SCVO criticises Scottish government for lack of charity involvement in employment scheme

The umbrella body says charities and social enterprises have been ‘sidelined’ in favour of private companies in contracts to deliver the Fair Start Scotland service

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations has criticised the Scottish government for a perceived lack of charities and social enterprises among the organisations awarded contracts as part of an employment scheme.

Yesterday, the Scottish government announced it had awarded £96m worth of contracts to a mixture of public, private and voluntary sector organisations as part of the Fair Start Scotland service, which will try to help at least 38,000 people across the country find employment.

The announcement detailed a number of charities and social enterprises that were either partners or delivery partners in the programme, with three of the nine areas across Scotland involved in the programme having a third sector organisation as the primary partner delivering the programme.

But SCVO said referring to many of the charities named as “partners” was misleading, and claimed that the Scottish government had rowed back from its promises to put voluntary organisations at the heart of Fair Start. 

John Downie, director of public affairs at SCVO, said: “The Scottish government promised a brave new world in its vision for employability in Scotland.

“Its ambitions were that the third sector would be heart and centre of the new employability landscape, but instead charities and voluntary organisations have been sidelined to make way for private companies which lack the local knowledge required.

“It’s simply not good enough, and ignores the successful values-driven approach of the third sector in providing such vital services across the country.”

A blog post from Downie said the Scottish government’s referral to many of the third sector organisations announced as “partners” was misleading.

The blog post said: “I think more than a few would have been surprised to find themselves described as ‘partners’ of the winning bidders, particularly as while these third sector organisations have agreed in principle to be in the supply chain – depending on negotiations – they haven’t, as one large charity told me, seen the actual business delivery model.

“This would indicate that they’re not really partners – and they say it’s misleading to say they are.”

Fraser Kelly, chief executive of Social Enterprise Scotland, said: “We find it hard to understand how, after such a thorough consultation process, the vast majority of contracts have been awarded to big private sector corporations instead of social enterprises and charities.

“We believe that this was a unique opportunity to reshape the employability landscape in Scotland and to tailor services to the real needs of individuals to get them back to work. It was also an opportunity to grow the capacity of locally owned and controlled social enterprises and, ultimately, to bin the old-fashioned approach of prioritising bargain basement provision.”

The Scottish government did not respond to a request for comment before Third Sector’s deadline. 

Jamie Hepburn, employability minister, told the Scottish parliament yesterday that Fair Start “is an important milestone in our commitment to providing Scottish employment support which will help people faced with barriers into work, access a fairer and more targeted support service”.

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Blackbaud completes its £95m takeover of JustGiving

The fundraising platform has been used to raise more than £3bn in 164 countries for more than 26,000 charities

The US-based software company Blackbaud has completed its £95m takeover of the fundraising platform JustGiving, the two organisations have announced.

The companies said in June that Blackbaud had agreed to buy the fundraising platform, which was founded in 2001 and has been used to raise more than £3bn in 164 countries for more than 26,000 charities.

Blackbaud said in a statement that the acquisition, which was completed yesterday after regulators gave the green light to the deal, would result in more charitable giving.

Zarine Kharas, co-founder and chief executive of JustGiving, and Ann-Marie Huby, managing director and co-founder, will step down, with Huby joining Blackbaud’s consumer business steering committee in an advisory capacity for the next six months to help shape its five-year strategy.

JustGiving will be led by Jerry Needel, president and general manager of Blackbaud Consumer Solutions.

All of the JustGiving’s remaining staff of about 140 will transfer to Blackbaud’s London-based International Markets Group with no redundancies, a spokesman said.

Blackbaud said the acquisition doubled its investment in peer-to-peer fundraising and would add to its TeamRaiser and everydayhero platforms.

JustGiving made a profit of £821,000 after taxation on a turnover of £24.9m in 2016. The previous year it made a loss of more than £3.7m on a turnover of £21.6m.

Huby said in a statement: “We’re passionate about growing the world’s giving and advancing good causes – and I can’t think of a better way to do it than as part of the world’s leading cloud software provider powering social good.”

Mike Gianoni, president and chief executive of Blackbaud, said: “Blackbaud is committed to accelerating the impact of individuals and organisations pursuing global good with modern, mobile-first and integrated cloud software.

“As we marry JustGiving’s leading innovation in social giving with our unmatched cloud solutions for social good, we can power game-changing breakthroughs that strengthen the entire social economy.”

A statement from JustGiving said: “JustGiving will work with the Blackbaud team to develop a roadmap with the aim of providing even greater services to the charity sector both in the UK and across the world.”

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«Делайте больше, чтобы отличить благотворительность и международную помощь», – говорит депутат благотворительным организациям

Дезмонд Суэйн, депутат от New Forest West, говорит, что общественность нуждается в разъяснении о различии между двумя

Организации помощи и правительству необходимо сделать больше, чтобы провести различие между благотворительностью и расходами на международную помощь, согласно депутату Консервативной партии Десмонду Суэйну.

Выступая на очередном мероприятии о международных расходах на помощь на конференции Консервативной партии в Манчестере вчера, депутат от New Forest West сказал, что политики не смогли просвещать общественность о бюджете помощи, потому что считали, что это непопулярно с избирателями, и поэтому решил не говорить об этом.

Это, по его словам, привело к «глубокой путанице», что расходы на помощь были «чем-то связаны с благотворительностью».

Он сказал делегатам: «Мы не занимаемся благотворительностью – благотворительность – это когда вы кладете руку в свой карман и вносите свой вклад. Международная помощь в целях развития – это деньги налогоплательщика, извлеченные из вашего кармана всей принудительной силой закона и, следовательно, должен быть потрачен в ваших интересах, с ожиданием возврата.

«Благотворительность – это то, что вы отдаете, не ожидая возврата – мы проводим нашу международную помощь в области развития в наших интересах, и это должно быть мерой ее эффективности».

Он сказал, что не пытаться аргументировать расходы на помощь является «глубокой ошибкой в ​​демократии».

Кирсти МакНилл, исполнительный директор по вопросам политики, адвокации и кампаний по спасению детей, согласилась, но сказала, что часто бывает трудно получить такие позитивные аргументы в отношении расходов на помощь, которые охвачены некоторыми основными новостными новостями.

Она сказала, однако, что ответы на критику СМИ о том, как были потрачены деньги помощи, должны быть нюансированными и открытыми.

«Когда коллеги в средствах массовой информации поднимают законные вопросы, это во многих отношениях государственная служба – нам нужно тщательное изучение, это огромные государственные средства, и мы не должны отступать от этого».

Она сказала, что существует тенденция к тому, что язык в таком охвате становится очень двоичным, с пессимистическим взглядом на то, что все расходы на помощь были плохо управляемы и не улучшились, и что Великобритания не способна добиться международного воздействия.

«Но способ противостоять тому, чтобы не иметь одинаково двоичного взгляда Поллианна-иш, что всякая помощь совершенна, и она должна быть освобождена от контроля», – сказала она.

«У него должен быть очень подробный контроль, и мы будем рады предоставить ответы».

Джеймс Прайс, руководитель кампании в Альянсе налогоплательщиков, заявил на сессии, что если государственные расходы на помощь будут сокращены, сумма, получаемая благотворительными организациями за развитие, повысится, потому что люди будут жертвовать больше причин, которые им интересны.

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Regulator to update fundraising code to include standards for online giving platforms

It is one of the developments from a meeting last week involving the Fundraising Regulator, Charity Commission and major giving platforms

The Fundraising Regulator will update the Code of Fundraising Practice to include standards for online giving platforms, following a meeting between charity regulators and the platforms last week.

The Fundraising Regulator, the Charity Commission and representatives from 14 of the online giving platforms met last week to discuss issues such as how to tackle fraud on websites that allow people to set up fundraising pages.

In a joint statement published yesterday, attendees at the meeting said the code had been among the topics discussed.

The statement said: “The Fundraising Regulator is reviewing the Code of Fundraising Practice and wants to update and expand the standards for online fundraising set out in the code.

“Platforms will work with the Fundraising Regulator to contribute to the review of the code.”

The regulator last month announced a wider consultation on possible changes to the code, which is due to be launched later this month.

At the meeting, the platforms also committed to working with the regulators to review “their resilience to fraud and to create a new forum to share advice and intelligence about potential fraud threats”, the joint statement said.

And they have committed to offering advice and guidance to the individuals setting up fundraising pages about the choices available to them and their responsibilities.

Although all the platforms said they already had robust anti-fraud measures in place, the statement said: “More can be done, working collaboratively, to ensure clear and consistent advice across different platforms and generally to the public.

“It is critical to avoid confusion about, for example, accountability to the Charity Commission, eligibility for Gift Aid, and what happens in the event of a failed appeal.

“Platforms agree to work with the Charity Commission and Fundraising Regulator to agree and disseminate clear and consistent public advice about the choices available for donating.

The Charity Commission and the Fundraising Regulator will report back to Tracey Crouch, the Minister for Civil Society, on the progress of discussions and whether they think the current regulatory framework is adequate, the statement said.

It added that online fundraising platforms that had not attended the meeting were invited to join future discussions.

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Дефицит пенсий в лондонской клинике вырос до более чем 43 млн фунтов

. Это на 10 млн. Фунтов больше, чем в любой из последних четырех лет, но благотворительность планирует ликвидировать дефицит к 2023 году

Пенсионный дефицит частной благотворительной организации в Лондонской клинике вырос до 43,7 млн ​​фунтов стерлингов в прошлом году, свидетельствуют его последние данные.

На своих счетах за год до 31 декабря 2016 года, которые были опубликованы на веб-сайте «Дом компаний» на прошлой неделе, благотворительная акция заявила, что в течение года она потеряла 20,4 млн фунтов стерлингов по установленному пенсионному плану.

Дефицит в этом году на 10 миллионов фунтов больше, чем в предыдущие четыре года.

Благотворительность имеет общие обязательства с установленными выплатами в размере 124,2 млн. Фунтов стерлингов, что почти на 26 млн фунтов больше, чем в 2015 году, свидетельствуют счета.

В отчетах говорится, что благотворительная организация закрыла свою пенсионную схему с установленными выплатами на будущий начисление в 2015 году и имеет план по устранению ее дефицита к 31 марта 2023 года.

Благотворительность также принесла убыток в размере 4,9 млн фунтов стерлингов в 2016 году, что, по мнению этих счетов, объясняется «обесценением» в размере 5,5 млн фунтов стерлингов по ранее установленным планам за разработку и разработку планов развития больничной помощи.

Общий доход, показанный на счетах, составил 144,4 млн фунтов, по сравнению с 141,8 млн. Фунтов стерлингов в предыдущем году, а расходы выросли с 136,3 млн. Фунтов стерлингов в 2015 году до 149,3 млн фунтов в прошлом году.

Группа имеет резервы в размере 167,3 млн фунтов стерлингов, по данным счетов.

Учетные записи также показывают, что главный получатель благотворительной организации, которая не идентифицирована, заплатила от £ 550,001 до £ 560 000 в 2016 году.

Благотворительность была четвертой в исследовании третьего сектора 2017 года о самых высоких зарплатах в добровольном секторе, которые были основаны на счетах на благотворительность в 2015 году и показали, что у топ-раннера была годовая зарплата от £ 540 000 до £ 550000.

В отчетах 2016 года в общей сложности 99 человек получили благотворительную помощь в размере более 60 000 фунтов стерлингов в течение года, а 11 из них получили более 100 000 фунтов стерлингов.

Представитель благотворительной организации сказал: «В 2016 году мы увидели рост выручки с общим увеличением на 1,8 процента, и мы зафиксировали показатель удовлетворенности пациентов в размере 97 процентов, которым мы гордимся. В качестве благотворительности мы работаем по-разному в другие частные больницы.

«Без акционеров мы берем долгосрочный взгляд на наши инвестиции, направляя наш доход на улучшение больничных учреждений и новых технологий, которые приносят пользу нашим пациентам, консультантам и сотрудникам».

Пресс-секретарь также сообщил, что в течение 2016 года больница «продолжила нашу амбициозную инвестиционную программу» и открыла новую специальную группу интенсивной терапии и лечения заболеваний пищеварительной системы, а также вложила значительные средства в уход за конечными пациентами в конце жизни и по проектам в области ИТ-инфраструктуры.

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Disasters Emergency Committee launches Myanmar appeal

More than 500,000 Rohingya, consisting mostly of women and children, have fled the country to neighbouring Bangladesh

The Disasters Emergency Committee has launched a new emergency appeal to help thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar.

More than 500,000 Rohingya, the majority of which are women and children, have left Rakhine state in Myanmar following alleged state persecution to seek sanctuary in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The DEC campaign is raising money to provide shelter, medical care, water and food for those leaving Myanmar, and for the Rohingya already living in makeshift shelters in Bangladesh.

The DEC, which is a collaboration of 13 major humanitarian aid charities including ActionAid, the British Red Cross, Oxfam and Tearfund, is launching the appeal today and will broadcast television advertisements on all of the UK’s major broadcasters.

The UK government will match the first £3m donated to the DEC appeal by the public, and a dedicated phone line has been set up.

Saleh Saeed, chief executive of the DEC, said: “People are arriving exhausted and traumatised into already overcrowded camps in Bangladesh. This is one of the fastest movements of people we have seen in recent decades. 

“Families are living in makeshift shelters or by the side of the road with no clean drinking water, toilets or washing facilities. This humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in a country that is already reeling from the worst floods in decades.

“Without urgent support, the risk of disease and further misery is alarmingly high.”

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Too much focus on full-time volunteering ‘could risk charities being seen as exploitative’

Karl Wilding, director of public policy and volunteering at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, mulls the issue at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference

Too much focus on full-time volunteering could perpetuate inequality and risk charities being seen as exploitative, according to Karl Wilding, director of public policy and volunteering at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

Speaking at a Conservative Party conference fringe event hosted by the think tank the Centre for Social Justice in Manchester yesterday, Wilding said that although volunteering offered benefits to the volunteers, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds would be unable to afford to participate in full-time, long-term programmes.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport commissioned a review last year into the impact of full time volunteering and the possibility of setting up a government-backed scheme, which is due to report back later this month. 

Wilding said the review needed to consider the impact of encouraging full-time volunteering on social mobility.

He said volunteering was “an incredibly powerful social intervention” in helping volunteers into employment, but questioned whether it needed to be full-time to be valuable.

“Might we be making social mobility problems in this country even worse, by giving some people who already able to give themselves a leg up, an even bigger leg up by creating opportunities that are going to strengthen their CV significantly?” he said.

He said that it might be easier and more cost effective to allow jobseekers to spend more of their time volunteering, rather than insisting they actively look for jobs.

Another concern, he said, was how a full-time volunteering programme would be perceived.

He said: “Are we opening ourselves up to the charge that full-time volunteering, which will require changes to minimum wage legislation to enable us to pay a stipend, is just us finding another way to exploit young people?”

Wilding also said that there were only about 1,000 people volunteering full time and warned that such volunteering could be going against the grain of current volunteering patterns.

“All the trends tell us that the way people are getting involved is actually shifting away from full-time volunteering to episodic, disjointed pieces of time,” he said.

But James Probert, director of strategy and impact at City Year, a charity that supports young people to complete a year’s full-time volunteering, said many of Wilding’s concerns could be dealt with by a change in the legal status of full time volunteers.

Talking about the current legislative set up, he said: “If you do volunteering you are ‘Neet’ – not in employment, education or training – there is no other box for people who are not doing it alongside work or studying.”

He said minimum wage rules, under which people could be paid subsistence expenses but not a stipend and could not receive benefits in kind such as recognised training, was making it very difficult for volunteers and organisations that wanted to provide opportunities.

He said he wanted to see a recognised system for taking a year out to volunteer, pointing to similar systems in America, France and Italy.

Lack of access, he said, was “a problem with the status quo” which could be improved by taking replicating the government’s the International Citizen Service, which offers 12-month volunteering opportunities overseas as a domestic gap year, which “doesn’t cost a lot of money and isn’t only for rich kids”.

He said he hoped the government would allow volunteers on such a scheme to receive benefits at around the same rate as job seekers’ allowance to help support them.

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По словам Оонаха Айткена,

должностные лица должны вести дискуссию с правительством о государственных услугах, а главный исполнительный директор по вопросам добровольчества выступил на конференции в Консервативной партии в Манчестере

Благотворительные организации должны вести дискуссию с правительством о роли гражданского общества в предоставлении государственных услуг, сказал Oonagh Aitken, исполнительный директор Volunteering Matters.

Выступая на конференции «Консервативная партия», посвященной предоставлению средств для местных и национальных благотворительных организаций, организованной лотереей Народного почтового индекса сегодня утром, Айткен сказал, что нынешняя среда означает гражданские действия добровольцев, которые должны рассматриваться как один из ключевых элементов демократии в стране .

«Нам нужны более широкие дискуссии о дизайне и предоставлении государственных услуг», – сказала она.

«В эпоху, которая так отличается от 10 или 20 лет назад, мы не можем просто чистить вещи под ковром и говорить, что« добровольцы могут делать больше »или« неправильно, что добровольцы должны заменить профессионалов ».

Она признала, что некоторые роли должны быть предоставлены профессионалам, но сказал: «Мы находимся в эпоху, когда есть много готовности сообщества к участию и предоставления некоторых государственных услуг, которые просто не могут быть доставлены любым другим способом ».

Она сказала, что необходимо провести много дискуссий с национальным и местным правительством о том, как можно было бы управлять этой готовностью добровольца таким образом которые будут предоставлять услуги, но позволят людям возвращать свои общины.

Дама Хелен Гош, генеральный директор Национального треста, согласилась, но сказала, что есть роль, которую может выполнить только правительство, чтобы облегчить участие общин в государственных услугах путем предоставления начального финансирования или смягчения правил, позволяющих сообществу активы, подлежащие передаче.

«Чтобы перейти к новой модели, вам действительно нужно иметь партнерство с правительством, а также опыт благотворительного сектора», – сказала она.

На этом мероприятии лотерея Народного почтового индекса возобновила свои призывы к правительству увеличить ежегодный лимит оборота на благотворительной лотерее, который должен быть увеличен с 10 до 100 миллионов фунтов стерлингов, а также лимит на продажу билетов за одну ничью от £ 4 млн до £ 10 млн.

PPL утверждает, что ходы означали бы увеличение денег за хорошие причины.

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Charities will not face regulatory action for failing to apply new governance code, says Sarah Atkinson

But the director of policy and communications at the Charity Commission says the regulator will use the document to determine the overall health of the organisation

The Charity Commission will not take regulatory action against charities that fail to apply the new sector governance code, but will use it to determine the overall health of the organisation, according to Sarah Atkinson, director of policy and communications at the Charity Commission.

Speaking at the law firm Bates Wells Braithwaite’s annual charity and social enterprise tea party yesterday, Atkinson said that because the Charity Governance Code was voluntary, it would not form the basis for regulatory action, and said the commission was keen to avoid “regulatory creep”.

The Charity Governance Code, which was revised earlier this year, recommends a number of policies including larger charities submitting to an external reviews every three years.

Atkinson told the conference that charities would not be subject to regulatory action solely because they were not applying the code, or because they had not heard of it. 

“But we will think you are a stronger charity better equipped to face the challenges that you have if you are familiar with and applying the code,” she said. 

She said the commission would refer to the code when considering any sector-wider recommendations as part of a statutory inquiry.

“What we will take regulatory action on is our guidance set out in trustee duties,” she said.

Atkinson also said that she hoped the release of the code was “very much the start of what needs to be a process to socialise the code and create a movement around good governance”.

The code also recommends that charities review whether to retain trustees that have served nine years or more in the role, and Atkinson said it was important that decisions to keep trustees in place were taken in the best interests of the charity.

“It is important that when people want to stay for a long time, it is because the charity needs them, not because they need the charity,” she said.

“It can’t be about you – there has to be other ways you can continue to support and love that organisation. It has to be that the charity has particular need of something you can continue to bring, and continue to bring afresh.”

Philip Kirkpatrick, co-head of the charities and social enterprise team at BWB, said that it was important to balance “the need for continuity and knowledge, and the need for innovation and new ideas, and of course allowing for diversity” when deciding whether to extend trustees’ term of office past nine years.

He also said that there was a risk that the code “becomes a stick to beat people with rather than what the code team wanted it to be, which is an aspirational thing to pull people up”.

Also speaking at the conference, Rosie Chapman, chair of the Charity Governance Code Steering Group, which oversaw the redevelopment of the new code, said that she thought the latest version was realistic, but said that some charities already meeting other organisations’ governance codes, such as housing associations or sports charities, “might as well continue to meet their codes” to ensure funding remains in place.

Baroness Pitkeathley, chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on Charities, said that despite the pressures on modern trustees, the sector should be cautious about overemphasising the difficulties ahead of the benefits of trusteeship.

“I think we pile more and more responsibility onto trustees, and perhaps we should be cautious about emphasising all the possible negatives that there are in the responsibilities from being a trustee,” she said.

“I personally have had huge joy from being a trustee – I have learnt things, I have developed skills and I have had terrific experiences. I think we should always remember that when we think about the extras we are giving to trustees.”

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