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A4 Focus Group Aide Memoire
Review of Support Services for the Voluntary Sector
www.supportservicesreview.co.uk
Thank you for agreeing to participate in the Review. Hopefully you will have already completed an electronic survey - getting you thinking about these issues. The questions attached are for more qualitative discussion and will form the basis of the focus group. There is a definitions sheet attached for your information.
"The aim of this Support Services Review is to ensure that the needs of voluntary organisations (including marginalised groups) are met by effective support available at national and local level, structured for maximum efficiency, offering provision which is accessible to all, while reflecting and promoting diversity, and which is sustainably funded. It is also to ensure the efficient use of public funds and value for money."
(From the 'Invitation to Tender' sent by the Scottish Executive)
The review will focus on five core areas of support to the voluntary sector:
- Organisational development
- Workforce development
- Technical support (financial management and ICT)
- Income generation
- Lobbying and networking support
We will discuss 'support' more generally but it will be with these core areas in mind. We have attached another document that asks for more details on each topic. We would be grateful if you could complete this prior to attending (or while you have your coffee at the start of the session). It will only take 5 minutes.
Each focus group session will last a maximum of two hours. We will be covering a lot of ground in the focus groups so some of the questions will require an individual answer and we will collect these.
Section A/B - Accessing support and Types of Support
Thinking of the 5 core areas mentioned above…
Support needs
Q1 What are your main support needs (no more than 3/4 areas)? Please identify if these support needs are for a particular area.
1. What are your main support needs (please list 3/4 areas in the attached sheet). Please identify if these support needs are for a particular area.
2. Which organisations do you consider are the most appropriate to deliver specific support services?
3. How do you identify your support needs in this area? Are there any tools you use?
Support Provision
4. Where's your first port of call for ongoing support? Would you go to different organisations for each core area?
5. What barriers exist for organisations like yours to access support?
Identification of support
6. How easy is it to identify where to go for support?
7. How much choice do you have in relation to who you go to for support?
8. How often is your first port of call the organisation that provides the support needed or how often does this organisation assist with sign-posting and you get the support elsewhere?
9. Do you have any support needs that you cannot access support for?
Future access
10. Who is helping you look to the future, i.e. 3 years from now what will your needs be, anyone working with you to plan or to anticipate what is coming over the horizon?
11. What type of support would you like in relation to identifying future needs?
Section B - Types of support
12. What type of support have you received (please see sheet)?
13. To what extent do you have a choice of provider of support?
14. Should some services be provided on a market basis? Which ones?
Section C - Impact of support
15. What difference has support in this area made to your organisation?
16. What made biggest difference and why?
17. How do you know what impact the support has made? What have you done to measure the difference?
18. Have support providers measured the impact?
19. Where did you feel support failed, and for what reasons?
20. In what ways has the support you have received assisted you with equality issues ( e.g. Gender, BME, LGBT)?
Section D - Your perception of the quality of support…
(based on your experience and your aspirations)
21. Consider the characteristics of support.
a. Define the characteristics of good quality support
b. Define the characteristics of poor value, poor experience, etc
Section E - Support agencies working together
(Focus on local questions for local groups with lesser reference to national and vice versa)
22. Is there a local support infrastructure?
23. If yes, tell us about it.
a. What works well?
b. What doesn't?
c. How do you access it?
24. If no local support infrastructure, why not?
a. Should there be one?
b. What should it be like? Who should be involved?
25. What ways do you see different support agencies working in partnership and where are they in competition?
26. How helpful/unhelpful is that?
27. What do you understand about the national infrastructure that supports voluntary sector?
28. Do you need to be aware of national infrastructure?
29. Where do you get that information?
30. How accessible is that info?
Future
31. Looking to the future what improvements need to be made in support provision to meet the needs of voluntary organisations? does this (national and/or local) infrastructure need to look like? How does it need to change?
32. What needs to be different about it?
33. In relation to the 5 areas, what is the minimum that should be available to all in the voluntary sector, who should provide it?
LAST QUESTION
34. Standing back from all of this, what is the one thing that would make a difference to your organisation (broader than increased funding)?
35. Any other comments?
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