The PCO Programme of Events is making considerable progress. Thursday sees the event in Newcastle where we are delighted that delegates will be joined by Rob Wormwald who is the Head of Commercial Employment Provision at the DWP. This provides an opportunity to gain information about DWP programmes directly from the official responsible for the delivery of major programmes such as FND.

Bookings for coming events continue to flow in. The Birmingham event is now definitely fully booked. The situation at the Manchester event is similar. This event is now also fully booked.

As always we are grateful to NAVCA for their support in publicising the PCO events. This is an enormous help. We should make it clear that this programme is designed for the very small organisations as well as the larger providers. The new approach being adopted by the DWP and increasingly by Local Authorities is called the "Supply Chain". This offers opportunities for very small as well as medium sized organisations to tender for contracts to larger companies and charities further up the chain. But, as with all business, the main message is that the first ones into the market usually get the work! The PCO programme is an incredible learning opportunity at £35.25 per person, also for organisations to establish possibilities for future business at an early stage in the process.