Our CEO, Jake Ferguson, as Chair of the London CVS Directors Network, recently led a joint response from CVSs across London to the Government’s Civil Society Strategy consultation.

The response has been shared with Tracey Crouch, Civil Society Minister, and with the Greater London Authority who are also consulting on their strategy.

It outlines the key role that CVSs play in building the capacity and skills of voluntary and community sector organisations and our combined ability to influence service provision. For example, both Enfield Voluntary Action and Hackney CVS are working with their respective local councils, schools and parents to improve parental involvement in their children’s education and to reduce school exclusions.

The response also highlights the big societal issues that CVSs address. Here at Hackney CVS we are working with Hackney Council and public partners to implement a 15 year strategy which will improve outcomes for young black men whilst Ealing CVS has set up a Muslimah Matters project working with grassroots BMER groups to support Muslim women and girls to tackle radicalisation.

Underpinning all the work of the CVS network is a shared belief that local residents must be at the heart of finding solutions to the problems they face.

We hope our response will persuade the Government to include a section on the importance of infrastructure organisations like Hackney CVS in its forthcoming Civil Society strategy. We believe this in turn could lead to dedicated resources that would allow us to implement parts of the Civil Society Strategy.

Download the response here.