Organisations in South Tyneside were sent a questionnaire recently by Tyne and Wear Infrastructure Consortium about the use of information services in the area. 193 were issued and 38 were returned.

The results of the questionnaire are listed below.  NOTE: where respondents were invited to choose one option, some chose two or more and others may have omitted information.  This means that where a total percentage of 100% may be expected, this may show a variation.

16% of respondents indicated their head office/main area of activity was in South Tyneside

9% of respondents had used the CVS for advice/information/support in the past two years.

The top five types of advice/information/support recently or currently used are funding advice/income generation (47%), volunteers/volunteering (34%), constitutions (26%), liaising with other voluntary organisations (18%), skills development training (18%)

The top five types of advice/information/support paid for are funding advice/income generation (13%), business planning(8%), constitutions (8%), employment law (5%), financial services(payroll) (5%), skills development training (5%).

The top three types of advice/information/support accessed weekly are liaising with other voluntary organisations (5%), events (3%), marketing and publicity (3%). (Generally services were not accessed weekly)

The top two types of advice/information/support accessed bi-monthly are events(3%), volunteers/volunteering(3%). (Generally services were not accessed bi-monthly.

The top five types of advice/information/support accessed monthly are liaising with other voluntary organisations (8%), funding advice/income generation (5%), financial services (payroll) (5%), government policy (learning and employment) (5%), procurement (5%), volunteers/volunteering (5%)

The top five types of advice/information/support accessed quarterly are funding advice/income generation (13%), skills development training (11%),
Volunteers/volunteering (8%), business planning (5%), contracts (5%), government policy (children and young people) (5%)

The top five types of advice/information/support accessed annually are constitutions (18%), funding advice/income generation (18%), volunteers/volunteering (13%), employment law (11%), health and safety (8%),
organisational structure (8%), trustee matters (8%)

Of the services accessed across South Tyneside, respondents indicated that the quality of one or more of the services they used was excellent (54%), good (38%), fair (6%), poor (2%).

The top ten types of advice/information/support anticipated in the future are:

Funding advice/income generation (42%)
Volunteers/volunteering (29%)
Liaising with other voluntary organisations (26%)
Skills development /training (21%)
Business planning (18%)
Constitutions (18%)
Marketing/publicity (18%)
Management support (16%)
Employment law (16%)
Financial management (16%)

In the next edition, South Tyneside CVS will publish the enquiry categories and numbers it dealt with as an organisation in 2008.