Dear Friend

I am focusing my comments this month on an urgent issue facing Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) in London – premises. Please read on and give me some feedback from your experience of this issue.
Accessible and affordable – the big word here is “and”. For the last few months a growing group of organisations has been meeting to address the very serious issues faced by Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) in London in trying to marry these essential criteria.

The issue is bedevilled by Catch-22 challenges. Insecurity of funding – short term contracts and single year service level agreements – mean that organisations cannot sign up to longer and more cost-effective leases and lack bargaining power with landlords. DPOs require premises that are accessible but are frustrated that many funders are unaware of the extra cost this necessitates. Factors creating accessibility cover everything from where premises are sited, allowing good public transport access and a safe location, to reliable lifts and sufficient space (some new office development in the VCS does not provide the square footage that a wheelchair user needs, for example, and grants probably don't recognise the extra cost of this). At the same time as strategic development on premises in more general terms for the VCS has begun to bear fruit, a number of key DPOs in London have been facing crisis over their office accommodation.

Please take a look at a briefing paper on this topic and share it with colleagues. It is the product of a very constructive group which has sprung from Disability LIB Alliance and is serviced by London Voluntary Service Council. It has brought together DPOs and second tier organisations to look at how the issue can be tackled. It has already helped to raise awareness, and has made some new links between DPOs and mainstream voluntary sector support organisations. Community Matters has a mapping project on premises in London. The City Bridge Trust grants programme includes provision for access audits and capital grants to make building fully accessible to disabled people. The Premises and DPOs group has helped create linkages that share information like this.

I would be very pleased to hear examples of funders’ good practice that could be shared – borough reviews of their provision of premises for the VCS where access issues are understood, grants programmes which tackle this issue. Do email or call with any examples or questions you have on this so that we can play our part in finding ways in which the current crisis can be averted. And please do let me know how you use the briefng paper within your organisation.

With every good wish,
Gaynor Humphreys
gaynor@londonfunders.org.uk, 020 7255 4489