DORSET Council is to re-tender a £90,000 per year contract to supply services to the county’s voluntary sector after failing to find a bidder which met its criteria.

It will mean a re-write of one part of the infrastructure support contract which may split some sections into small, more manageable, units – before going out to tender again.

A part of the contract, for training and support for community groups, has been awarded to Dorset Community Action while another contract, for advice and guidance services, has gone to the Dorset Citizens Advice Bureaux. The organisational support contract for the whole council area will be re-advertised, once re-written. It is currently being operated, until the end of September, by Dorset Community Action, based in Dorchester.

Dorset councillors heard at a meeting on Monday that the past 18 months had underlined the importance of volunteers, the voluntary sector and community groups in the county – working with the council and others.

Dorset Council is now seeking to get these arrangements on a more formal basis while also giving the organisations goals to work towards and the security of contracts, which in some cases, will last up to five years.

Many voluntary organisations have said in the past that one of their main problems was the difficulty in forward planning when they were on annual funding arrangements.

Around 150 grants, across a range of organisations, has been awarded by Dorset Council to help organisations during the pandemic and Covid recovery period amounting to around £1.2million.

Dorchester councillor Molly Rennie told the people and health scrutiny committee that many communities were grateful for the help they had received especially the more recent funding which had allowed the re-opening of many village halls and, with that, the restart of many village organisations which use the halls.

Further work is planned to improve broadband connections to some halls and to also find ways of improving transport to and from village halls in area where there is no bus service.

The meeting heard that some youth groups had not responded to an invitation to apply for grants and were being contacted again to ensure that they did not miss funding which might be needed.