Coalition to undertake research for The Performance Hub

The Office of the Third Sector and the Treasury in its Third Sector Review have recently promoted the importance of the community sector and emphasised the role of anchor organisations in providing support to smaller community groups. Alongside this, community organisations are increasingly articulating their own needs and aspirations and are facing increasing demands to deliver services and take key roles in partnerships and community empowerment. Yet their performance needs have not been comprehensively mapped or addressed, nor has the extent to which they could benefit from national support services in this area.

The work will be delivered by three of the Coalition's members: Community Matters, CLES and TPAS and it will:

1. Enable community organisations to reflect on what they need to achieve more and more effectively and identify how this may be different to the needs of the more formalised voluntary sector.

2. Look at what initiatives have worked/are working around performance management, planning etc with the community sector.

3. Examine the role of community sector infrastructure organisations at national, local and neighbourhood level in leading and supporting performance improvement.

4. Assess the scale of unmet need in this area amongst community organisations in relation to their access to relevant support.

5. Consider the role of national programmes in meeting this need through generalist and specialist infrastructure providers operating at all geographical levels.