St. Paul's Community Development Trust - St. Paul's Community Trust

Central and Community Services
The new structure of Central and Community Services has
benefited from the Trust’s overall re-organisation, separating
the role of Chief Executive from that of Head of Central
Services for the first time. The aim is to increase the potential
for specialist expertise while maintaining co-ordination and
projects with partners.
year. The 18-month programme, which earned in excess of
£1,000,000, saw the Trust supporting twenty organisations
in their own development as social enterprises. This work
kept the members of the finance team suitably busy for the
Central and Community Services illustrates clearly the
neighbourhood-wide work of St. Paul’s. Some services have
been developed over many years, some are still developing.
Work is sometimes for the whole area, sometimes for
particular agencies. At the same time a good deal of work
is mainly for departments of the Trust, which pay for it as part
of the cost of their own work.
life of the project. Our participation in this European Regional
Development Fund programme (managed overall by
Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry) enabled
the Trust to develop its own capacity to provide other
organisations with services.
The areas of work covered by Central and Community
Services include: finance, personnel, payroll, administration
and reception, premises management and maintenance,
ICT, marketing and publishing, organisation of events,
training and volunteer provision, managing the Community
Punishment contract with the Probation Service, the Urban
Farm and recycling, as well as various kinds of co-ordination
and development.
The successful completion of the REALISE Social Enterprise
Microcluster project was something of a highlight in the
The 2008 annual staff conference was one of the most
successful events we have held. This was reflected in
feedback from participants. The event supported the
preparation of the Business and Development Plan.
The teamwork displayed by departmental and interdepartmental
groups was a testament to the effectiveness
of the Trust’s restructuring programme. The conference was
held at the Saffron Centre, a local venue which is run as a
social enterprise.
We have now completed the work of coordinating the
production of the 2009-14 Business and Development Plan.
It sets out a wide range of challenging and exciting targets
for development of individual departments and the Trust as
10 St. Paul’s Community Development Trust