The CREATE Consortium wants a change to the benefits system, to enable community organisations to pay people to do work that strengthens their neighbourhood without it affecting any of their benefits. The Community Allowance would help tackle the benefits trap and be a regeneration tool too.

The Consortium aims to run pilots in each English region, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. More at http://www.communityallowance.org, including a chance to back the idea. Note that the site requires cookies to work properly.

A Spanish foundation which supports volunteering through technology, Bip-Bip, has created a volunteer-matching web site with a difference - the most commitment it will ever ask for is 2 hours. While probably not unique (is there such a scheme in the US?), http://www.microvoluntarios.org is perhaps the first successful micro-volunteering site in Europe.

Volunteers can commit just a few minutes for microtasks such as translations, graphic design, internet support and editing. From Vita Europe (http://web.vita.it/vitaeurope/art.php?art=93867, registration required).

Voluntary Arts England has added a comments feature to its web pages which aim to provide answers to the most common questions which come up when setting up and running a voluntary arts group.

They invite site visitors to add their own experiences, flag up useful information or report broken links. (Your editor hopes VAE have monitoring set up to ensure this doesn’t wander too far off course.) Running Your Group section is at http://www.vaengland.org.uk/ryg.

UPDATE: Voluntary Arts Network has asked us to point out that ‘Running Your Group’  is one of their projects that can be accessed via any of the national departments (Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well as England), or via the main VAN site (http://www.voluntaryarts.org/ryg). And yes, the new comments feature is moderated.

A suite of accredited learning units for charity trustees which connect with the relevant National Occupational Standards has been developed by the Governance and UK Workforce Hubs (although one of these has now closed).

This will be promoted under the new Qualification and Credit Framework, which goes live in September, although delivery and accreditation is possible before then. See Workforce Hub article on Trustee Accredited Learning at http://www.ukworkforcehub.org.uk/DisplayPage.asp?pageid=11326.

This year’s Compact Awards are open for nominations, aiming to “celebrate excellent partnership working”. Categories range from local through regional to national.

Details at http://www.thecompact.org.uk/information/101448/101423/about_awards/.

Acevo and NAVCA, the umbrella bodies for sector chiefs and local support organisations, have called for the Compact to be backed by statutory powers.

According to Third Sector, the letter to third sector minister Phil Hope cites “widespread cynicism” about the agreement’s ability to improve relationships between the public and third sectors.

News item at http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/810393/ (registration required).

The Commission for the Compact has launched a research study to identify the key factors behind successful Local Compacts and positive local partnership relationships.

Although most local authority areas in England have such agreements between local government, local public bodies and the local voluntary and community sector, there are varying degrees of success.

The Institute for Voluntary Action Research is due to report in August, with guidance and workshops to follow. See Commission for the Compact.

The Office of the Third Sector is to bring together the public sector, independent investors and social enterprises to work on standardising and improving how social return on investment (SROI) is measured. Third Sector reports that three-year funding of around £350,000 will be used on events and research to develop “greater consensus and standardisation” in the measurement of social impact.

This should help charities and social enterprises prove their social value to potential public service or private investors. OTS news item on SROI.

Support body The Wheel has launched a new site, ICTpoint at http://www.ictpoint.ie, to provide Irish charities with advice on how to harness computers and information technology to further their missions.

Of course there are one or two UK sector tech sites too, such as ICT Hub, http://www.icthub.org.uk, now run by NCVO ICT Development Services and the connected Knowledgebase, http://www.icthubknowledgebase.org.uk.

The results of the North East Third Sector Skills Survey 2007-2008 have been published by the PNE Group.

Full report or executive summary from http://www.voluntaryskills.com/skillssurvey.

Taking Part in the Arts is a new web site from Arts Council England giving guidance for arts organisations on how to be more community and customer focused. It also has information on participation statistics.

http://www.takingpartinthearts.com.

(Source: Voluntary Arts England newsletter)

Northern Ireland has a new website, IMMPACT, exploring finance and income generation options to achieve sustainable funding for frontline organisations. Unfortunately the various scrolling and changing sections may reduce its accessibility.

http://www.immpact.co.uk.