• Home
• About Us
• Find Your Local Age Concern
• Services
• Contact

The increasing emphasis on the Personalisation Agenda and the publication of the Strategic Commissioning Strategies, demonstrated the need for the Age UKs in North Yorkshire to be responsive and ready for change.

All the Age UKs in North Yorkshire have a successful track record of offering quality services at a local level but would be unable in their current structures, to manage larger contracts over a wider geographical area.  All of the Age UKs recognise the need to develop a more collaborative approach on a sub-regional basis which would deliver a more efficient service for service users whilst reducing costs and time in tendering and delivering a countywide service.

Following the collaborative work undertaken over the last 2-3 years by the Age UKs in North Yorkshire, the support to form a new countywide collaborative has materialised into forming a co-operative consortium – REACT – (Reaching Everybody Age Concerns Together) – and this was registered in May 2010.  The cooperative model creates a tremendous opportunity as a vehicle through which the cooperative members can share information and good practice, share risks, share assets, increase their buying power, and secure sustainable funding.  Members maintain their individual identities but local knowledge can be retained and developed further within the cooperative model.  The decision to form the cooperative followed consideration of other options eg. merger, and was greatly assisted by discussions with the pAsCal model in Lincolnshire.  The need to pilot different collaborative models is important in the changing world and with the added complications of working in a 2-tier local authority area, the Age UKs in North Yorkshire want to ensure they can be fit for purpose and become a serious service provider on a countywide basis.

The initial work to establish "REACT" to be a cooperative which can provide adult services and care across North Yorkshire, was undertaken by all the Age UKs in North Yorkshire.  We wish to have a countywide structure which provides the flexibility to remain independent but which will also enable the Age UKs to create a highly influential organisation supporting older people in the County.

A partnership approach to tendering has already been identified by Commissioners as favourable, with the strengths, skills, knowledge and experience of each member of the cooperative giving Age UKs an edge over other organisations looking to possibly deliver similar services across North Yorkshire.  Working as a cooperative of member Age UKs across North Yorkshire, ensures that local knowledge (our biggest asset especially when delivering services in rural communities) can be retained and developed enabling the Age UKs to remain independent and yet joined together create a highly influential organisation for older people across the county.