BSSEC » 2010 » July

Sector asked to help meet ‘savings challenge’ as Cabinet Office cuts £11m from third sector programmes

July 29, 2010

There’s a good, clear piece in Social Enterprise online here spelling out the cuts the Cabinet Office is making to social enterprise and third sector programmes as part of its economy drive. £1.3m will be cut from Capacitybuilders, £130k from the RDAs’ budgets to support s

Continue Reading →

Big Lottery goes Big Local

July 28, 2010

Here’s a development which signals that new coalition government policies — the emphasis on localism, on grassroots organisations operating at the neighbourhood level — are beginning to reshape the priorities of independent funders, including the Lottery. BIG has jus

Continue Reading →

Regional government in a pickle

July 23, 2010

Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government has issued a press release confirming the abolition of regional government. This affects regional development agencies, government offices of the regions but is also likely to spell the end of regional services su

Continue Reading →

Big Lottery announces first new programme under coalition government

July 22, 2010

Third Sector Online reports that BIG Lottery has just announced the launch of its first new programme since the coalition government came to power — this will be Youth in Focus, a £30m programme for England targetting young carers, young people leaving care, and young people lea

Continue Reading →

Cameron ‘Big Society’ speech

July 20, 2010

Further to this post, if you haven’t already heard or read the PM’s ‘big society’ speech delivered recently in Liverpool, the text can be read in full here. It makes genuinely interesting reading — partly because he has better speechwriters than either Br

Continue Reading →

Sandwell rejects social enterprise

July 16, 2010

The online magazine Children & Young People now reports that social workers in Sandwell has welcomed the council’s decision not to participate in a pilot of so-called ‘social work practices’. This would have seen a GP-style social work practice in Sandwell which,

Continue Reading →

Finditinbirmingham backs Birmingham Energy Savers — free breakfast event

July 16, 2010

The next breakfast networking event to be held by Finditinbirmingham, Brum’s new business opportunities website and business networking initiative, mentioned before here, will be all about introducing businesses to the opportunities which will flow from Birmingham Energy Savers,

Continue Reading →

What should social enterprise be doing in order to win the trust of workers and trade unions?

July 15, 2010

There’s a really interesting post on Chris Newis’s blog here about clashes between social enterprise and trade unions which are being provoked by the coalition government’s rush to externalise parts of the NHS. The story — workers at the Lyng health centre in W

Continue Reading →

Liberating the NHS?

July 13, 2010

Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, the government’s white paper on health service reforms has been published. Download it here. I never thought I would see a government presided over by a Conservative prime minister say: It is our privilege to be custodians of the NHS, i

Continue Reading →

Social enterprises do great business at launch of Shop for Change

July 09, 2010

What an exciting day it was yesterday – we have been on a journey for the past 9 months to understand how best to grow new markets and support existing social enterprises. We quickly understood that social enterprises delivering services is the best kept secret in Birmingham and

Continue Reading →

More news on ‘the big society’

July 09, 2010

nef is first off the blocks with a new publication seeking to read the runes of the ‘big society’. You can download their ‘Ten Big Questions About the Big Society…And Ten Ways to Make the Best of it’ here.

Continue Reading →

Plans to ‘mutualise’ British Waterways put on hold

July 09, 2010

One of the exciting possibilities being discussed by Labour in the later stages of the previous government was the potential to mutualise British Waterways and turn it into a ‘national trust’ for canals. Ministers said that the guardian of Britain’s canals and waterw

Continue Reading →

Shop for Change puts social enterprise top of Brum’s shopping list!

July 06, 2010

As covered in this post, Shop for Change, the new campaign to encourage social enterprises and third sector organisations to buy more goods and services from each other is now live. It was launched today by Cllr Sue Anderson, who said, “About half the sector places less than 10%

Continue Reading →

Brilliant technique, brilliant explanation — the crises of capitalism

July 05, 2010

My attention has just been drawn to a short talk by the radical sociologist David Harvey. It’s a broadly marxist explanation of the current economic crisis called The Crises of Capitalism and can be viewed on YouTube here. Now, don’t all rush for the exits at once. The rea

Continue Reading →

Details start to emerge regarding abolition of RDAs and establishment of ‘Local Enterprise Partnerships’

July 01, 2010

Following the proposal to abolish the regional development agencies (RDAs) and replace these with Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) included in the Queen’s Speech and the Budget, Vince Cable, secretary of state for business, and Eric Pickles, secretary of state for communitie

Continue Reading →

BIRMINGHAM & SOLIHULL SOCIAL ECONOMY CONSORTIUM C.I.C., trading as BSSEC. A community interest company registered in England and Wales with company no. 07992674. Registered office: c/o Anthony Collins Solicitors LLP, 134 Edmund Street, Birmingham B3 2ES | All rights reserved | Copyright 2013-BSSEC | Created by Citizen Click