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
NCIA director Adrian Barritt, of Adur Voluntary Action, driven in from a chilly Bodmin Moor, took the opportunity to ponder four reports recently published that examine the state of the voluntary sector and its possible futures. The result is an elegant analysis of the issues and of the forces and factors that explain the responses … 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
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
In what is going to be a pretty massive release, we have today uploaded the first two of sixteen reports from our Inquiry into the Future of Voluntary Services. The general background to our Inquiry is provided by Dexter Whitfield’s ‘The Ideological Context’, which sketches out how neo-liberal ideas have damaged public services and … Continue reading
“We are currently witnessing a ruthless colonisation of the world of voluntary action, led by pure ideology from neo-liberal economics” says NCIA’s Adrian Barritt in the Observer 29.12.13. http://bit.ly/1cgyuEn
Folk at NCIA are always busy, noticing what is happening in the world. Over the holiday period Adrian Barritt, from Adur Voluntary Action spotted this article … Continue reading
Another excellent contribution to our debate about the future of voluntary services comes from Linda Milbourne and Mike Cushman. ‘Complying, transforming or resisting in the new austerity?’ powerfully unpacks “… changes that appear to be modifying and restricting the voluntary sector’s previous role in social welfare, limiting its influence and its ability to act simultaneously … Continue reading
English second tier bodies have largely given up on retaining grant funding for voluntary groups but vigorous support for the virtues of grants over contracts persists in Wales. A recent BBC Wales report quoted Graham Benfield, Chief Executive of Wales Council for Voluntary Action, as saying the procurement process of offering and awarding contracts for … Continue reading
In an important new paper, Ursula Murray, from Birkbeck University of London, addresses many of the key issues of our ‘Inquiry into the Future of Voluntary Services’. Entitled ‘To what extent is the voluntary sector colonised by neo-liberal thinking?’, the paper examines the involvement of the voluntary sector in the dismantling of the welfare state, … Continue reading