A Year of Collaboration: Reflections on 2025
As each calendar year comes to a close, I find myself in a reflective frame of mind. Maybe it’s the many versions of A Christmas Carol encouraging us all to reflect on our past and present and what they mean for the future (incidentally, Muppet Christmas Carol is the best and closest to the Dickens original, I’ll fight you on that), and maybe it’s the fact that 2025 has been a year of significant change for CVSCE, but I felt inspired to sum up our year. So grab a cup of tea and a mince pie, and I’ll take you on a short tour of the highlights of 2025 for CVS and the VCFSE sector in Cheshire East.
Collaboration has been the central theme of the year. We started discussions around collective procurement back in January, which led to more conversations around collaboration in challenging times at our AGM in May. We know that the financial challenges facing ourselves and the public sector are stark, and the only way we can best serve our communities is to work together, both as VCFSE and statutory organisations. We have continued to build our Alliances, with both the VCFSE Alliance and Healthy Young Minds Alliance events in November involving more statutory engagement than ever before. We have entered into an exciting new partnership with Cheshire & Wirral Partnership Trust, and are laying the groundwork for a new Adult Mental Health and Wellbeing Alliance to launch in the New Year.
As an infrastructure organisation, we are also building on our existing links with our colleagues across Cheshire and Warrington to strengthen the voice of the VCFSE sector in devolution. We worked collaboratively across the subregion to develop a VCFSE Manifesto for Devolution, and have secured the election of a VCFSE representative to the Shadow Combined Authority Board. This will be a major opportunity for the sector in 2026 as the Combined Authority constitutes and funding begins to flow: collaboration across a subregional footprint will require new ways of working together and thinking differently.
We have gathered insight from VCFSE organisations to feed into key local decision making bodies: our Knowing Our Communities survey highlighted the challenges many of you are facing, and the importance of co-designed, multi-year funding streams to improve sustainability and impact. This feedback directly impacted the design of the Cheshire East Council small grants programme in the Autumn, and is shaping the future of our collaborative work through the Growing Our Communities commission into 2026/27. We also sought your feedback on our training programme and have developed a number of new on-demand and live courses, including Neurodiversity in the Workplace which has been very popular.
We have welcomed several new colleagues, including a new Board Chair, Andy Speed, and myself as CEO back in the spring. We were also delighted to welcome Lisa Carden Doorey as Head of Sector Development and Corinna Parry as Sector Development Officer (Mental Health Alliances) in the autumn. We said a fond farewell to Martyn Hulme, our long-serving Board Chair, Kathryn Sullivan, our CEO, and Ange Richardson, who did fantastic work setting up the Healthy Young Minds Alliance and is now enjoying a well deserved retirement.
2025 has been a challenging year for our sector. The NHS shakeup has resulted in a great deal of uncertainty for our Integrated Care Board colleagues; financial challenges continue to impact NHS trusts, primary care providers and the local authority; and trust and foundation funding is scarcer than ever before. The autumn Budget offered some welcome news in the form of the removal of the two-child benefit cap, which was often noted as the single biggest barrier to eradicating child poverty. Investment in children’s social care and neighbourhood health hubs are also welcome and provide opportunities for some relief on front-line services and the possibility for increased collaboration. An increase in the minimum wage should be welcomed in light of the ongoing cost of living crisis, but many charities will be concerned about the impact of rising wages and frozen national insurance thresholds on their viability in the coming year.
So as we move into 2026, these challenges remain. We don’t have a simple solution (say, breaking into a vault in Nakatomi Plaza and showering local VCFSE groups with money), but opportunities are still out there: devolution; neighbourhood working; the NHS shifts from treatment to prevention and hospital to community; and the strength of our combined voice through alliances and collaboration.
I’m going to grab another mince pie and watch Alan Rickman fall off a building again – yes, Die Hard is my number one Christmas film, but if you’re more Home Alone, Elf or It’s A Wonderful Life then please enjoy. Our diversity as a sector is one of our great strengths.
On behalf of all at CVSCE, we wish you a happy and restful Christmas break, and we will see you in the New Year.
