Voluntary sector has seminar on cuts

A series of seminars being held by the Tribune Trust will address how groups can find opportunities and combine resources at a time when more than £80m is being cut from public sector budgets in East Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire.

Some of the organisations supported by the trust – there are 40 of them in the Humberside Police area ranging from projects that improve literacy to Victim Support – will be outlining their work at the first seminar next Thursday in Hull.

Police and council representatives will be at the meeting at the Club House Community Centre, Elm Avenue, Garden Village, between 9.30am and 1pm.

Tribune Trust director Geoff Ogden said: “This is not about doom and gloom. We have to face these difficult times.

“It’s so the statutory sector understand the amount of work that’s going on out there already – they will have their gaps in provision because of their own funding problems.

“It’s also to show the voluntary sector what opportunities there are to work with the statutory sector. There’s some shared working but it could be vastly improved.

“The voluntary sector itself can do better by working together and even merging some projects.

“There needs to be closer working but they are all so jealous of their own bit of territory.”

Mr Ogden said he was sure groups it supported would survive although bigger charities were facing “ real difficulties”.

The meeting will be chaired by the High Sheriff of the East Riding Adrian Horsley JP.

During the seminar a number of projects will be presented with grant award cheques approved by the trustees of the Tribune Trust. Further seminars will be held in west Hull, northern Lincolnshire and north east Lincolnshire.