‘CUTS, CO-OPTIONS AND TROJAN HORSES:
VOLUNTARY GROUPS AGAINST A CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT’
HOUSE OF COMMONS ON TUESDAY 30th JUNE 2015
5.30pm – 8.30pm
Under New Labour and Coalition Governments, the role and purpose of those providing voluntary and community services has been co-opted by central and local government. Contract-based commissioning and procurement regimes have replaced grant … Continue reading
NCIA Transition Roadshows – Meet… Discuss… Debate…Act…
The NCIA Transition ‘roadshow’ is about to start. The first three are happening in Sheffield, Durham and Brighton, each organised by a local host in collaboration with NCIA. This is part of NCIA’s transition and goodbye handshake in its current form. Book your place directly with the local … Continue reading
Sussex is one area of the country lucky enough to have a feisty local Defend our NHS campaign. Lately the group has been taking a look at the role of voluntary agencies in the struggle to stop the break-up of the Health Service. The result is an impressive paper. Whilst voluntary groups can both oppose … Continue reading
Launching the final report from their Inquiry into the Future of Voluntary Services, the National Coalition for Independent Action (NCIA) has today called on voluntary and community services to face up to a decisive moment in its history. In a blistering critique of the systemic threats posed to the values, work and freedom of the … Continue reading
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
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
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
The government’s largely discredited ‘Big Society’ mantra promised to strengthen the capacity of civil society. More evidence of the empty rhetoric that surrounds the idea now comes from LSE’s Armine Ishkanian. In an article published in Critical Social Policy, Armine examines how “…. The Big Society agenda, coming alongside public spending cuts, is affecting the … Continue reading
Inequality and poverty is increasing in the UK. Policies that cut rights and entitlements, and dismantle and privatise public services, make this worse. Voluntary and community agencies cannot be silent on this. They must speak out and act alongside those campaigning to stop this damage. It is the job of charities to fight poverty and … Continue reading