This is a pack of 26 cards with illustrated explanations of some terms used in governance plus related questions or exercises to help reflection on how your board/committee operates.

Buy or download (pdf, 2.83MB) from the Governance Hub site.

‘Picture This’ is a practical guide for anyone in a leadership role interested in getting their organisation involved in strategic thinking and implementation. It looks at scenario planning, “a process of developing a view of alternative futures in order to craft a resilient strategy”. From NCVO in print, or large pdf download, from http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/publications/publication.asp?id=3534.

Nonprofit Online News has recently highlighted ‘What If? The Art of Scenario Thinking for Nonprofits’ - an American tool for motivating people to challenge the status quo, or get better at doing so. http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=32655.

The government has produced its definition of ‘carer’ that will be used for the right to request flexible working, which comes into effect from April 2007.  The definition covers “an employee who is or expects to be caring for an adult who:
- is married to, or the partner or civil partner of the employee; or
- is a near relative of the employee; or
- falls into neither category but lives at the same address as the employee.”

See press release at http://www.gnn.gov.uk/content/detail.asp?ReleaseID=240916&NewsAreaID=2 for what counts as ‘near relative’.

NICVA’s recent Salary Survey prompted some organisations to raise related personnel related issues, so a fact sheet has been produced to address these. They all seem to be common matters which would be relevant to the sector outside Northern Ireland too.

In pdf, 48kb, from http://www.nicva.org/index.cfm/section/news/key/hrfactsheet.

‘Rights and Responsibilities of Employees’ is a new official guide for both employers and employees, which is (according to a leading employment lawyer) “an extremely impressive summary of employment law: comprehensible, thorough and written in plain English.”

Recommended, although your editor can see the direct links to further detail becoming out-of-date all too soon. Covering contracts, pay, dismissal, parental rights, time off, complaints and more, it can be downloaded in pdf (96 pages but just 185kb) at http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file34565.pdf.

Scottish regulator OSCR has welcomed an announcement from Deputy Minister for Communities, Johann Lamont, giving a commitment to remove restrictions on trustee indemnity insurance introduced by the Charity and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. (The Minister has since moved posts, and been replaced by Des McNulty.)

See OSCR’s statement on the current position, which says that they “will not take action against charities because trustee indemnity insurance is in place”: http://www.oscr.org.uk/TrusteeIndemnityInsurance.stm.

A new e-petitions system will allow anyone, including charities and campaigners, to set up petitions and collect signatures on the Prime Minister’s web site. It will be an additional option to a paper-based petition, rather than a replacement.

Developed using an open source approach by mySociety, it is currently in public beta test where they expect the site to change frequently over the next few weeks in response to feedback.

Society Guardian News item at http://society.guardian.co.uk/e-public/story/0,,1947322,00.html or go direct to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk.

Heritage Link, the charity supporting voluntary heritage groups, has published a report on the scale and scope of the sector, ‘How We Do It’. It shows that such groups play a crucial role in supporting their local community in addition to preserving Britain’s history, and calls for more government help in this.

Community Newswire item at http://www.communitynewswire.press.net/article.jsp?id=815915, or download summary or full report from http://www.heritagelink.org.uk.

The government’s strategy for tackling poverty in Northern Ireland was launched at sector umbrella NICVA’s Headquarters recently by Secretary of State Peter Hain, in recognition of voluntary organisations vital role.

He called for the sector to remain “a constant thorn in the side of government departments, not in a negative way but in a way that ensures we do not fall short of the mark”.

http://www.communityni.org/index.cfm/section/news/key/nicva_anti_poverty.

The Sheila McKechnie Foundation is calling on the government to put campaigning on the national curriculum, to invest in the next generation of campaigners. http://www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk/showPressArticle.php?id=16.

The Take Part Framework provides “practical information and advice on how to develop learning opportunities in citizenship for adults from a diverse range of backgrounds”, enabling them to have a say in the shaping of public services.

Part of the government’s Together We Can campaign, for those to develop programmes of citizenship learning, see http://www.takepart.org.

‘Neighbourhood play and community action’ is a report from Joseph Rowntree Foundation on the piloting and development of resources for a Neighbourhood Play Toolkit, for improving public neighbourhood play spaces and services for children and young people.

The summary is at http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/housing/1942.asp - note that the full report linked at the bottom is 110Kb pdf, not 110Mb as stated!