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A chance encounter for Cumbria Council for Voluntary Service pays off

Cumbria Council for Voluntary Service (Cumbria CVS) is, as you would expect, located in Cumbria, the second largest county in the UK in terms of its boundaries and probably one of the most difficult to travel around. Of course it is one of the most beautiful, containing the National Park of the Lake District. For some of those who live there though, the Park, whilst bringing tourism, does not help the local economy. The West coast areas are cut off by the mountains, hard to get to and so have struggled to maintain their industrial heritage after the mines closed. It is a county of wealth, second homes and retired people, but also a county of young people without jobs, with expensive housing and poor prospects.

Merger was the best way forward

Until 2007 there were five local CVSs in small towns serving the voluntary sectors around those neighbourhoods. At this time there was a realisation that it would be more cost effective to merge the organisation, to still provide bases in each of the five areas – Barrow people rarely go to Penrith, and Kendal folk may not get to Carlisle very often.

Using ISO9001 to drive efficiency and performance

Karen Bowen, Cumbria CVS Chief Officer, who spearheaded the merger, decided that to deliver a good service across the geography meant that the organisation had to have some sophisticated procedures and good IT links if it was going to work efficiently. She embarked on encouraging staff that they should go for ISO9001. ISO9001 is the widely respected Quality Management standard designed to help organisations formalise policies which relate to the business, how performance is monitored and particularly how they apply to customer need.

She knew this would not be easy. Staff were already feeling that they were stretched and of course the financial climate was getting more risky as the government changed. She was determined and had some staff who liked the discipline of working in this way.

A chance encounter pays off

Around this time her deputy, Chris Coombes, had a chance encounter on a train with Ann Martin of First Adapt, which led to her hearing about Knowledge Maps. She thought this would fit well with the issues Cumbria CVS were grappling with of making available information in an easy form, and aiding the ISO9001 process.

Cumbria CVS and First Adapt started working together. They tackled all the HR policies and procedures first. First Adapt already had a Map template for HR which they amended for Cumbria CVS, using the intuitive question and answer approach that First Adapt use for the maps, along with colour coding and graphical design.

As this was going on, Cumbria CVs had to make a further round of reorganisation with more staff having to leave. The Maps became more important as the source of knowledge in the organisation as some key staff left. Staff and Board were shown the Maps at an away day where again the ISO9001 plan was re-launched and feedback on the Maps was really positive.

Implementing Knowledge Maps provides consistency across the organisation

The decision was made to extend the Maps to cover all areas of the business and so further areas were built by First Adapt. The Map started to cover the whole range of work including Governance, IT, Development and Training, Projects, Volunteering and Health and Safety.

Cumbria CVS were then going to renew their web site and considered using the same technology to do this but in the end went to a third sector web supplier.

There is no intranet across the organisation and they were grappling with the problem many have of shared drives with lots of folders and a real difficulty finding anything. First Adapt suggested that they could help with this by making the front screen of the Map front the folders as well so it became the point of entry to everything on their systems.

For Cumbria CVS this has become a key part of the ISO9001 system and a mechanism for staff keeping up to date and working consistently across the various offices.Karen Bowen says ‘ We have really enjoyed being pioneers as a third sector organisation and will be telling others about First Adapt’

Sometimes travelling by train is a good way to go!