The biggest clean-out yet of ‘defunct’ Scottish charities from the register run by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator is due for 15th March. (Your editor was tempted to headline ‘Beware the Ides of March!). Over five thousand Scottish charities will lose their charitable status unless they contact OSCR by then. This is after extensive efforts to establish contact with the charities.

The full list, as a 1MB Excel spreadsheet, can be downloaded from http://www.oscr.org.uk/s.33RemovalsMarch2007.stm, or download a VoluntaryNews text file (at 228kb) pre-sorted alphabetically of OSCR charity removals list.

Regeneration & Renewal magazine has launched a new set of awards covering a wide range of organisations and schemes.

Two which may be of interest are Community-led organisation of the year and Social enterprise of the year. the eligibility period runs from July 2005 to March 2007, with a closing date for entries of 4th May.

See http://www.haymarketevents.com/awards/?fuseaction=eventIntro&eventID=2817.

The charity One Plus, one of Scotland’s biggest after-school and nursery providers, has gone into liquidation, with just 29 from 600 staff kept on to help with closing the organisation.

The Herald reported on 24th January that “recriminations over the collapse ………….. intensified yesterday with one Scottish Executive minister accusing the charity’s management of being in a “state of denial”.”

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/other/display.var.1142170.0.0.php.

A new organisation is being set up to deliver support to new and emerging social enterprises in Scotland. First Port, a joint initiative between Senscot and Scotland UnLtd, has received monies from Communities Scotland and is due to launch officially in the next few months.

Senscot news item at http://www.senscot.net/view_news.php?viewid=5664.

A number of funding and other announcements were made by government ministers at last week’s social enterprise conference, Voice 07. Third Sector minister Ed Miliband announced that Charity Bank and Community Innovation UK are each to lead pilot programmes investigating how to encourage private sector investment in social enterprise. Running to March 2008, the project findings will be “made widely available to inform the social enterprise and broader finance sectors”.

Seventy three million pounds from the Health Departments social enterprise fund, spread over four years, will go towards supporting and encouraging the development of social enterprises in health and social care. Details of the successful pathfinders at http://www.dh.gov.uk/socialenterprise, or see news item at http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/9168.

Ministers from Department for Education and Skills and Department for Trade and Industry were also at the conference: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_releases/070124.asp.

A new report, Building Blocks from the City Parochial Foundation, says that many second-tier organisations which provide support for frontline groups, including councils for voluntary service, face difficult issues of quality, credibility, conflict of interest and overwork. A number of CVSs seem to have lost their sense of purpose and focus.

The study covers London, which is the Foundation’s remit, but states “it is likely that the conclusions will be relevant to the voluntary sector throughout the UK”.

There is a summary (pdf, 140kb) as well as the full report (pdf, 507kb) available online. However, please note that it looks like their hosting service has failed, so visit with caution: http://www.cityparochial.org.uk/cpf/publications/building_blocks.html.

Here’s the Building Blocks summary (pdf, 139kb) hosted on VoluntaryNews.

The introduction of a corporate style of management and training is good for the volunteering sector, according to a survey run by Volunteering England.

This coincides with the launch of their Excellence in Volunteer Management training programme, which is a Pick’n'mix approach of e-learning, a good practice bank, information sheets and more, to enable managers of volunteers to take charge of their own learning.

See http://www.volunteering.org.uk/evm for details, although some elements are under development. News item.

Cass Business School, 106 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TZ.

Stuart Etherington CBE, Chief Executive of NCVO and visiting professor, Centre for Charity Effectiveness, Cass Business School, will be giving a lecture at the school.

He will be looking at the way in which Civil Society may develop in the UK; its relationship with the state and the market, and the dilemmas, difficulties and opportunities this will present. A drinks reception, kindly supported by HSBC Investments will follow the lecture. Please book a place by visiting http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/etherington.

Charity IT Resource Alliance (CITRA) is a membership organisation specialising in helping IT professionals to develop their skills and knowledge.

“Mind the Gap” is the motto of CITRA’s first membership meeting on 14th February from 4pm - 7pm that takes place at the CHASE exhibition 2007, Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, London N1 0QH.

Learn tips and tricks from Jane Berry (net:gain programme manager) and Brian Rich (net:gain ICT manager) to reduce the internal communication gap in your charity.

Admission fee for non members is £20.00 refreshments included. Please book here. For more information please send e-mail to sonja@ctt.org.

The Power Inquiry, set up in 2004 to explore how political participation and involvement might be increased and deepened in Britain, has moved on to a new campaign - Make It an Issue.

Launched last week (22nd January), it aims to mobilise people across Britain to call for the rules of democracy to be decided by the people and not politicians.

(Source: CDX News)

The report ‘Security and Civil Society – the impact of counter-terrorism measures on civil society organisations’ has been produced as a result of the work of an Advisory Group made up of a cross section of UK charities, set up by NCVO. Published to help inform the current Home Office/Treasury Joint Review into Charities and Terrorist Financing, it makes a number of recommendations.

NCVO news item at http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/press/releases/index.asp?id=3904; direct link to the report (pdf, 221kb); Community Newswire item on Home Office response to headlines that review “is misguided and draconian” etc. http://www.communitynewswire.press.net/article.jsp?id=1033691.

The Get On Board campaign to recruit more trustees for charities and community organisations across England has launched. It is run by the Governance Hub in partnership with the Charity Commission and Volunteering England. Research has found that 93% of voluntary organisations have between one and five vacancies on their board - http://www.getonboard.org.uk/looking_for_trustees.php, or start at the front page - http://www.getonboard.org.uk. The call includes suggesting that charity workers should consider becoming trustees of other groups to gain experience - Community Newswire at http://www.communitynewswire.press.net/article.jsp?id=1029842.

The Wales Council for Voluntary Action is also supporting this, pointing people to its web site at http://www.volunteering-wales.net, or their news item.