Regional

Regional Infrastructure Consortium (RIC) 

When ChangeUp was introduced to the region through the Government Office in 2004 VONNE was tasked with bringing together key agencies from all sectors as a decision-making body now known as the Region-wide Infrastructure Consortium (RIC). Membership of the consortium was based on ChangeUp Investment criteria and guidance and included Infrastructure organisations: Goverment Office North East (GONE,) One NorthEast, Association of North East Councils (ANEC), frontline voluntary and community sector organisations, Social Enterprise network, Funders Forum, sub-regional consortia reps, Learning and Skills Council (LSC), National Offender Management Service (NOMS), and Sport England. This group was originally formed in May 2004 to guide the Regional Level Infrastructure Research and was widened to form a consortium in October 2004.

The Consortium first met in November 2004 to identify the Regional priorities for infrastructure expenditure. The group identified three regional priorities: signposting, representation and good practice; and selected three national priorities: workforce development, ICT and Specialist Infrastructure. Early spend funding was allocated to research the state of the region. Following five interlinked pieces of research a development plan was written for the region and funding was selected for 14 projects to deliver in 2005.

View the Projects

 

New Consortium

The regional consortium was independently evaluated early in 2007, and as a result its structure and membership was radically revised. 

Regional Infrastructure Development Project (RIDP) Final Report (Word 189kB)

VONNE worked with partners across the region to develop a new and vibrant consortium with strong membership from regional organisations and networks across the third sector. The consortium comprises of regional organisations and networks and a full list of reps.

RIC Membership List (PDF 15kB)

The purpose of the new Regional Infrastructure Consortium is to identify infrastructure needs that can not be met a local level and/or are specific to regional organisations. It will recommend activities that will contribute to the improvement of infrastructure within the region to be fed into a Regional Infrastructure Strategy and Consortium members will agree a regional level business plan and priorities for region wide infrastructure services, allocate resources and feed into strategic regional structures.  The group will work alongside the sub-regional infrastructure consortia to influence policy makers through the Third Sector Strategic Partnership and to influence the creation of a regional meta-strategy.

In the summer of 2007 the newly formed RIC used a toolkit to assess the performance of the group. From this the consortium identified ways to improve and set targets to meet over the year.