East Sussex County Council and the Voluntary Sector – Partnership Plus

August 2019 Update

The Partnership Plus group held its second meeting in June to look at how the East Sussex County Council and the East Sussex voluntary sector can better use our various relationships, knowhow and assets together for the benefit of local people.

Participants collectively agreed that we need to move swiftly to engage the wider sector, and to understand the issues different communities face. We intend to work with a wider range of partners on specific actions focussing on better shared outcomes for vulnerable people.

As part of the process, we have set up working groups to focus on the following topics:

• To completely review The Compact.
• To improve Resourcing, both by  attracting new funding and by making better use of existing resources.
• To undertake Workforce Development, in order to makes sure staff from all sectors are more aware of each others’ contribution and work more closely together. This will be done through induction, secondment, shadowing and briefings.
• To examine information on help and support, referral pathways and access routes to determine what works and what could be improved.

Our aim is to apply this approach across the whole system to ensure consistency. This will include GPs and the private /independent sector as well as VCSE and statutory organisations. There will be a third meeting of Partnership Plus in the Autumn to check the progress of the working groups, and to make the necessary decisions to take the work forward.