The Government’s recently launched Procurement Pledge has not been well received. The Local Government Association (LGA), on behalf of local Councils, rapidly came out with an alternative and a number of VCS voices have come out in favour of that one and highlighted flaws in the original.

That the LGA felt the Pledge was too geared

One of the themes we will be touching on at next week’s VCS Conference will be Skills and, to my mind, it is a topic that we may have neglected within our Sector in recent years. If we have, then we might take an opportunity to reflect about that. We should perhaps be asking ourselves

Sometimes, we become aware of instances where either individual residents or a group of residents lobby the Council or the Police for change, often on environmental or highways matters, ie issues like parks, open spaces, speeding, parking and similar. Often they will say that they are speaking for a neighbourhood, perhaps a clutch of houses

A  top Government advisor has quit her role amongst a turmoil of allegations, a national newspaper observed that she ‘was last month criticised for taking an £8.6 million dividend from the company, even though it is entirely reliant on funding of around £200 million a year from the Government.’

Her company, from which she has also stepped

I have been an avid viewer of a sedate travelogue on BBC2, now in its third series, called ‘Great British Railway Journeys’. In it, arguably the best PM we never had, Michael Portillo, proves an affable and informative presenter as he follows Britain’s railways from place to place and examines the impact that the coming

A short and simple Blog entry to start 2012. Please read the New Year message of Steve Wyler from Locality, which can be found at http://locality.org.uk/comment/years-resolution-expose-incompetence-failing-communities/.

It tells of the roots of the Legal Aid Service and the Citizens Advice Bureau and other advice work, a full 120 years ago, through the work of Frank Tillyard. However, it also how

The novelist, TV Exec and journalist, Daisy Goodwin, published a provoking poem in her Sunday Times column a fortnight ago that bears reproduction here, after some reflections, for it set me on a quest to find out more.

Its background lay back in 1720s London, where children were dying with an alarming frequency, especially the offspring of

The pension age is rising and the economy is shrinking. In these tough times, there are numerous over 60s who in receipt of final salary pensions who continue to work at least until their DWP pension kicks in, The jobs market is so much less ageist than it was a decade ago as the experience

Last week, June Mole and I from SUSTAiN were privileged to join a party of residents from North Solihull and a few council officers on a trip to the Beacon Project in Falmouth and a sister project in nearby Redruth. It was a very long way at over 500 miles for the round trip, but

If the riots and looting in the streets weren’t bad enough, there were two items in my Sunday paper this week that also depressed me.

Firstly there was a front page column explaining that some Councils were planning to use the Localism Bill to ban smoking in parks lest children see adults smoking.

Three things struck me