Navca has published its analysis of the 74 successful Transforming Local Infrastructure bids, finding that 27 per cent plan to co-locate in knowledge-sharing or single-point-of-contact hubs.

The 74 bidders, groups of local support organisations in the voluntary sector covering 152 local authority areas, were chosen to share £30m of government funding administered by the Big Fund. The scheme aims to increase long-term sustainability of local infrastructure to reduce the burden on central government.

Navca's analysis, published this morning, outlines the proposals for how the bidders would do this, and showed that 27 per cent saw co-location as a way to improve efficiency. 

Sally Cooke, author of the report on Navca's behalf, said: "Around 20 partnerships are looking at potential co-location with local support and development organisation partners and/or other civil society organisations." She added that some intended to create a single point of access while others intented to create a voluntary sector community, business support or enterprise hub to share resources and improve networking.

Half said that they had "explicit plans" to develop a single point of access via a shared IT platform. 

Identifying community assets

A number of successful bidders were working on different community asset management systems, with one identifying how community assets could be more efficiently used as shared premises for the sector.

While a quarter discussed sharing assets, 40 per cent discussed an intention towards greater collaboration, integration or reconfiguration, which may or may not lead to merger. 

Some bids identified that sharing their buildings with others in the sector could also be a source of income generation.  

Income generation is described as a "key feature" of the bids, with the majority advising they would look at increasing fundraising activity or develop and market saleable services.

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