The Welsh Assembly government is consulting on ‘Designed to Add Value - a third dimension’, setting out ‘A Strategic Direction for the Voluntary and Community Sector in supporting Health and Social Care’.

Responses by 5th May, documents in Welsh or English.

Health and safety advice for businesses in Wales with between 5 and 250 employees is available from Workboost Wales. This is running as a pilot from this month (March 2008) to March 2009.

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

Community Enterprise Wales has warned a Welsh Assembly committee that European funding rules could threaten experienced organisations which support social enterprises in Wales. New Start magazine news item.

The Network Wales Awards are open for nominations of organisations which have excellent communications activity or are taking steps to be more sustainable/green organisations.

WCVA Chief Executive Graham Benfield OBE said: “Voluntary organisations across Wales are becoming more innovative and doing exceptional work that can sometimes go unnoticed.

“The Network Wales Awards is a new initiative that will collectively showcase the work of the third sector in Wales, highlight the progress the sector is making and recognise the achievements of outstanding organisations. We hope people involved with voluntary organisations will take the time to make a nomination.”

For more information and a nomination form, contact the WCVA Helpdesk on 0800 2888 329, email: help@wcva.org.uk, or see Network Wales Awards online.

Further to an earlier news item, Third Sector highlights a series of measures to encourage social enterprise in Wales which have been approved by the Welsh Assembly under ‘The Third Dimension - a Strategic Action Plan for the Voluntary Sector Scheme’.

This includes detailed mapping of the scale of social entrepreneurship, starting in March, and the formation of a representative body. News item at http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/772743/ (registration required).

The Welsh Assembly had a debate on ‘The Third Dimension - A Strategic Action Plan for the Voluntary Sector Scheme’ this Tuesday (13th November). The Scheme “places the voluntary sector on an equal footing with local government and the business sector in Wales as formal partners of the Assembly.”

Daily Assembly Proceedings are recorded in a bi-lingual format pdf, 477kb (with Welsh and English swapping columns every few pages) downloadable here. The Plan itself is a pdf, 382kb, and the Voluntary Sector Scheme Annual Report is online.

The Welsh Assembly’s Communities and Culture Committee is carrying out an inquiry into the funding of voluntary organisations in Wales.

Last week (7th November) saw the second meeting, but written evidence can be submitted up to 30th November, addressing the following:
1. Ease or difficulty of obtaining funding from the Welsh Assembly Government or relevant national funding bodies.
2. Ease or difficulty in complying with constraints or conditions placed on funding.
3. Issues related to the duration or timing of funding.
4. Any other comments relevant to the inquiry.

Latest news item, or download the call for evidence (pdf, 30kb, from http://www.assemblywales.org/call_for_written_evidence_-_e.pdf

The Big Lottery Fund has agreed to provide £8.4 million towards the Supporting Voluntary Action programme in Scotland, which has been developed to meet their brief: “To bring about a substantial, strategic, quantifiable and sustainable improvement in the infrastructure, capacity and effectiveness of the Councils for Voluntary Service network and in its engagement and collaboration with other voluntary and equalities sector infrastructure networks in Scotland…..” See Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations update at http://www.scvo.org.uk/supportingva/News/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=832, or BLF news at http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/pr_261007_sco_iic_voluntary_action.

South of the border, the Big Lottery Fund has recently announced that 21 organisations across England are sharing £8.3 million for providing support and increasing the effectiveness of the third sector. Two national bodies are major recipients, AbilityNet for its Sustaining Switched On Communities project and Charities Evaluation Services to develop the PQASSO quality assurance system. See BLF news at
http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/pr_111007_eng_bas_basis_award.

Not to be left out, in Wales grants of over £800,000 to encourage more young people to take up volunteering have been announced. See Welsh Assembly government news item at http://new.wales.gov.uk/news/presreleasearchive/1741296/?lang=en for more details.

WCVA, the Welsh umbrella body, has launched the Sustainable Funding Cymru web site to provides practical information to voluntary and community organisations in Wales on how to develop a sustainable funding approach.

It covers income diversification, funding sources and more - http://www.sustainablefundingcymru.org.uk.

An open source etraining series of Equality and Diversity toolkits, with video tutorials alongside interactive serious games, has been developed by the Institute of Digital Learning at the University of Wales, Newport.

‘Addressing Barriers: Enhancing Services’ aims to engage frontline workers. See http://equal.newport.ac.uk.

(Source: Training Zone)

The UK Workforce Hub and the Institute of Fundraising are revising the Fundraising National Occupational Standards, originally drafted in 2003, to reflect changes since then.

People working in fundraising are encouraged to contribute, and there are consultation events in Belfast, Edinburgh, London and Wales.

Runs to end of October - see http://www.ukworkforcehub.org.uk/fnosconsultation.

A Local Compact Survey conducted by Wales Council for Voluntary Action through county voluntary councils, of local authority and voluntary sector relationships, has produced concerns that Compacts are still making little impact in Wales. That’s the news headline from Third Sector (http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/731076/, registration required), but a quick scan of the report shows the picture is a little more complex than that.

Download the document, in Word format 178kb (summary conclusions on page 4).