A step by step ‘Practice guide to making referrals to the POVA list’ (protection of vulnerable adults) to help care providers stamp out abuse by workers has been produced.

On the Social Care Institute for Excellence site via http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/practiceguides/practiceguide07/index.asp.

Consultancy nfpSynergy has put together a collection of mission statements, visions, values and straplines of over 80 charities, titled Mission Impossible. They highlight what they think are examples of those getting it right, and a ’simple guide to creating a powerful vision and mission’.

Your editor isn’t convinced that every organisation needs the full set of six elements they discuss, but it’s definitely a good source of ideas. Registration required to download, from http://www.nfpsynergy.net/freereports - summary is 173kb pdf, main report 1.04Mb.

‘A Guide to Volunteering While on Benefits’ is the new guidance from the Department of Work and Pensions (and Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland) that we couldn’t find 2 weeks ago.

It runs to 49 pages and is in pdf format, 699kb, at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/volunteering. Written (mostly) in plain English, there is still room for interpretation for example around weekly allowances for full-time volunteers. (Thanks to UKVPM list)

The Scottish charity regulator OSCR has drafted a statement to clarify the current position regarding trustee remuneration and Trustee Indemnity Insurance.

The Commission on Urban Life and Faith, initiated by the Church of England to consider the significant features of life in urban communities and the church’s engagement with them 20 years on from the landmark Faith in the City report, has published its conclusions.

‘Faithful Cities’, in summary or full, can be downloaded (or ordered) from http://www.culf.org.uk/content_1.0.asp?p=1. New Start news item: http://www.newstartmag.co.uk/news962.html.

The Treasury document, ‘Improving financial relationships with the third sector: Guidance to funders and purchasers’, originally issued in September 2003, has been revised and relaunched. The summary includes the statement that “Longer term planning and funding arrangements can often represent better value for money than one year funding agreements.” Both the summary and full report can be found online. Also see Regen.net news item, or Acevo news via http://www.acevo.org.uk.

Public sector workers responsible for financial relationships with the third sector should also be pointed in the direction of the Decision Support Tool from the National Audit Office, which helps with the design of appropriate funding models - http://www.nao.org.uk/better%5Ffunding/.

‘Closer to People and Places - a new vision for local government’, just produced by the Local Government Association, includes a section on “working with the voluntary and community sectors – building social capital”.

To quote part:
“.. We support moving to full cost recovery as quickly as possible, and propose that all councils should routinely address three-year contracts to allow the voluntary and community sector to plan ahead. Procurement practices should be reviewed to ensure they are proportionate to the type and size of contract. For its part, the voluntary and community sector needs to do more to address the challenges associated with governance, probity and financial stewardship for smaller voluntary organisations and less formally established community groups.”

News coverage on eGov monitor at http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/6090, or get the publication and associated documents at http://www.lga.gov.uk/Publication.asp?lSection=0&id=SXC0A5-A783A761.

The first speech from Ed Miliband as Minister for the Third Sector, to sector representatives at a Downing Street reception recently can be read on the Senscot web site at http://www.senscot.net/view_art.php?viewid=4669. (Thanks to Voluntary Arts Network for the link).

The Prime Minister’s appointment letter to Ed’s boss, Hilary Armstrong, setting out challenges and priorities for the Cabinet Office as a whole, is available via http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/reports/hilary_armstrong_letter/, along with her response. The new Office of the Third Sector is the second area mentioned, and “needs to have a strong influence across Whitehall and to enjoy the confidence of the sector.”

The speech by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Timms, on the launch of the policy review into the third sector’s role in regeneration (which feeds into the Comprehensive Spending Review reporting next summer) is online here.

Regeneration and Renewal magazine has reported that the next tranche of money for Futurebuilders, the investment body for the English voluntary sector “has been held back amid rumours that it could allocated elsewhere”.

Apparently they are currently underspending funds already agreed up to next year.

New Charity Commission research has revealed that just over two thirds of charities don’t have complaints procedures in place, leaving many charities with no formal way to discover whether users are unhappy with their services. Even more worrying perhaps is that 80% of charities without procedures said they didn’t need one (Editor: obviously they had found the elusive source of perfection).

The ‘Cause for Complaint?’ report, published 24th May, is online at http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publications/rs11.asp. It includes best practice examples found during the research plus a checklist of issues to consider. See the diary section below for details of a Charity Complaints Forum event which will be discussing this matter further. Society Guardian comment from a charity volunteer and service user at http://society.guardian.co.uk/voluntary/story/0,,1781309,00.html.

Gabbly lets you add a chat window to any web page, just by putting ‘gabbly.com/’ in front of the address. It’s still being developed but seems quite usable as is. There’s even an RSS feed you can grab.

A couple of things to note - it is public, so in theory anyone can join in (but how would they know what address was being gabbly’d?) and there are sounds triggered by posts etc. http://home.gabbly.com.

(Source: NetSquared)

Google Trends, new from Google Labs, allows you to track individual search terms over time, or make comparisons of popularity.

For instance, see this chart of ‘voluntary sector’ and ‘third sector’. In addition, you get a geographic breakdown (although this is unlikely to be totally accurate), which in this case shows that the two terms are neck and neck in India!