Monday 14 March 2011

80% less 100% delivery - Cara Evans, Operations Director

As some of you may have read, The Communication Trust has recently learned that we have funding for another two years. Happy days! Now the real work begins... We have 80% less funding than we had hoped for our national year programme of work – whilst on the face of it is the cut is disappointing, the reality is that it could have been far worse.

We have though secured more for our core programme of work than we have done over recent years, which means that the combination of funding for the two programmes is roughly the same as that which we received for the current financial year. This presents us with two challenges. Firstly, managing everyone’s expectations regarding the national year as we will not be making the huge media splash that many people were hoping for. That said, the level of local support that we are seeing is amazing - our recent regional events saw 600 local practitioners coming to share their ideas. What was even more amazing was that some of those that attended and contributed to the events didn't even know if they had jobs from April. Money can't buy that type of commitment.

Secondly, we need to continue to offer value for money whilst ensuring that we keep to our core principle of ensuring that our consortium partners receive the higher percent of our funding. This means everyone we work with needs to ensure that they offer the most cost effective service without affecting quality. This is a challenge indeed but one which the sector knows all too well how to overcome as it something it has always had to do. I have no doubt our partners will work with us to deliver an impactful programme of work with all the funding we have available.

One final point this. This is the first time since the Trust was founded that we have our funding agreed before we start the programme of work, which makes planning and budgeting that much easier! Here’s to an exciting year.

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