A formal consultation on a Draft Reform Order on Health and Personal Social Services in Northern Ireland has been launched. This is slated as the biggest shake-up ever of health and social care services.

See CommunityNI for background, http://www.communityni.org/index.cfm/section/news/key/Goggins, or go straight to the documents at http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/showconsultations?txtid=21957.

Closing date 11th April.

This is a new report produced for the Department for Communities and Local Government. “This study provides an insight into people’s awareness and knowledge of citizen governance, the barriers and motivations to involvement and the types of people who get involved in these roles.”

http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1505469.

Training Zone has recently featured an article looking at disability care charity Leonard Cheshire’s approach to cost-effective skills development by setting up a voluntary sector consortium.

Site registration may be required to access at http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=163036, or learn more about the Charity Learning Consortium at http://www.charitylearning.org.

Perth Concert Hall. The 2^nd annual social enterprise trade fair for Scotland.

Up to 70 social enterprises exhibiting their wares to up to 700 delegates. S2S promotes business between social enterprises and this year’s event will include exhibitions, speed networking sessions and workshops aimed at boosting trading skills and capacity. Hosted by the Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition in association with Communities Scotland, organised by Indigo PS.

This year’s 10 best-designed intranets as judged by Nielsen Norman Group (that’s web usability guru Jakob Nielsen’s lot) includes two from the voluntary sector - National Geographic Society from the States and our very own Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. They sit alongside such names as the Volvo Group and JPMorgan Chase.

As this piece says, well-designed intranets support employees and volunteers in achieving non-profit missions just as well as they improve productivity … in for-profit -  http://www.useit.com/alertbox/intranet_design.html.

‘Granting You the Money - A Guide to Securing Grant Funding’ has been published online by Lewis Clare Partnership. They are a grants administration service with a lot of experience of appraising applications, so this  “toolkit has evolved from … experience on the other side of the funding fence”.

In pdf, 241kb, from http://www.lewisclare.com/toolkits.htm.

(Source: UK Fundraising)

Sector legal adviser Sandy Adirondack has produced her summary of the provisions of the Companies Act 2006 (passed in November) that will affect voluntary sector companies (charitable companies and companies limited by guarantee, community interest companies). As she points, other summaries of the Act may well not give adequate consideration to the differences between the various types of companies and therefore could be misleading. The Act is the longest-ever piece of legislation in the UK and this important summary, about as short as it can be, will still take a bit of digesting. http://www.sandy-a.co.uk/managing.htm#companiesact.

Much of the Companies Act won’t come into effect for a while, but some start from 20th January, including enabling company information to be sent electronically. http://www.sandy-a.co.uk/managing.htm#companycommunications.

From 1st January 2007, the Companies Act 1985 rules relating to the information that must be on company documents are amended and explicitly extended to include order forms, electronic documents and web sites. As ever, Sandy gives a practical interpretation, at http://www.sandy-a.co.uk/managing.htm#e-disclosure. NB the regulations were only laid before Parliament on 21st December, so don’t feel bad about having missed the start date!

And a reminder that the same web page has a summary of the new Charities Act too, at http://www.sandy-a.co.uk/managing.htm#charitiesact.

From Charity Finance news alert: The Public Administration Select Committee of the House of Commons has extended the deadline for submissions for its inquiry into how public services can best use the experiences of service users to improve public service delivery and design. The Committee is calling on voluntary and community organisations to submit their suggestions before the end of January (original deadline was 10th Jan).

See Committee info.

(News alert: http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/charitynewsalert/issue10/pasc.asp)

The Charity Commission is proposing to make a number of changes to the Annual Return required from all registered charities for 2007. Larger charities, with a turnover above £500,000, would need to estimate the number of UK volunteers “available for part or full time use by the charity at its financial year end date”. There has already been some concern expressed about the amount of work this might involve, but the consultation does say “we recognise that this information may not be readily available to all”.

Along with a new serious incident reporting section, there will be a new Part B to the return which contains links to advice on key topics tailored to each charity’s individual circumstances, fitting in with their move to encourage online submission. There are some reductions in reporting elsewhere.

‘Annual Returns: the way forward - a consultation on plans for AR07′ at http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/enhancingcharities/consultar2007.asp. Responses by 19th March.

The final version of NICVA’s (Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action) Policy Manifesto for 2007 is available as a pdf (1.16MB) from http://www.nicva.org/index.cfm/section/Publications/key/PolicyManifesto_2006.

It is “an attempt to draw out key views from across the voluntary and community sector and to present them as a proactive policy platform which we would recommend to political parties and decision makers within government”.

A ‘Register of Local Authority Licensed Public Spaces in England and Wales’ has been put together by the Department of Culture Media and Sport. The idea is make it easier to stage live performances and events in public spaces, particularly to help travelling performers locate venues.

While event organisers won’t need to apply for a new premises licence or give a temporary event notice themselves, they will still need to get the permission of the relevant local authority.

The Register is at  http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/Alcohol_entertainment/licensed_public_spaces2.htm. Note that not all local authorities have provided information yet.

Welsh umbrella body WCVA has produced a leaflet ‘Recruiting Welsh speaking volunteers‘, in pdf format, 300kb. Really only of relevance in Wales!