The new weekly (?) email Charity News Alert from Plaza Publishing (Charity Finance, Professional Fundraising, Governance magazines) reports that the Charity Commission believes that the £10,000 turnover threshold at which charities must have their accounts independently examined is too low, and is to consult on a higher level early next year.

http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/charitynewsalert/threshold.asp.

Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, marked National Giving Week by announcing plans to establish a new centre of excellence to lead research into philanthropy and charitable giving. This will involve a partnership of the Office of the Third Sector with Carnegie UK Trust, Economic & Social Research Council and the Scottish Executive.

http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=234677&NewsAreaID=2

Our national attitude to risk is becoming defensive and disproportionate; the way we try to manage risk is leading to regulatory overkill. That’s the line from the Better Regulation Commission, set up by the government, with their first report, ‘Whose Risk Is It Anyway?’,

Writing in Society Guardian, BRC chief executive Lynne Berry says that the call for “something to be done” (about a headline grabbing hazard) should be answered by saying: “Hang on, what’s the evidence? What’s the best way to respond? What are the trade-offs? What legislation or regulation already exists? Where should responsibility for managing this risk lie?”.

See her article at http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,1924337,00.html, or get the report from http://www.brc.gov.uk/publications/risk_report.asp.

Third Sector reports that the charity regulators across Britain and Ireland have had an inaugural meeting of a forum to help establish a consistent approach to regulation.

As both Northern Ireland and Eire have yet to pass laws to set up independent regulators, the sponsoring government ministries were represented instead.

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/charity_news/full_news.cfm?ID=20264.

The introductory factsheet on ‘Discipline and grievances at work’ from personnel professional body CIPD has been updated. It covers good practice in handling disciplinary and grievance issues and the statutory procedures.

http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/emplaw/discipline/disciplingrievprocs.htm.

A Get On Board trustee recruitment campaign starts in January, run by the Governance Hub in partnership with the Charity Commission and Volunteering England. They are urging voluntary and community organisations to register their trustee vacancies in readiness, via http://www.do-it.org.uk/needvolunteers.

There is also a Trustee Recruitment Toolkit which sets out a 10 step process, with case studies and checklists making the 66 pages much less daunting than it sounds. Order or download (pdf, 290kb).

The Charity Commission has agreed to registered charity CfBT Education Trust (formerly the Centre for British Teachers) paying five of its 12 board members. Third Sector magazine reports that this could pave the way for wider payment of trustees in large charities. CfBT has an income of £143 million and already pays its chair.

Other charities are already lined up to follow this precedent, according to Acevo. http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/charity_news/full_news.cfm?ID=20337.

The Charity Commission is consulting on new draft guidance ‘Charities and Public Service Delivery’. Replacing the previous CC37 ‘Charities and Contracts’, it is “a complete revision in a new format, reflecting the Commission’s new understanding of the law, changes within the charitable sector and changes in the relationship between charities and the public sector.” Section headings include Understanding the risks, The legal framework, Stick to your mission, Guard your independence and Know your worth.

Consultation runs to 5th January. http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/enhancingcharities/consultcc37.asp.

There were a number of misleading headlines around the recent European Court of Justice case which discussed employee pay levels being related to length of service. So Sandy Adirondack’s Legal Update clarifies what the real position is. http://www.sandy-a.co.uk/employment.htm#equalpay-cadman.

Groups in London now have access to a specialist legal adviser who can help on leases, licences, contracts, commercial agreements, constitutions and related commercial matters. This is a 12 month pilot scheme funded by the London Development Agency. See LVSC news item at http://www.lvsc.org.uk/templates/information.asp?NodeID=93330.

SlideShare is a new web site for sharing Powerpoint and Open Office slide shows. The site converts uploaded files “to a slick flash player” according to Nonprofit Online News. Currently you have to request an invitation before you can access - it is at ‘beta’ stage and obviously wants to manage demand.

Worth a go if you have a need for distributing presentations. http://slideshare.net.

A number of items on ICT and participation seem to fit together:

– A recent discussion day on social networking, ICT and the voluntary and community sector run by NCVO’s ICT Foresight project. Read about it on their blog, or see the ongoing discussion blog at http://www.mediablends.net.

– ‘ICT, Social Capital and Voluntary Action‘ has been published by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of a series of seminars examining different aspects of participation.

– In most online systems, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action. That’s the intro to ‘Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute’ from usability expert Jakob Nielsen. Seeing ‘activist’ feedback as representative is a trap to avoid. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html.