Information on responsibilities for the health and safety of agency workers has been published on the Business Link web site, http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1077243939.

The Charity Commission has launched a trial of an online ‘Knowledge Base’, a sort of structured FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). It also allows you to track enquiries, by setting up a simple User Account.

They are keen to get people to try out this facility. See http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/recent_changes/kbtrial.asp.

The latest volunteering standard, to encourage best practice in employee volunteering programmes, is Investing in Volunteers for Employers.

Developed by Volunteering England, there is a dedicated web site at http://iive.investinginvolunteers.org.uk.

Yesterday (26th June) the Charities Bill finally reached its second reading stage in the House of Commons. This debate gives a good view of the MPs and political parties concerns and likely actions in the remaining stages - committee consideration and Third Reading.

The Hansard record of the debate can be read online. Your editor listened/watched most of it on ParliamentLive.tv (and it should be viewable in archive for a while), but managed to miss both Hilary Armstrong’s introductory speech and Ed Miliband’s winding-up. So maybe more comments later.

The Conservative opposition had some constructive suggestions, from the viewpoint of the sector, such as wanting a suitors fund so charities didn’t have to to use charitable money to take case against the Charity COmmission to the new tribunal. However they also repeatedly expressed concerns about the public benefit test in respect of education and religion in an unhelpful manner.

The Committee stage is timetabled to finish by 13th July. As the summer recess isn’t due to start until 25th July, there is a possibility that the Third Reading (final stage) won’t have to wait until parliament returns in the autumn.

The transcript of Third Sector Minister Ed Miliband’s speech to last week’s Three Sector Summit (22nd June) is now available from the Cabinet Office site (in pdf, Word or RTF formats, although they’ve got the link titles wrong).

His introduction includes a bit of a summary of his approach:

” My argument then is as follows:
— first, the third sector is helping transform the landscape of our society and challenging both private and public sectors on a range of fronts from service delivery to campaigning for social justice.
— second, there are new challenges we face today which call for the skills of the third sector and to deploy those talents to the full, we need clarity about the respective contributions of private, public and third sectors
—third, the sector can contribute to public service improvement in three clear ways: in partnership with the public and private sector, helping mainstream lessons back into the public sector and as a source of voice demanding improvement in public services
— fourth, my role in government, in the new Office of the Third Sector, will be determinedly to break down the barriers that exist to the third sector fulfilling its potential to contribute in these three ways. This will lead to an Action Plan in the Autumn.”

Care homes and other care services are failing to apply safe vetting procedures and good recruitment practices for staff, according to a report from the Commission for Social Care Inspection.

‘Safe and sound?’ looks in depth at the reasons certain services are failing to meet national minimum standards. http://www.csci.org.uk/about_csci/news/care_services_failing_to_check.aspx.

A new ‘toolkit’ has been published by National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (was NACVS) with the Audit Commission, to encourage a standardised and common approach to producing local voluntary and community sector databases and sector profiling.

‘Getting to know your local voluntary and community sector’ is part of an NACVA-led project to develop such ‘community mapping’ which can contribute to the Audit Commission’s Area Profiles work and demonstrate the contribution that voluntary and community groups make to the provision of local services and the local quality of life. See http://www.navca.org.uk/stratwork/localgov/areaprofiles/.

A new booklet published by the Economic and Social Research Council, ‘Faith-based voluntary action’, says that attempts to get faith groups involved in the wider community can lead to cynicism among members unless carefully handled.

Press release, including link to report in pdf format, at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/PO/releases/2006/june/faith.aspx.

A ten day ‘Certificate in Campaigning’ course to improve participants’ campaign planning, delivery, evaluation and strategic thinking skills is being launched by NCVO’s Campaigning Effectiveness Programme (http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/CE/) with the help of Westminster Explained.

See http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/ce/index.asp?id=2845&menuId=346 - although course details are meant to be at http://www.campaigningeffectiveness.org.uk the site wasn’t operative at time of writing.

CORRECTION, 6th August: that last website with the course details is actually at http://www.effectivecampaigning.org.uk.

Volunteering England has provided more information on the implications of the lunch expenses issue for volunteers who are benefit claimants (see earlier news item).

They give 5 options for organisations faced with this situation but doesn’t endorse any of them given the hopefully temporary nature of the problem, while they seek clarification from the Department of Work and Pensions.

A raft of press releases or copies of speeches concerning voluntary sector involvement in service delivery, from government ministers including Tony Blair, have been released in connection with yesterday’s Future Service Network Three Sectors conference (22nd June).

The Prime Minister’s press notice starts: “Partnerships between private firms, the public sector and voluntary organisations are a great way to deliver better-focused and cost-effective public services”. And in his introduction to a Question and Answer session, he concludes with:

“So what we want to do very simply is to work with you to sort out what are the remaining issues that we need to get right, things like you know the long term funding and so on, what are the things that we need to do as I say in a sense to harness the energy, and potential, and creativity of the sector, and what are the things you need to do with us in order to deliver the best for the people that we all of us in different ways want to serve. That is the purpose of it.

“And the reason why I wanted to come along today was to say this is for us a priority. The reason we have a Minister with the very specific and special responsibility is because we consider it a priority, and we want to in a sense up our game across the whole of this area and do it in a very decisive way over the time to come.”

Elsewhere:

DH invites social entrepreneurs to improve services
“Social entrepreneurs are to help create new ways to provide choice in health and social care, thanks to a new unit established today in the Department of Health.

“The new Social Enterprise Unit will encourage innovation and entrepreneurialism in health and social care and pave the way for new services which better meet patients and service users’ needs.”

New measures to strengthen third sector’s role in local service delivery - Department for Communities and Local Government. Local Government Minister Phil Woolas outlines measures to strengthen the sector’s relationship with local government, and explore new and growth areas for the sector.

The Prime Minister also announced that the Department of Health will undertake a radical review of community equipment and wheelchair services – the Transforming Community Equipment Services Project – helping to make independence a reality – with the objective of developing a new model of service delivery in collaboration with all key stakeholders.

And we almost missed Department of Education and Skills, Dhanda outlines Third Sector action:

Children’s Minister Parmjit Dhanda announced a £3m programme to increase the involvement of local groups in children’s trusts development and decision making, and to improve local groups’ competitiveness when bidding for children’s services contracts.

Known as the Third Sector Capacity Building Programme, it will be led through a consortium of voluntary sector and social enterprises, chaired by Paul Ennals of the National Children’s Bureau.

He also announced the Department will be holding its first Third Sector Forum for children and young people’s services next month.

Dame Suzi Leather, currently chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, is to take over from Geraldine Peacock as chair of the Charity Commission on 1st August. Read press release.

Her biography on HFEA site (link located by Charity Blogger - thanks).