New VCSE Advisory Group to Shape Future of West Yorkshire

A new group of frontline voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) leaders will work together to help shape West Yorkshire’s future.

The people running West Yorkshire’s food banks, warm spaces, debt advice services and youth clubs have come together for the first time to advise the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and help ensure its policies and programmes work for all.

The Advisory Group will see fourteen senior leaders from across the breadth of West Yorkshire's VCSE sector meet regularly with Mayor Tracy Brabin and senior regional officials, to discuss how deeper devolution can be harnessed to make life easier for those who find it the hardest.

The group will advise the Mayor directly on her approach to employment, skills, housing, transport, community safety and other areas, to bring decision-making closer to the places hit hardest by the affordability crisis, and the people most impacted by inequalities relating to income, health, disability, race or gender identity.

The Advisory Group will bring the insight, expertise and influence of West Yorkshire’s VCSE sector into regional decision-making, in recognition of the sector’s strategic role in shaping the policies, priorities and the future of the region, alongside its role as a provider of services.

Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said:

“The people who truly understand what our communities are going through aren’t in government – they’re in the community centre, the advice service and the food bank, working with some of our poorest and most vulnerable residents.

“They can see which places are struggling the most and which people need that extra bit of support. For too long, these organisations have been left to pick up the pieces without ever being asked what they think.

“We’re determined to change that in West Yorkshire, so we can make life easier for those who find it the hardest. I believe the fastest and most effective way to do that is to work in partnership with those on the frontline to build a brighter region that works for all.”

The first meeting of the VCSE Advisory Group took place recently, with members setting out the issues they want the Combined Authority to focus on.

Between them, the group supports tens of thousands of people every year, running community centres, nurseries, debt and benefits advice surgeries, youth clubs, adult learning and English language classes, warm spaces, employment support programmes and creative health projects, across some of the region’s most deprived and struggling communities.

Their job will be to make sure that their first-hand experience – from working on the sharp-edge of the cost of living crisis and improving people’s access to housing, health, employment and services – better informs regional decision-making. This could include where buses run and how much they cost; which homes get free energy-saving measures to bring down bills; and how skills funding is targeted to help those furthest away from the labour market get into well-paid jobs.

The group will be chaired by Alison Haskins, Chief Executive of the Halifax Opportunities Trust – the Calderdale-based charity founded by local residents in 2002, which runs business centres, adult learning and employment support services out of Park and Town wards in Halifax.

The West Yorkshire VCSE Advisory Group will:

Shape regional priorities from the start, working with the Mayor and the Combined Authority’s leadership rather than responding to decisions only after they are made

Speak for the whole sector – not for individual organisations – with members drawn from all five districts plus region-wide roles covering equalities, community wellbeing and funding

Test and challenge policies on transport, economic growth, housing, skills, climate action and safer communities to ensure they work for everybody

Carry community insight into the room so that regional decisions are better informed by what people are actually experiencing, from skills courses that aren’t tailored to individuals’ needs, to bus routes that don’t get people to the start of their shift on time, to homes that are cold and draughty and need cost-saving improvements urgently.

Members will also be offered mentoring and training to support them in the role.

The VCSE Advisory group makes West Yorkshire a national trailblazer ahead of government reforms. In July, the cabinet set out its plans to rewire the state, committing to good growth in every postcode delivered in partnership with the voluntary and community sector. It said it would replace tick-box consultation with new ways of bringing the public and civil society into policymaking, on the grounds that local leaders are better placed than Whitehall to deliver change.

A white paper setting out the full reforms is due this Autumn, but West Yorkshire has acted fast to become the first region in England to set out its plans for bringing the voluntary sector into its decision-making processes.