Who creates, controls and measures knowledge in the voluntary and community sector? What role is played by service users and volunteers, universities, voluntary sector organisations and umbrella organisations such as NCVO? Join NCIA’s Andy Benson at the ARVAC annual lecture in London on 9 May 2011 to explore these questions and more.
Association of Research … Continue reading
NCIA’s Bernard Davies will be leading a session at a conference looking at the considerable challenges youth work is facing as whole services are closed down and some of the most distinctive approaches are threatened. Staws in the wind is on 24 May 2011 in Leicester.
Drawing on the findings from a modest inquiry into … Continue reading
Thursday 27 January 2011, 1.30pm to 5pm
Quaker Meeting House, 10 St James Street, Sheffield S1 2EW
Cuts, privatising public services, commissioning replacing grants, voluntary agencies being run like businesses, managers who don’t understand the front line work, nonsensical targets… If you’re feeling angry, you’re not alone!
At the last NCIA assembly we discussed … Continue reading
The latest version of the compact – the bit of paper that reckons to set out a more equal relationship between voluntary organisations and the government – has now been put off indefinitely.
We’re not too worried as the compact continues to ignore the bulk of small scale voluntary action. Meanwhile the compact industry sucks … Continue reading
The National Coalition for Independent Action today released an open letter to the Chief Executives of the five national bodies which have endorsed the revised National Compact, launched on December 16th. The full text of the letter reads:
“19/1/10
Dear Stephen, Debra, Stuart, Kevin and Justin,
We write this open letter to you, having been … Continue reading
One of the principal ways – perhaps the main way – in which the Government is mounting its assault on the voluntary sector is through the peddling of its latest ‘fad’ for PROCUREMENT AND COMMISSIONING. Statutory services of all sorts have been told – explicitly or implicitly – to develop strategies for this. There has … Continue reading
Previous articles in Green Socialist have pointed out that privatisation does not just affect services formerly run by the statutory sector, and also (ironically) that privatisation can sometimes go hand-in-hand with increased state control. Voluntary organisations providing public services are being compelled to adopt the methods and priorities of private businesses through tendering and commissioning … Continue reading
The article below appeared in the Winter 2005/6 issue (No. 34) of Green Socialist magazine (quarterly journal of the Alliance for Green Socialism). The author retains copyright but it may be reproduced and quoted as long as the author and Green Socialist magazine are given acknowledgement.
By Mathew Little, Third Sector, 20 February 2008
Andy Benson, convenor of the National Coalition for Independent Action, wants to stave off creeping state control of the voluntary sector.
If the voluntary sector were a country, Andy Benson would be one of its dissidents. The convenor of the National Coalition for Independent Action, which … Continue reading