E-Bulletin - April 2009

April 09 E-Bulletin contents page

Useful new guides and information

Healthy lives, brighter futures - The strategy for children and young people's health

The Government has now published its long term vision of a 21st Century children's health service aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of all children, including £340 million to support children with disabilities and their families.

The joint strategy Healthy lives, brighter future: the strategy for children and young people's health - published by Children's Secretary Ed Balls and Health Secretary Alan Johnson - sets out for the first time what children and their families can expect from child health services in their areas from birth through to the age of 19

The publication can be downloaded at www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/
PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_094400

if you provide a service for families, children and young people and you want to know more about how policies like this will affect you at a local level then contact veronica Hyde on funkylizard@t3sc.org

Back to top

Credit Crunch focus

How is the credit crunch affecting voluntary and community organisations locally?

• Are you seeing an increased demand for your services because of the credit crunch?
• Are you seeing a fall in income or donations?
• Have you received increased funding to enable you to respond to the current economic conditions?
• What additional things could T3SC and other partners be doing to help organisations cope in the current economic conditions?

Tony Okotie, Director at T3SC, is keen to hear how the credit crunch is affecting voluntary and community organisations working in Tameside. It will help us to ensure that we can tailor our services appropriately, and to help us build a picture to inform strategic partners and to advocate for increased resources for the sector.

If you have any specific examples, thoughts or comments, please let Tony know, Tel: 0161 339 4985, email: tony.okotie@t3sc.org


Ready, Responding, Resilient - NAVCA launch recession help webpages
 
NAVCA (National Association of Voluntary and Community Action) has launched dedicated webpages to assist local infrastructure organisations to be better prepared to support their local third sector to avoid the worst aspects of the recession. The pages allow visitors to see how NAVCA is providing recession support, find out how other organisations can help them, get data about how the recession is impacting on the third sector and provides a selection of the best available resources all in one place, making it easy for visitors.
The webpages can be viewed at www.navca.org.uk/recession

Increasing concern over sector impact of downturn

The Charity Commission's latest Economic Survey of Charities, following up one conducted in September, has found that 52% of charities surveyed said that they had been hit by the credit crunch, compared with 38% previously, but only 3% of charities had considered collaborating with another charity and 3% had considered merging. Read the main results in the news item at www.charitycommission.gov.uk/news/downturn.asp , or download the full research report (pdf, 204KB) from
www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Library/common/downturn.pdf  
Or Charity Finance news item, www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=2664

Government Action Plan for the 3rd Sector

Part of the Government's recession action plan includes a pledge to urge public bodies to pay third sector organisations within 10 days of an invoice being received. Charities should ensure this is written into all new public contracts.
Other measures set out to support the sector can be found at:
www.cfdg.org.uk/cfdg/influencing_recession_watch.asp

Back to top

Volunteering groups to work together on lobbying and campaigns

At a summit meeting this week to discuss the future of volunteering, 16 representatives from across the sector, including umbrella bodies NCVO, NAVCA and Acevo, said they would work to provide a coordinated public response on volunteering policy issues. They also agreed to lobby government collectively to secure more funding for projects and resources, where appropriate. A spokeswoman for Volunteering England, which organised the meeting, said the new approach would involve voluntary sector bodies consulting each other before meeting policymakers, and developing coordinated responses to the publication of any new research or action plans relating to volunteering.

Back to top

New Care Providers Alliance

The Care Providers Alliance has been formed from 11 organisations that work across adult social care. It also pledged to ‘provide leadership to the care sector at a time of considerable change and uncertainty’. Des Kelly, executive director of the National Care Forum and the first chair of the group, said: ‘Many of us were already working together and the Care Providers Alliance simply builds on the shared principles and relationships in a more formalised way.’
The members of the alliance are: Association for Real Change, Ceretas, English Community Care Association, Federation of Small Businesses, Mental Health Providers Forum, Shared Lives National Care Association, National Care Forum, Registered Nursing Homes Association, United Kingdom Homecare Association and Voluntary Organisations Disability Group.

Back to top

NJC pay scales 2008/09

The arbitration panel has awarded an additional 0.3% award with effect from 1 April 2008. The new figures represent an increase of 2.75% on the April 2007 payscales and not a 0.3% increase on the previously issued April 08 figures. The new scales are available on our website via www.navca.org.uk/localvs/scales

Back to top

Change4Life

Change4Life, (the DH campaign to encourage every family in England to eat well, take more exercise, and live longer) has published a range of toolkits, including a Top Tips leaflet for families, supporter poster and children's colouring/activity sheet.
 www.nhs.uk/change4life/Pages/PartnerTools.aspx  or www.nhs.uk/change4life

Back to top

Join Heritage Lottery Fund/National Heritage Memorial Fund decision-makers

The Heritage Lottery Fund distributes £180m per year of lottery investment to help conserve, sustain and share the heritage, now and for future generations. Would you like to be part of this process? If you are enthusiastic and passionate about the UK's heritage and think you can apply your skills and experiences during this exciting and challenging time visit: www.culture.gov.uk/working_with_us/public_appointments/1008.aspx

Back to top

New P45 form to be used from April

Employers are being reminded by HM Revenue and Customs that they must use the new A4 version of form P45 from 6 April. Introduced in October 2008, the new form includes date of birth and gender. News item: http://nds.coi.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=394560&NewsAreaID=2

Back to top

Ten Nonprofit Funding Models

The commercial world has business models giving a shorthand to describe and understand the way companies are built and sustained, according to an article on Stanford Social innovation Review. Identifying that nonprofit executives have not been as explicit about their funding models and have lacked an equivalent lexicon, they propose ten nonprofit business models. An inevitable American flavour but the approach could have relevance here too. www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/ten_nonprofit_funding_models/

Back to top

Transitional moments in an organisation
This month's 'Tools You Can Use' e-bulletin from Fieldstone Alliance is based around the book 'Seven Turning Points: Leading through Pivotal Transitions in Organisational Life'. Reading the list of turning points may be useful by itself (e.g. Turning Point 4: Do we need to focus? Opportunistic, unplanned growth results in an absence of focus and priorities and spreads an organisation too thin. The organisation needs to acquire discipline and focus on a few key areas.).
www.fieldstonealliance.org/client/tools_you_can_use/03-04-09_seven_turning_points.cfm

Back to top

The above news was resourced from:
VolResource newsletter www.voluntarynews.org.uk
Third Sector www.thirdsector.co.uk/ and
NAVCA LINX www.navca.org.uk/publications/linx/

Back to top