Happy Birthday Florence!

Joanne Smithson | 6:57 pm, 12 May 2012

Today is Florence Nightingale’s birthday.  Born on 12 May 1820, she became famous for her work in the military hospitals of the Crimea. Her birthday is celebrated across the world and marked by International Nurses’ Day.

I wonder what she would have had to say about the NHS Reforms?  I’m not sure she would have been overly impressed.  Florence Nightingale campaigned to establish nursing as a respectable profession for women.  Ok so maybe I’m stretching things a bit to compare her struggle for acceptance with that faced by many of our small health & social care providers battling to be heard by local Clinical Commissioning Groups; but both face the challenge of proving themselves in the face of apathy and reticence from the establishment.

For Florence things changed when Sidney Herbert, the war minister, asked her to oversee a team of nurses in the military hospitals in Turkey in 1954.  Herbert had seen first hand the difference Florence Nightingale made in her time working as a superintendent of a hospital for gentlewomen in Harley Street.  Using today’s jargon, he seized the opportunity to improve “quality, innovation, productivity and prevention” for wounded British soldiers at the Front.  With her nurses, Florence Nightingale greatly improved conditions and substantially reduced the mortality rate.

I’d be prepared to bet that Mr Herbert had a dose more foresight than our current Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley.  And he didn’t have access to Twitter, e-mail or News International.

Interestingly, much of what is at the heart of the present government’s NHS reforms echo the central tenants of Nightingale’s own theories, published in ‘Notes on Nursing’ in 1860.  Her work was hugely influential in the early development of health & social care, and her concerns for sanitation, military health and hospital planning established practices, which are still in existence and highly resonant today.  Somewhat disappointingly reviewers on Google Books only give her 3 stars.  She fairs better on Amazon where her 24 reviewers all give 5 stars, and her book qualifies for free super saver delivery.

The Government has recently issued a revised version of the NHS Constitution and Andrew Lansley has asked the NHS Future Forum group to advise him whether there is any scope for strengthening the NHS Constitution to support high quality services for patients.  A public consultation later this year will give patients and staff the opportunity to have their say about what can be done to improve and reinforce the Constitution.

It’s one for the diary – along with a note to celebrate Florence’s birthday next year.

Posted in Health and wellbeing, Support for sector, Value of the sector | Comments (0)

Join me at Newcastle’s 1st Social Media Surgery

Carrie Brookes | 2:14 pm, 10 May 2012

Do you want to find out more about Twitter, Facebook, blogs, free websites, sharing photos and other social media tools? Do you want to find out about new ways to tell your organisation’s story to people in Newcastle? Come to the Newcastle Social Media Surgery!

I’m volunteering my time to help out at this event, along with Stephanie Cole (you may know her from Newcastle CVS) whose idea this all was, along with a few other willing helpers.

The event is on the 16th May at the Toffee Factory, Ouseburn, Newcastle from 5-6.30pm.  This first ever surgery is a free session for voluntary and community groups, charities and active citizens. The surgery is run by volunteer social media surgeons who know enough about social media to explain it to others and are enthusiastic about how social media can help voluntary and community groups, charities and people in Newcastle.

You will meet people who understand all about social media and how you can get the most out of it. You might have specific questions that you’d like to ask, or you might just like a general introduction to what’s available. You don’t need any previous knowledge to take part, and there won’t be any lectures. We’ll talk to you one-to-one, listen to what you need and explain things clearly.

This a free event and places are limited so book your place and I’ll see you there!

If you’d like a social media surgery set up anywhere else in the North East, get in touch, I’d be happy to help.

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Leveson – A master class in Power, influence and the underbelly of social capital

Jo Curry | 12:15 pm, 4 May 2012

I was off sick last week with a throat infection, and so had the opportunity to watch the Murdochs giving their evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. We spend an enormous amount of time in the Policy Representation Partnership, hosted by VONNE, thinking through how best to influence policy and sway decision makers. We have also spent a lot of time as a sector promoting and trying to better understand the power of Social Capital. What a lesson those 3 days of evidence provided.
It was clear that Prime Ministers and Leaders of the opposition have been travelling around the world and opening up their diaries in order to curry favour with the Media Barron. Leaders of all parties were willing to hear his views on business and politics, and where keen to set out their thinking in the hope that he would back them.
One of the exchanges that hasn’t received much publicity centred around the question of when social capital strays into blackmail. The example that was given was the treatment by The News Of The World, of the women that were caught on camera “entertaining” Max Mosely. The paper apparently offered to obscure their identity in return for their exclusive story, but they also threatened to expose them if they did not cooperate. Lord Justice Eddie thought that this amounted to blackmail, Rupert Murdoch thought that this was a case of “if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” Whilst he went onto to say that this sort of arrangement was commonplace, he also insisted that he had never asked for nor received anything from a politician.
For those of us that can’t afford a house in Chipping Norten, a newspaper or a television channel, what do we take from this? For me 4 lessons emerged.
1. Continue to be sceptical and inquiring, don’t take things at face value, dig deeper and do not shy away from exposing the truth even if that involves “unfriending” the powerful.
2. Understand the power of social media and exploit it. We don’t have to persuade the traditional media to broadcast our views anymore.
3. Be alert to when Social Capital can turn slightly sinister, beware of being co-opted.
4. Be as well prepared, meticulous and forensic as Robert Jay QC – who has provided a master class in how to subtly and respectfully expose the absurdity of the facade that many of us have been oblivious to.

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Calling all policy project ideas

Natalie Maidment | 4:10 pm, 2 May 2012

As you may be aware the Policy and Representation Partnership are going to be commissioning up to 6 new policy projects from 1st July 2012. We are looking for innovative ideas from voluntary organisations who would like to try and influence policy. Up to £12,000 is available for each project and organisations will receive a lot of help and support to achieve their intended outcomes.

More information can be found in the Call for Expression of Interest  document but don’t forget you could also come along to the information session being held tomorrow (3rd May) from 9.30am – 12pm at St Cuthbert’s Hopice, Durham. No need to book just turn up.

Posted in Campaigning, Commissioning and procurement, Support for sector | Comments (0)

Welfare Reform

Natalie Maidment | 1:45 pm, 30 April 2012

The Policy and Representation Partnership held another lively event on Friday. The subject: Welfare Reform Changes. Sue Royston from Citizens Advice gave a whistlestop tour of the changes and how these are likely to impact on, in particular, people with disabilities. For some people in the room the presentation will have beafed up their knowledge of the changes, for others – including myself – it felt like my head was going to explode from all the information.

It is true to say that each of the 146 clauses within the Welfare Reform Act are going to have an impact on so many people’s lives. We had some group discussions about what the sector can do to try and highglight the impact to policy makers. More details of this will be publshed in the event report.

In the meatime Sue Royston Presentation can be downloaded, if you would like to learn more about the changes.

Posted in Campaigning, In the news, Policy and Representation Partnership | Comments (0)

BAD day for volunteers!

Carrie Brookes | 1:39 pm, 20 April 2012

Put the 1st of June in your diary. Its going to be a BAD day for volunteers in the North East!

You can thank Steven Crossley from the North East Child Poverty Commission for that ‘bad’ headline.  Between us we’ve agreed to start our first Blog Action Day.

Blog Action Days (BAD) are where numerous organisations come together on a certain day and agree to blog about an issue of common concern. As the first week of June is Volunteers Week in the UK, we thought it might be a good idea to encourage volunteers, voluntary organisations and people who benefit from volunteers time and skills in the North East, to agree to write blogs on something ‘volunteer’ related as part of ‘BAD for Volunteers’ on Friday 1st June to raise the profile of volunteering and the role it plays in the lives of people in the region. We’re also thinking about encouraging something similar for Refugee Week later on in June!

If you’d be interested in being involved in this, please contact myself carrie.brookes@vonne.org.uk or Steven Crossley s.j.crossley@durham.ac.uk. Don’t worry if you haven’t got your own blog (that’s not a good enough excuse – and they’re free and easy to set up) because we can put you in touch with other organisations who may want a guest blogger. You may even end up here on the VONNE blog!

Posted in Campaigning, Communications, Social Media, Volunteering | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Responses to Consultations

Natalie Maidment | 3:44 pm, 13 April 2012

I have recently responded to two Government consultation’s on behalf of the sector; Register of Lobbyist and the Proposed Changes to Regional Statistics.

Proposed Changes to Regional Statistics

DCLG wanted to understand user’s views on regional statistics, since the closure of the Government Office network, in a proposal to end the publication of statistics at this level.

There were four questions as part of the consultation to consider including;
• should regional statistics be no longer published;
• are there alternative methods of presenting information;
• how are statistics currently used;
• and what would be the impact if the statistics were no longer available.

VONNE submitted a response on behalf of the sector highlighting the impact this could have on voluntary and community sector organisation’s in the North East.

Register of Lobbyists

It has been agreed that a register would make politics more transparent but they required stakeholder’s views as to what should be included in the register. One of the main questions being considered is whether Charities and Think Tanks should be required to sign the register.

VONNE considered the questions and submitted a response.

Posted in Campaigning, Policy and Representation Partnership | Comments (0)

Falling Through the Cracks

Natalie Maidment | 11:34 am, 5 April 2012

I attended the launch of Shoot Your Mouth Off’s DVD yesterday called ‘Falling Through the Cracks’. The DVD captures stories from across the North East of young people and adults with disabilities about how they are being affected by the cuts and the Welfare Reform changes.

The DVD is really well put together and gives a clear message to policy makers that disabled people have the same rights as everyone else to live a full life in society. The current cuts and the changes to Welfare Reform benefits are causing a lot of fear amongst disabled people.

Key messages are:

  • Disabled people who are a target of hate crime receive adequate police support
  • Changes to Disability Living Allowance can not make people worse off
  • Assessment process needs to be fair and take into consideration different needs and fluctuating conditions
  • People will be supported with the additional costs of living with a disability
  • Local Authorities protect funding for social care and voluntary services to enable disabled people to live independently
  • Recognition of the contribution of carers
  • Support helplines of Employment and Support Allowance provide staff with adequate equality training
  • The media are challenged to present a varied view and stop using the label ‘scroungers’

The launch of this DVD is just the beginning and over the next few months SYMO will be using it to speak with policy makers to protect disabled people’s rights.

You can watch the film at – http://www.vonne.org.uk/policy/partnership/policytopics/welfare_reforms.php?flink=838

Posted in Campaigning, Policy and Representation Partnership, Support for sector | Comments (0)

Come on George, give it back

Carrie Brookes | 2:44 pm, 30 March 2012

The budget produced a nasty suprise for the sector last week. It was the news that there will be a cap on tax relief of donations over £50k. No consultation, just the decision.  You may think oh well, it only affects millionaires giving away money, but you’d be wrong. I have it on good authority that many of the large donations received here in the North East aren’t from multi-millionaires but business people on incomes like 150k who have done well and want to give something back.

It is these large donations that set up local trusts and allow grant-giving foundations to give smaller pots of money to smaller charities and voluntary groups.

Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society tweeted about a ‘good’ roundtable he held with ACEVO and others this week, but no news of change has emerged from it.

Another thing that sticks in my throat is the HMRC and Treasury’s official line that “just because someone gives to charity, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t pay any tax”.  This assumes that tax-effective charitable giving is effectively a form of tax avoidance. They are giving away their money!

Enough from me, sign up your support for the campaign at Give it Back George.

Posted in Campaigning, In the news, Support for sector, Value of the sector | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Guy Opperman MP for Hexham – my view of the 2012 budget

Carrie Brookes | 11:32 am, 28 March 2012

In the interests of fair and balanced coverage of the budget we invited Guy Opperman MP for Hexham to provide his views on why the Chancellors announcements are good for the third sector and good for the North East. Please read his guest blog below, as always your views are welcome in the comments box below.


Firstly let me say I am a big supporter of what VONNE and the local charities they support are doing. Last year I walked Hadrians Wall and raised over £6,000 for local and national charities and regularly volunteer myself in Northumberland. This year I will be taking on the Peninine Way to help raise money for local charities.

Last week saw the second budget of the Coalition Government.  The most important announcement for me was the help for low and middle earners. The Chancellor has increased the Income Tax Personal Allowance increase to £9,205. This change will lift an additional 34,000 of the lowest paid people in the North East out of income tax all together. The changes will also benefit  945,000 people in the region with a tax cut of more than £200. That’s real help for local families.

This Government will have lifted a total of 82,000 people in the North East out of income tax altogether. A local average family with two standard rate tax payers will be over £1000 better off because of the rises in the Personal Allowance.

As the headlines has shown there are also changes to pensions to equalize the Personal Allowance. Up to now, pensioners have enjoyed a higher personal tax allowance than working people. Currently this is at £10,500. What the Chancellor has done is to freeze that personal allowance to allow the personal tax allowance to catch up (£9,200 next year) as well as ensuring new pensioners join at the same rate as those in employment. No pensioner will pay more in 2012/13 or 2013/14, and because of the Government’s commitment to the largest ever pension increase most Pensioners will be better off. The poorest 50% of pensioners will not be affected.  People who are already drawing a pension retain their £10,500 allowance. New pensioners next year will start out at the lower rate (same as when they were in employment) but we to increase in government toward our goal for the first £10,000 to be out of tax altogether, for everyone. It’s also worth noting this April’s pension rise is the highest ever, at £5.31 on top of last year’s £4.50.

For the VCS there was some good news.

The Government is going to make an extra £20 million available to the not-for-profit advice sector in 2013-14, and again in 2014-15 to support them during funding changes. The Government confirmed has confirmed that there will be a lower rate of 36% for charitable donations to boost giving. The Government will also introduce a new Gift Aid small donations scheme from April 2013 to enable charities to claim a Gift Aid style top-up payment on up to £5,000 of small donations, without the need to collect Gift Aid declarations.

Overall the budget sets aside some £40 million for the not for profit advice sector over the next two years as well as measures to simplify gift aid making life easier for charities. These measured are to be welcomed at what is a really difficult time for the VCS.

I do have some concerns about the capping of tax relief which may have an impact on big donations to charity. The Chancellor has suggested it won’t, but I will taking this up in Parliament over the next few weeks.

I do not pretend this is a perfect budget, nor do I pretend this is a perfect government but there is real help for the lowest paid in this budget and that is something we can all welcome.

Guy Opperman MP,
Conservative MP for Hexham

Posted in North East economy | Tagged | Comments (1)