July 2009 News
Partnerships with specialist umbrellas build on the foresight drivers bank
Since 1998, NCVO Third Sector Foresight has been researching and writing about how the world is changing and what that means for the voluntary and community sector. But as we all know, the sector is incredibly diverse, which has meant that the information we provide is by necessity ‘generic’ – it attempts to talk about issues that will impact on a large number of organisations.
That is useful up to a point, but we know that often the drivers that will have the biggest impact on individual...
Raising the public benefit hurdle?
Will the failure last week of three charities, notably two private schools, to meet the first round of public benefit tests be seen as a watershed moment in the four hundred year history of charity law? The time when the tide turned to make charities really struggle against the waves of accountability to prove their worth? It remains to be seen whether the battle lines need to be drawn already - one Daily Telegraph columnist is getting ready nonetheless - branding it as nothing less than...
Community in times of adversity
Coming together
There’s been a lot in the news recently about shares and markets, but what about the price of a different type of share? The Eden Project’s recent Big Lunch initiative puts a high value on community sharing. A slightly hamfisted connection there, or one with some credence? Billed as an event ‘to put a smile on Britain's face’, the support for the Big Lunch may have been because of its timing. Several of those commenting (see for example Steve Bridger’s piece) have drawn the...
Next left
Last night saw the launch of Open Left , Demos’ counter to its Progressive Conservatism project (outlined here by Natalie).
Much of the discussion seemingly hinged on language – James Purnell MP noted the faultlines in his party around questions of choice, and an important theme was the need to reclaim the language of the left (this was seen, particularly by Will Hutton, as an important counter to the BNP), particularly notions of fairness and an accurate and precise sense of what...
The future of adult social care
On 14 July the government published a green paper on adult social care, Shaping the Future of Care Together. This followed a fairly lengthy consultation process, now followed by a consultation on the paper, which the government has called the Big Care Debate. See this summary from Community Care for an overview of the proposals. The outcome will have implications for all organisations delivering social care services to adults, or supporting those accessing these services (including...
Trust us, we’re charities
Trust has to be earned, and re-earned
Third Sector reported yesterday that incoming RNIB chair Kevin Carey has questioned the efficacy of current charity law, asking instead for a new definition of social gain.
In a concern which seems to particularly hinge on whether trustees should be eligible to be paid, he asks:
Who says charities should have extra controls in case we hoodwink the public when we have a long record of trustworthiness that far exceeds other sectors?
To me, this called to mind ...
Progressive Conservatism - 7 ideas for future reform in public services
What might the Conservatives really mean by the ‘re-professionalisation’ of public services in a ‘post-bureaucratic age’ and how might this actually be applied in the future? Starting from the premise that about half the public are unhappy with public service delivery despite recent reform and investment in public services, this presentation by Phillip Blond, Director of the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos sets out seven ways in which he believes that innovative Conservative...
Ctrl+Alt+Delete for Britain
Yesterday I attended Reboot Britain, this year’s NESTA – funded successor to 2gether08. The event looked at “the challenges we face as a country and the new possibilities that a networked, digital world offers to overcome them” (from http://www.nesta.org.uk/reboot-britain/).
We are all familiar with the problems – and with many of the solutions. But there was also the odd new discovery, namely (for me) MixedInk, the White House’s tool for understanding population responses to policy. This...
