Voluntary Community Social Enterprise

High quality voluntary, community & social enterprise sector (VCSE) and support services are dependent upon a highly skilled and valued workforce, appropriately rewarded for their work and the vital impact that it has on people’s lives. While not part of the paid workforce, we also recognise the invaluable role that informal and formal volunteers play in supporting people to live the lives that they want to live. 

The Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sectors and the social value they create play a crucial role in our journey of transforming how we deliver smarter, more thoughtful and effective public services that meet the needs of our people across Herefordshire & Worcestershire. Over 75 percent of VCSEs deliver public services where they are based, with strong links to that locality. Their place-based solutions can create a greater impact for those most in need, who are hard for the traditional public sector to reach. VCSEs contribute to economic growth, making the economy more innovative, resilient and productive. They can open up opportunities for people to engage with their community, foster belonging and enrich lives. Therefore the VCSE sector’s unique role in public services is vital, more now than ever. Our VCSE sector is a major employer, contributing £40.5 billion annually to the national economy, making it a key driving force for reform and transformation. Our Herefordshire & Worcestershire VCSE sector, its individual organisations, services and people are just as important as our more health centric sector. If we are to ensure true integrated care between health and social care, then we need to invest in recruiting, retaining, developing and empowering our VCSE workforce. Hence, we are proud to establish our ICS VCSE Faculty. This brings together representative VCSE organisational leads to work together to determine the joint education, learning & development priorities, and we will deliver these. We are just at the beginning of our journey, but we have already established increased investment in talent & leadership development access, integrated workforce transformation & service design for health & care related services by utilising the VCSE sector more.  

As our Faculty develops, we will promote more updates and access to a full repository of information, resources, tools and development offers via the ICS Academy