When operating environments change as regularly as they are currently (politically, economically, and regulatorily, this is a cycle I’m sure all businesses are familiar with. The voluntary sector is certainly not alone in this, but when the cost of doing this can’t be found in profits and reliance for this resource is on organisation reserves and hopes of cost saving, or the ever decreasing (if not gone) surplus – the result can quickly become a crisis situation.
More than ever, in the last 2 years, as a sector we have been warning of the impact that could come if there isn’t a fundamental shift in that environment – the threat of service reduction, service closures, increased waiting lists, job losses, and even organisation closures – and as a result, the impact this will have on residents and communities in Suffolk.
So now, here we are, with an increasing number of organisations in that crisis – services have reduced, waiting lists have been introduced, and VCFSE groups are closing, meaning that many in Suffolk are not receiving the support they need.
My point here isn’t to doom monger, my point is to recognise the situation for what it is, as hard as that is, and to consider how ready we are as voluntary organisations to deal with the impact of this crisis on our own organisations should the time come for us to have to.
Challenge or change is not the same as crisis – but there are some fundamental questions in the interest of good governance that we can ask of ourselves to be as prepared as we can be should the worst happen:
- What does our Governing document tell us to do? Do we have the right policies and procedures in place?
- How equipped is our Board of Trustees/Directors or management committee to deal with significant organisation challenges? Do we have the right skills to hand or could we quickly get them – finance, strategy, public relations, human resources, legal, etc?
- What values do we have as an organisation that can guide the way we deal with concerns or issues as they arise, including our staff and volunteers – will they feel supported?
- Is our strategic risk register up to date, AND useful in outlining mitigations and actions to take?
- Do we have a Business Continuity Plan which clearly sets out next steps, who to involve at what stage, who is responsible for what, and what we might do to start recovering? Have we tested it? What is our crisis management plan?
- And, while very difficult at the moment, does our reserves policy AND actual financial level, afford us the resource to do whatever is needed to make sure our people (those who work for us, volunteer with us, and use our services) are treated fairly in difficult times?
People are at the heart of everything we do in one form or another and when crisis hits, and speed of response is essential, it is easy (and necessary) to focus resource on the practicalities and immediate priorities of service redesign, closure, external communications etc. Holding 3 months of reserves to cover closure is a ‘rule of thumb’ not a regulatory mandate and in many cases, this is now insufficient to cover simply these practicalities, let alone consider additional support for our people affected.
Crisis is tough, hard to navigate, and when it hits requires quick decisions to be made with the best available information at the time. But while it is easy to push the possibility to the back of our minds and hope it never happens, it is becoming all too common in the voluntary sector world and increasingly hard to predict what is around the corner. By considering the points above and putting the plans in place before they are needed, we can know we’ve done everything possible to be ready to do our best by our people and organisations should something happen, while of course, continually hoping it never does.
In this series of 6 blogs, we will look at each of the points above in more detail over the coming weeks. I hope this is useful and please do get in touch if there is something specific you would like to see covered.
Hannah
