About the Swindon COMPACT

Compact is a partnership between government and the voluntary and community sector to improve their relationship to the benefit of both parties, and was adopted by Parliament in 1998.  The government set a target for Local Authorities to develop Local Compacts by April 2004.

Between October 2002 and April 2003 officers in the Council with responsibility for managing funding to the voluntary sector engaged in a series of meetings with representatives from the voluntary and community sector with a view to developing a Funding Compact, covering the relationship between the Council as a funder and the voluntary groups who receive such funding.

Shortly after that, the Council’s Chief Executive received correspondence from key voluntary agencies in Swindon suggesting that it would have been more appropriate to develop a Local Compact, describing the relationship between all public authorities and the voluntary and community sector, which would then be underpinned by separate Codes of Good Practice for:

• Funding
• Consultation
• Black and minority ethnic groups
• Volunteering
• Community groups

A working group, chaired by the Chief Executive of Voluntary Action Swindon, was set up to develop a Local Compact for Swindon including Councillor Dart, representatives from SBC, as well as representatives from the Primary Care Trust, the Learning & Skills Council, the police, parish councils and key voluntary groups.

Swindon Borough Council adopted the Swindon Compact at Full Council on 27 January 2005.  This was followed up by a launch event in the Council Chamber in March of that year attended by over 50 organisations.  Whilst this was outside of the Government deadline, it was thought better to develop Compact through a proper consultative process that everyone is ‘signed up to’ rather than have a document that means nothing gathering dust on the shelf.

Following the launch of the Swindon Compact, all five Codes of Practice were finalised and the Compact Working Group now exists as the Compact Implementation Group.  The role of this group is to develop a work plan to implement the Swindon Compact’s commitments, and also as a mediation body that will advise in cases where Compact has been breached.

Please contact Paula Harrison if you require further information or have any questions:

Paula Harrison
Community Support Manager
01793 466418
pharrison@swindon.gov.uk

To view Compact and the associated Codes of Practice, please follow the links below:

The Swindon Compact 08 (32K PDF)

Community Groups Code of Practice 08 (70K PDF)

Consultation Code of Practice 08 (20K PDF)

Funding Code of Practice 08 (58K PDF)

Volunteering Code of Practice 08 (44K PDF)

The Black and Ethnic Minorities Code of Practice 08 (17KB PDF)