Latest production from our Inquiry into the Future of Voluntary Services….five stories from locally-based Voluntary Services Groups struggling to survive in the environment of cuts to funding and moves to the use of contracting approaches by public bodies. They illustrate the difficulties and dilemmas experienced, and some of the responses being adopted, by groups operating … Continue reading
Today we publish the next two reports from our Inquiry into the Future of Voluntary Services.
The impact of contracting and commissioning on volunteers and volunteering in Voluntary Services Groups by Colin Rochester charts the rise of the ‘workplace model’ and the formalisation of volunteer management that “threatens the untamed and often maverick expression of … Continue reading
The right to very little at all: NCIA submits evidence to House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee
The Localism Act 2011 offers communities a set of new ‘rights’. They may now challenge councils to run public services, bid for ‘assets of community value’, build local facilities and make statutory neighbourhood plans. As … Continue reading
Our latest newsletter is now available… launch of Localism Watch, more Inquiry reports, all the latest news, downhearted and uplifting. Get it here… Continue reading
Two more Inquiry reports are released today. ‘Lenin’s Useful Idiots? Voluntary Action and Public Service Reform in Northern Ireland, from Nick Acheson of the University of Ulster, reviews recent developments in relations between voluntary agencies and the devolved administration. It summarises the main similarities and differences between Northern Ireland and the other jurisdictions in … Continue reading
‘Leadership’ groups, at both national and local levels, have failed to protect voluntary services groups and their users and communities from the damaging changes of the last decade. This is the broad conclusion of two Inquiry reports released today.
The position and role of national infrastructure bodies concerning the cuts to and privatisation of public … Continue reading
Most of our Inquiry reports focus on the voluntary services ‘industry’ in general. But the history both of government policy and of voluntary sector services has shown that minorities, and especially ethnic minorities, repeatedly fare worse than other sections of the population. So today we are releasing two reports that focus on aspects of this … Continue reading
Yes, yet again, our latest newsletter is here, our bi-monthly round up of triumphs and disasters, heroic acts and dirty dealing. Dip into it http://ymlp.com/zO9aGd… Continue reading
Recently the Government announced that it was pulling the plug on the Peterborough Prison Social Impact Bond (SIB) pilot, despite an interim evaluation showing “promising results”. This scheme – due to have run for seven years instead of the three now planned – has been dragged round the conference circuit now for several years by … Continue reading
Today we release three more reports from our Inquiry into the Future of Voluntary Services.
The first – The Rise and Influence of Social enterprise, Social Investment and Public Service Mutuals from Les Huckfield of Glasgow Caledonian University. This elegant review documents how New Labour and Coalition governments, within a framework of neo-liberal thinking, have … Continue reading