This year’s Edge Upstarts Awards from the New Statesman, designed to encourage and promote social entrepreneurs, are now open for nominations. No change in categories, which include Social Enterprise of the Year and Social Enterprise Trainee of the Year.

See http://www.edgeupstarts.org/2007/ - entries by 8th April.

The first commencement order bringing in provisions of the Charities Act 2006 has been published. The main areas covered are:
- changes to the governance arrangements of the Charity Commission.
- increases to the financial thresholds above which charities are required to have a professional audit.
- measures to address concerns about trustee personal liability, giving the Charity Commission a power to relieve trustees of liability where they have acted honestly and reasonably, and enabling trustees to purchase indemnity insurance with the charity’s money.

These will come in on 27th February, along with some other elements of the Act (other parts will come in in stages over the next couple of years or so).

As the Office of the Third Sector note says, “Very few of the provisions ….. that are being brought into force now will require charities to do anything in addition to what they are currently required to do.”

A series of regional events explaining the Charities Act will start in March to coincide with the publication of a plain English guide. The notes and more information.

Ruralnet has set up a blog style web site to make it easy for people to give their contributions to the debate on rural post offices. These will then be collated and formally submitted to the government ’s consultation on the future of the UK Post Office Network by 8th March.

See http://www.ruralaction.org.uk.

The second commencement order of the Companies Act 2006 will make the community interest company (CIC) corporate vehicle available in Northern Ireland, “making it simpler and more convenient to establish a business whose profits and assets are to be used for the benefit of the community”.

The order extends the relevant provisions of the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004 as from 6th April 2007.

DTI information on Companies Act, http://www.dti.gov.uk/bbf/co-act-2006/index.html, or news release.

Scotland gets its own Annual Charity Award night, courtesy of SCVO’s weekly Third Force News, and dubbed the Tiffanys. Categories are Charity Champion, Charity of the Year, Campaign of the Year, Community Action award and the Partnership award. Closing date 30th March.

More background at http://www.scvo.org.uk/scvo/NewsAndEvents/ViewArticles.aspx?f=h&al=t&pid=5640 or download the Awards information and entry form (Word format, 93kb) from http://www.workwithus.org/tfnawards.doc.

The Belfast Telegraph reports on “a breakdown in communication between staff and officers in Northern Ireland and the board in the UK” at the MS Society.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2252872.ece.

Chief executives organisation Acevo is undertaking an inquiry into the standards of governance in the voluntary sector. It will look at “how CEO views on governance in the sector are evolving, and will aim to raise the overall level of board performance and to ensure greater accountability”.

Acevo is kicking this off with surveys of MPs and local authority bosses, and final findings will be published at its annual conference in November.
http://www.acevo.org.uk/main/index.php?content=newsitem&news_id=282.

More than 60 people from the voluntary and community sector and candidates from seven parties took part in an   election question time on Monday (12th February) organised by Northern Ireland’s umbrella body NICVA, in the run-up to the Assembly elections in March.

A report and links to the new NICVA election web site at http://www.nicva.org/index.cfm/section/news/key/ElectionQuestionTime.

A new publication from think-tank Demos, with help from Campaign to Protect Rural England and others, argues that planners have had to manage competing demands of economic progress and environmental sustainability. “The profession must bridge the gap, using resources from the private and public sectors, local communities and NGOs, to create places that people care for and enjoy, planning areas and neighbourhoods which flourish while protecting the environment.”

‘Future Planners: Propositions for the next age of planning’ can be downloaded from http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/futureplannersreport.

Futurebuilders has published online a summary of recommendations from both sides of the commissioning relationship from its recent ‘Better Value = Better Services Conference’ hosted with NCVO.

The Big Lottery Fund’s Research Programme opens in the spring. It will fund medical and social research “on issues identified, and considered important, by the charitable and voluntary and community sector; and support the use and dissemination of this research activity”.

http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/prog_research_programme - you may need to enable cookies for this to load.

(Source: VSSN)

The People’s Millions partnership programme between the Big Lottery Fund and ITV re-opens in March. Its 2005 round saw 53 grants of up to £50,000 made to projects throughout the UK which would benefit local environments.

http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/prog_peoples_millions.htm - you may need to enable cookies for this to load.