17th July 2006
The Committee stage for the Charities Bill progress in the House of Commons ended last Thursday (13th July). Read the Hansard record of the eight sittings.
To quote the Office of the Third Sector email update:
A number of amendments were made to the Bill in Committee, though none of them changed the Bill in any fundamental way. A new version of the Bill, as amended in Committee, will appear shortly.
The next stage in the Parliamentary process will be Report stage in the House of Commons. There will not be time to fit this in before Parliament’s summer break, which is due to start on 25 July and to run until 9 October. We therefore expect Report stage to take place in October and the remaining brief stages after that to be completed before the end of this Parliamentary session in November.
OTS also says that “the new Act will not take effect immediately after it has been passed by Parliament in November. Instead we will bring the various parts of it into force in sequence starting about two months after it has been passed by Parliament. The whole process of implementation is likely to take 18-24 months.” More details in October.
Posted in Legal and Regulatory | No Comments »
17th July 2006
Pilots allowing communities to create and share data about problems with their environments and local services are to be launched in September by the non-profit community think tank Proboscis (http://www.proboscis.org.uk).
More on what they call “public authoring of social knowledge” can be found at their Social Tapestries site, http://socialtapestries.net.
Posted in Housing, regeneration, Community, Rural, Environment, Care, Health, Welfare, Frontline Society, IT, Online | Comments Off
17th July 2006
‘Making the Case: Social Added Value Guide’ was launched at The Gathering in Glasgow last month. It has been developed to assist social enterprises and voluntary organisations within Scotland to understand and identify social added value tools to help secure investment or prove the impact from delivering public services. It can be downloaded from here (pdf, 665kb) - hard copy order details are also there.
A new web site from the New Economics Foundation explains how social enterprises and other mission driven organisations can measure what matters to them, prove their value and understand their impacts. The site, at http://www.proveandimprove.org, includes interactive tools such as impact mapping (http://www.proveandimprove.org/new/myimp/index.php) and a personal proving and improving toolkit space (http://www.proveandimprove.org/new/mytool/index.php).
Posted in Social Economy, Scotland, Management and Admin | No Comments »
17th July 2006
A new site from The Employers’ Forum on Disability aims to provide the tools needed to build a business case for employing disabled people and serving disabled customers.
The Realising Potential web site, at http://www.realising-potential.org, accompanies a publication of the same name.
Posted in Rights, support groups, Personnel and Volunteers | No Comments »
14th July 2006
An event marking the first anniversary of Community Interest Companies (CICs) legal model was hosted by the Social Enterprise Coalition this week.
Third Sector minister Ed Miliband was there to note that 344 CICs had been created, almost one for every day of the last 12 months: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/newsroom/news_releases/2006/060710_cic.asp.
Posted in Sector networks, Social Economy, Legal and Regulatory | No Comments »
14th July 2006
Volunteering England has launched a campaign around the Department of Work and Pensions guidance in its recent document covering volunteers on benefits, which seems to rule out these volunteers claiming lunch expenses (see earlier news items).
It is encouraging volunteers and volunteer-involving organisations to ask MPs to put their names to an Early Day Motion (EDM) tabled by Diane Abbott.
Posted in Sector networks, Personnel and Volunteers | No Comments »
14th July 2006
A Community Radio Toolkit web site, launching in September, is aiming to offer a range of communication and information facilities for community radio practitioners at every stage of the game, from organising the first RSL to running a full time station.
They are inviting input now to help shape this service - see http://www.communityradiotoolkit.com/toolkit/.
Posted in Community, Rural, Marketing and Media | No Comments »
14th July 2006
The Commission for Equality and Human Rights is seeking views on the service it can provide to employers to promote improved equality awareness and share good practice, once it is formally established next year.
No closing date given for the questionnaire, via http://www.cehr.org.uk/news/docview.rhtm/305435, but it has already been running for a month or so.
Posted in Rights, support groups, Personnel and Volunteers | No Comments »
14th July 2006
The Refugee Community Development Fund, which makes grants to organisations that work in the UK with refugees and refugee communities, including those that provide services to asylum seekers, is open for applications to 11th August.
See http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/lawandpolicy/refugeeintegration/funding/rcdf.
(Source: governmentfunding.org.uk)
Posted in Rights, support groups, Funding | No Comments »
14th July 2006
Long term investments through a flexible loan funding package for organisations in Communities First areas in Wales are available from a new Communities Investment Fund. Run by Wales Council for Voluntary Action with Development Trusts Association Wales and Wales Co-operative Centre, there are also grants to help organisations towards loan readiness.
See http://www.wcva.org.uk/grants/dsp_grant_scheme.cfm?display_sitetextid=64&grantid=19 for further details.
Posted in Sector networks, Community, Rural, Housing, regeneration, Wales, Funding | No Comments »
12th July 2006
A plan to pay retired volunteers for their efforts and to give tax breaks to volunteers still in the workforce is under consideration in Australia. World Volunteer Web item.
Posted in International, Personnel and Volunteers | No Comments »
12th July 2006
The Department for International Development needs better information on the effectiveness of civil society organisations (CSOs) in developing countries, and on the impact of its assistance, if it is to ensure aid is used as cost-effectively as possible. That’s according to a report from the National Audit Office out last week (7th July).
See http://www.nao.org.uk/pn/05-06/05061311.htm.
Posted in International, Frontline Society | No Comments »
