What role does the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector play in tackling economic inactivity across the North East, and what would enable it to contribute more effectively?
These questions were at the heart of VONNE’s work as part of the North East Economic Inactivity Trailblazer.
Commissioned by the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority (North East MSA), VONNE’s role was to understand the contribution VCSE organisations are already making, identify the barriers limiting their impact, and develop practical resources to strengthen partnership working between the VCSE sector and the Mayoral Strategic Authority.
Our research has now been published as part of the wider Year 1 research programme reports.
Read VONNE’s Economic Inactivity Trailblazer research here
A significant contribution, rooted in communities
The project brought together sector engagement, analysis of the findings and co-design of system-level solutions, with each stage building on the insights gained from the last.
We began by mapping VCSE employment provision across the region, identifying 120 organisations providing dedicated employment support across the North East MSA region. Spanning all local authority areas, this demonstrated the breadth of the sector’s contribution, while also highlighting gaps in provision and the pressures that short-term funding can place on organisational sustainability.
We wanted to understand the experience behind the data, so we heard from organisations through one-to-one conversations, supplementary surveys and the North East Skills, Inclusion & Employment Network. A series of themed workshops brought organisations together to explore the particular challenges and opportunities across urban, rural and coastal communities, helping us build a richer picture of how economic inactivity is experienced in different places.
Organisations talked about the importance of trust, relationships and local knowledge. They described how providing services rooted in their communities enables them to reach people who may not engage with mainstream provision and provide support that takes account of the wider issues affecting someone’s ability to work.
They are also doing something that can be easy to overlook, helping people navigate the system itself. One phrase shared through our engagement captured the approach organisations want to see across the wider system: “our customer, not my customer.” It reflects a simple but important principle, a person’s journey towards employment doesn’t stop when they move between services or organisations, and neither should the support they receive.
The challenges within the current system
The research also identified significant barriers that prevent the sector realising its full potential.
Fragmented pathways across employment, skills, health and wider support can make it difficult for people to navigate services. VCSE organisations often fill these gaps through informal coordination and relationship-based referrals, but this work is not always recognised or resourced.
“We see a lot of hopping around provision. There’s no tracking of people through the system, so we don’t know what’s worked, what hasn’t, or where people drop off.”
Short-term funding was another consistent concern we heard. Organisations told us that six- or twelve-month funding cycles make it difficult to retain experienced staff and build the long-term relationships needed to support people facing complex barriers.
“Six months is too short. By the time trust is built, the funding is ending and the people’s issues don’t disappear when the contract does.”
Commissioning and procurement processes can also disproportionately disadvantage smaller, locally rooted organisations, while geographic differences mean that a model that works in an urban area may not work in the same way in a rural or coastal community.
These aren't simply challenges for individual organisations to solve. They point to wider questions about how the system is designed, funded and commissioned. While these challenges are experienced locally, our research also found that many of their underlying causes sit at a national level, shaped by funding, commissioning and policy arrangements. This means that some changes can be made regionally, while others require wider policy change.
Four recommendations for a stronger system
Based on the evidence gathered throughout the project, we set out four recommendations to strengthen and reform the system approach to addressing economic inactivity:
1. Develop a “No Wrong Door” approach to access and navigation: People should be able to access the support they need regardless of where they first enter the system, with clearer pathways and shared responsibility for helping people navigate employment, health and skills support.
2. Reform commissioning and investment: Commissioning should be more inclusive, transparent and proportionate, with VCSE organisations involved earlier in programme design and funding approaches that enable a diverse range of organisations to participate.
3. Strengthen VCSE infrastructure, capacity and collaboration: The role of VCSE infrastructure in connecting organisations, communities and decision-makers should be recognised, alongside creating better conditions for organisations to collaborate and participate in the wider system.
4. Embed outcomes-focused accountability and continuous learning: We need to look beyond short-term outputs towards meaningful outcomes, with stronger feedback and learning between strategy, commissioning and frontline delivery.
Together, these recommendations offer a practical route towards longer-term system reform, with each recommendation reinforcing the others.
Alongside these recommendations, we also produced a Roles and Responsibilities Framework, Theory of Change and Practice Change Toolkit, providing practical resources to support stronger partnership working, more inclusive commissioning and better programme design.
Our hope is that these resources will be useful to the North East MSA, commissioners and VCSE organisations as the Trailblazer and wider work on economic inactivity develops.
Thank you
Above all, thank you to the VCSE organisations that contributed to this work.
Whether you took part in a themed workshop, shared your experience through a conversation or survey, contributed a case study, engaged through the Skills, Inclusion & Employment Network or helped us test and refine our findings, your contribution shaped this research.
The consistency of what we heard across different organisations, communities and parts of the North East was one of the most striking findings of the project. It reinforced just how much expertise, community knowledge and trusted relationships already exist within the sector.
The publication of the research marks the end of this phase of the project, but not the end of the conversation. We’ll continue to share updates on relevant developments as the Trailblazer progresses and as we learn more about how the recommendations and resources are taken forward.
For us, the value of this work will ultimately be measured not simply by the reports themselves, but by whether they help support better conversations, stronger partnerships and a shared commitment to improving outcomes for people and communities.
You can read the full VCSE Sector System Reform research, including the findings, recommendations and practical resources, on the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority website: Read the Economic Inactivity Trailblazer research
If you’d like to find out more or discuss the findings and recommendations, get in touch with us by contacting our Policy Manager, Siobhan Flynn at siobhan.flynn@vonne.org.uk.