About this Site
How to Use this Site
The Partners
ABC of Acronyms
Jargon Buster
Acknowledgements

About this site

This website has been developed through the Community Empowerment Fund's Steering Group as a tool for people working in voluntary and community sector organisations, to help them to engage in the planning and development of the future of Sefton. In the document The Vision for Sefton, Sefton Borough Partnership identifies how public, private, voluntary and community sectors can achieve a better future for everyone living and working in the borough through partnership working.

Along with our colleagues in the public and private sectors, voluntary and community sector agencies are working to "make Sefton a great place in which to live, learn, visit, and do business".

Over the last two years, a number of new initiatives have placed increased emphasis on the need for the voluntary sector to play an equal part in the planning, development, and delivery of services. Access to relevant information is the first stage of empowering members of the sector to engage with the planning structures which are currently evolving in the borough.

The site provides information on 51 different partnerships/planning groups. These range from groups with a remit to take a strategic approach to the planning of a wide range of initiatives (such as Sefton Borough Partnership), to those which have a much more tightly defined remit to focus on a specific population or client group (such as Sure Start).

In working to ensure that there are opportunities for everyone to achieve their potential, the Community Empowerment Fund's Steering Group has identified access to information as key to supporting full active citizenship.

Members of the forums which make up the Voluntary & Community Sector Network have requested the names and contact details of people participating in the planning of specific services, so that they are able to engage in constructive dialogue about Sefton's development. "Who should I contact about the new self-help group that I've just set up?" "Who should I contact to ask about the planned changes in our services?" These are the kind of questions that often arise at forum meetings. Whilst forum facilitators are always happy to answer this type of query, repeated requests showed that there was a need to make this information widely accessible, in order to empower members of the voluntary and community sector to become more actively involved in informing the planning process through greater partnership working.