Increasingly public bodies e.g. local authorities, are encouraging community organisations to take on a greater role in providing services previously offered by local authorities and health services. More and more contractual arrangements are replacing grant funding as the main way of financing voluntary and community organisations.

FaithAction is Faithnetsouthwest is coming to the end of a three year project, funded by FaithAction (see www.faithaction.net ) to encourage faith groups to get more involved in tendering for public services, as well as promoting their potential role as a service provider.  FaithAction is a national organisation funded by the Government to raise the profile of faith groups in the contract tendering process, both as actual or potential service providers.. To see more on Faithnetsouthwest’s work this work on this project, see:  (attach stuff on contracts for public services).

Faithnetsouthwest is working with the Care Services Improvement Partnership (see www.csip.org.uk) to provide  more information on who the relevant commissioners are across our region and how faith groups can find out more information about the commissioning process and also how they can receive details of available tenders on public services.