Up to 90,000 registered charities are “withering on the vine”, according to Geraldine Peacock, former chair of the Charity Commission. Peacock, who was chair of the commission between July 2004 and January 2006, told the audience at the Third Sector Excellence Awards last night: “You could get rid of 90,000 charities from the register. Less is more. Having that many confuses the public.”

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19 October 2008
© Third Sector

The Office of the Third Sector is being urged to continue its £1m-plus funding of regional voluntary sector networks next year.
Each of the nine English regions has a generalist network and a black and minority ethnic network, all representing the voluntary sector, but the networks fear for their futures if funding is not renewed in March.

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20 October 2008
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Community and voluntary organisations should be the only recipients of Big Lottery Fund money, charity umbrella groups have claimed. In a consultation about future funding launched yesterday - www.big-thinking.org.uk/ , the BLF is asking whether it should extend its current commitment to give 60 to 70 per cent of its money to the voluntary sector, which ends in 2012.

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18 November 2008
© Third Sector

WCVA is backing a campaign to give volunteers more recognition by urging its members to support a ‘once in a lifetime’ chance to get countries consistently collecting statistics on the economic value of volunteering. Wales’s third sector is being asked to help put pressure on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to approve a mechanism for gathering data on volunteer work through a regular supplement to existing Labour Force Surveys. An ILO international conference of labour statisticians is meeting in Geneva in late November to discuss the detail of the labour force surveys conducted in each country. For the first time ever, this year the ILO is considering including questions on volunteering in its surveys – which would mean that all countries would have basic and comparable data on volunteering, such as the number of people who volunteer, their age and the economic value of their volunteer work.

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5 November 2008
© WCVA

The ‘Modernising Volunteering Workstream’ is a national project being led by Volunteering England (VE). The workstream is funded by Capacitybuilders and includes a number of key partner organisations including the Red Foundation, CSV and NNVIA, the Nationwide Foundation and V. The workstream aims to improve support in an innovative way in the following four key areas: Faith-based volunteering; Employer supported volunteering; Volunteering within large national organisations; New forms of volunteer involvement and management. The workstream will provide support the volunteering support providers in delivering improvements and meeting changing frontline needs. To help keep organisations and individuals up-to-date with the ‘Modernising volunteering workstream’. To subscribe to receive the newsletter send an email to: volunteering.nss@volunteeringengland.org

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18 November 2008
© Volunteering Merseyside

The Scottish Government favours social enterprise over the rest of the voluntary sector and does not recognise the value of national volunteering programmes, according to Claire Stevens, director for Scotland of volunteering charity Community Service Volunteers. Stevens was responding to the Scottish Government’s refusal to renew a £350,000 grant to run CSV’s retired and senior volunteer programme, known as RSVP, which was debated in the Scottish Parliament last week. She said £60m of the Scottish Government’s £90m budget for the voluntary sector in the current financial year would be spent on social enterprise. “The SNP administration needs Scotland to be economically stronger if there is to be any hope of it becoming independent, and it sees social enterprise as a way of doing that,” she said. “It is good for social enterprise that it is getting more attention than ever, but those that aren’t social enterprises are concerned the Government doesn’t place the same value on the work and services of the vast majority of the sector.”

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17 November 2008
© Volunteering Merseyside

The Charity Commission has published a couple of example trustee annual reports which show how trustees can approach the new duty to report on public benefit, in pdf 1.05MB: www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Library/publicbenefit/pdfs/pbexamplerep.pdf One of the fictional examples is an advice charity above the audit threshold, the other a youth club below that limit. The Commission’s general guidance page is at www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publicbenefit/pbreport.asp, and Plaza Publishing news item for some background at http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=2373

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17 November 2008
© VoluntaryNews

The merged youth charity Rainer Crime Concern has relaunched as Catch22. The name was chosen “because it’s a situation a lot of young people find themselves in. They don’t know how to get out of it, they lose confidence and give up.” CYP Now news item at www.cypnow.co.uk/news/860644/, or see http://www.catch-22.org.uk

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17 November 2008
© VoluntaryNews

“Volunteering England has produced this authoritative,well-researched resource that explains step-by-step how to improve Further Education through developing student volunteering programmes. This publication will guide you through some of the great work that is transforming our institutions, our communities and, ultimately, our students’ lives.” Frank McLoughlin, Principal, City and Islington College. This step-by-step guide will take you through the initial stages of developing student volunteering programmes and how you can set up successful, sustainable projects that enrich the lives of your learners. Together with an online resource, you’ll have all the tools and information you need to get started with setting up a project in an F.E. college. Download: http://www.volunteering.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/894F047C-394A-48CB-8AA9-7D99CC80E26A/0/SVEhandbook_finallo.pdf

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17 November 2008
© Volunteering England

Third sector organisations will see a rise in demand for interim management positions as the recession takes its toll, a recruitment company has predicted. Charles Russam, chair of Russam GMS , said more people would be entering the interim market and looking for jobs in the voluntary sector. “We will see new entrants into the market over the forthcoming months, which means that third sector organisations will have more choice of candidates,” he said.

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17 November 2008
© Third Sector