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Latest News
27/08/2010
Meeting at Elland House to discuss the Big Society Network’s (BSN) upcoming ‘Town Hall Tour’. About 20 VCS people crammed into a small room with Steve Moore to hear about upcoming plans.
26/08/2010
The Government has announced a crackdown on street clutter and support for Civic Voice’s Street Pride campaign as the way local communities can take action. This is a major step forward and vindication of the hard work of civic societies across the country.
26/08/2010
Architect's Journal 29 July 2010: In this personal account of urban regeneration in south London, Rory Olcayto juxtaposes a top-down development in Elephant and Castle with ground-up localism in Peckham
25/08/2010
Mixed coverage of social apps and the Big Society...
20/08/2010
These Community Matters seminars will cover best practice and ideas on recruiting and retaining trustees, with key speakers from the charity sector. There'll also be interactive sessions on using a web based trustee recruitment resource which has been developed by NCVO in collaboration with Community Matters, NAVCA and CSC. Please feel free to promote this to your members...
20/08/2010
Imagine if this ramadan you heard a story that made you shed tears...
20/08/2010
This report charts ways ahead for public services: involving users in the design and delivery of services. It argues that co-production should be central to delivering the "Big Society" vision of the coalition government.
20/08/2010
The Coalition Government wants to build a ‘Big Society’. The Prime Minister says ‘we are all in this together’ and building it is the responsibility of every citizen as well as every Government department. nef welcomes the broad vision but recognises that everything depends on how the vision is translated into policy and practice. We offer these questions and proposals to help fill in some of the gaps and bring out the best in the idea of a big society.
18/08/2010
The Office for Civil Society has now launched the Big Society Deregulation Taskforce to examine how red tape and bureaucracy can be reduced for charities and community organisations. It will be run jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which also wants to cut the administrative burden on small enterprises.
18/08/2010
Nick Hurd interviewed by Stephen Cook for Third Sector magazine
18/08/2010
The chief executive of voluntary sector support body Community Matters and the head of regulator the Charity Commission are among third sector representatives selected to form a government taskforce examining how to cut red tape for charities and social enterprises.
13/08/2010
The Office for Civil Society has decided to cut the budget for its strategic partners from £12.1m this year to a maximum of £7.5m from March 2011. Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society, sent a letter to the 42 strategic partners last week, saying that none would be given more than £500,000 a year or receive more than 25 per cent of its funding from the OCS. The letter also said the number of partners would be no more than 15.
13/08/2010
An emergency summit has been called to help communities trying to save their threatened local pub after the government pulled funding for a support programme. The decision to scrap the £3.3m Community-Owned Pubs Support Programme has led to accusations that the new government is ‘contradicting’ its own ‘Big Society’ concept.
29/07/2010
Recently published TSRC research finds that while considerable attention appears to have been given to the voices and concerns around VCS involvement in service delivery of staff involved in third sector organizations, there has been less on those of other stakeholders such as trustees, volunteers and particularly TSO members and service users. Still less research attention has been given to the nature of the services commissioned, whether new commissioning processes are leading to service improvement, and fundamentally what difference services make.
29/07/2010
The Meanwhile Project has been spreading the word and learning on the go, jumping over, slicing through and tearing down hurdles from hastings to Huddersfield, Cambridge to Cumbria, Scarborough to Southampton – And now you can read all about the journey so far in their new report ‘No time to waste’
29/07/2010
Last year, Local Government Improvement and Development (previously the IDeA) commissioned the Young Foundation to examine the vital role the voluntary and community sector (VCS) plays in fostering and promoting strong community cohesion. Equally importantly, the research also highlighted the role that local government plays in supporting this through effective partnership, engagement and funding arrangements.
29/07/2010
New Commission for the Compact briefing: economic & social benefits of Compact
29/07/2010
Briefing on public law and cuts from Empowering the Voluntary Sector
29/07/2010
Members of the Democracy Matters alliance are working together with national and local partners on a series of events to share practice and develop support for learning active citizenship, inclusive democracy, practical politics and participation. These events aim to bring together the community sector, learning providers and public authorities to create local support networks or "democracy hubs" for local people and influence the Big Society agenda. There are regional steering groups for events in Yorkshire (1 October), Manchester (Feb 2011) and London, with the possibility of events in Birmingham and the South West.
29/07/2010
We are delighted to announce the dates of Civic Voice's first ever AGM – 8th and 9th October 2010. Civic Voice are one of our newer members, the national voice for the civic movement – making places more attractive, enjoyable and distinctive. The AGM is being held at the Great Northern Hotel, Peterborough and is being hosted by Peterborough Civic Society. |