Read our new Introduction to the Sunderland Compact for a simple overview of the agreement.

Documents
The Sunderland Compact and six of its supporting Codes of Practice have now been endorsed by the Delivery and Improvement Board of the Sunderland Partnership.

Sunderland Compact

Voluntary and Community Groups Code of Practice

Disabilities Code of Practice

Older People Code of Practice

Funding and Procurement Code of Practice

Involvement and Consultation Code of Practice

Volunteering Code of Practice

Work is continuing to develop further codes of practice for other equalities issues such as youth, gender and faith. If you would like to be involved in their development please contact Compact@sunderland.gov.uk

History
The Sunderland Compact provides a framework to improve partnership working between voluntary and community sector organisations in Sunderland and organisations of the Sunderland Partnership. It is based on the model of the national Compact and builds on previous Compact experiences in Sunderland – the Health and Social Care Compact and the original Sunderland Compact.

The Compact recognises the complementary role and diversity of organisations across the Voluntary and Community Sector, the value of the sector in the development and delivery of policy and services, the critical role of the sector, and the importance of its continued independence.

The Sunderland Compact has been under development since July 2007 – a process which involved representatives from both the Voluntary and Community Sector and from organisations of the Sunderland Partnership. Consultation on the documents has taken place throughout the development process.

The Future
Once organisations become signatories to the Compact it can be used as a tool to help improve their relationship with other organisations across the City. The Compact details procedures which organisations can implement if they feel that there has been a breach of the Compact. However, we hope that organisations will be able to resolve disputes on an informal basis as the Compact will help organisations to work better together in the first instance.

We will be working with Compact signatories to help ensure that their organisation becomes Compact compliant. We are also working to ensure that the Compact is embedded within the structures of the Sunderland Partnership and is used to inform decision making and to achieve local and national performance indicators.

Sunderland Partnership, P.O. Box 100, Civic Centre, Burdon Road, Sunderland, SR2 7DN, Tel: 0191 561 1154