Manager's View of the Future

In the previous section we highlighted the importance of pursuing a close relationship with the local council, and in our case I am pleased to report that we have an excellent relationship. However, as there is always room for improvement, I hope we can contribute to the Council's Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) in the next year or so and help improve their ratings by showing how their work with us demonstrates some of their skill at leading and influencing communities and working in partnership.

Apart from the Borough Council it is also necessary to pursue and develop relationships with other partners. One such partnership is with Community Legal Services, a branch of the Legal Services Commission. This has resulted in substantial funding for the Bureau. The Bureau will shortly be awarded two contracts to provide clients with specialist advice in Welfare Benefits and Debt. Community Legal Services are awarding us £33,200 from their development fund to help set up and develop a specialist unit to provide advice in these two categories of law.

To enable the Bureau to develop, we need to pursue further productive relationships. We must also look at ways of providing other means of access to our service, such as e-mail, web access and outreach access in more rural areas. As with any planned expansion of service, we must look at the resource implications; by expanding the service we will need more advisers and supervision staff. Therefore building relationships with partners may not just be focused on financial input, but on other forms of input such as allowing their employees paid time from work to train as advisers.

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