tool to maximise the impact of NGO capacity to engage with international instruments.

The impact of not implementing this area of the bid, would be that WNC would fail its international obligations under CEDAW and CSW to report on the progress of the UK government. This would represent a severe failure of WNC's role, as agreed with Ministers and as perceived by stakeholders. For this reason it is expected that this area of work would have to be prioritised above others, including Outreach.

Women in Public Life Workstream

Although there are no dedicated staff for this, we will mainstream this into our website, newsletter and all outreach events. We are already advising OCPA on their forthcoming Diversity Strategy and assisting GEO where we can. We routinely nominate women for honours and trawl widely for suggestions, draw up detailed citations and monitor successes and failures. This activity falls within staff costs only.

WNC/08/02/07

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