Dear Editor
I’m writing to you as someone who has read your magazine since it first came out along with many homeless people – some of whom I have attempted to help over the years.
After 8 years in charities, mainly working with the homeless I’ve decided to leave after becoming so disillusioned. Few charities … Continue reading
The Salford Star …with attitude and love xxx
By Stephen Kingston
In some `less enlightened’ countries they don’t mess about with meddling journalists – they just shoot them or blow up their offices. Here in England they censor and execute you economically. It has the same affect. Hence the winter issue of Salford Star didn’t … 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
This is the latest hare to have been set running by Government and the Commission on Integration and Cohesion. It’s a policy which encourages funders to cut money to groups working with marginalised peoples, particularly those from secular black and minority ethnic groups such as Southall Black Sisters – while at the same time encouraging … Continue reading
Bob Widdowson describes the slow drip drip of what is being lost and
what is taking its place in “a small advice service in a northern town.
Been around for 20 years. Well used, three staff, run down premises and
not much in the way of technology. Only such service for miles around.
Lottery funding … Continue reading
We bumped into a community researcher, a local resident, who had
been busy talking to fellow tenants about their concerns and what they
needed on the Estate. She had been doing this with the support of a
local voluntary group. She was worried and didn’t know what to do. She
had been asked by the … Continue reading
And what about the story of the local CAB who found out that they
had to “tender” for their own services, of the other local advice
services given a day to tender for the CAB money, and of the Council
who said that this was challenging but wouldn’t apologise for it.… Continue reading
Then there’s the tale about the innovative initiative which
supported local people to assist their communities to access health
services. It was done with such success that it was lauded by the local
Primary Care Trust and elsewhere, and who then asked for advice on how
to replicate this. And who then withdrew the money … Continue reading
A friend sent me this and it is apparently being added (or proposed
to be added) to contracts for all staff at a University. It is so
bizarre that it could be a hoax, but it’s not.
1 I have clear performance goals that encompass task delivery and demonstration of my competences.
2 These goals … Continue reading
As a “lefty American” traversing the ground of the voluntary sector in the UK, I have often had a strange mixture of feelings: