cadence comments about big society

10 Jan 2012

2012

If you say 2012 to many people their first thought will be of the Olympics. When we won them 7 years ago I think we all imagined that there would be a palpable sense of excitement as we approached the end of 2011, but that was in the days when we were being told the days of boom and bust were gone ... more

10 Jan 2012

2012

If you say 2012 to many people their first thought will be of the Olympics. When we won them 7 years ago I think we all imagined that there would be a palpable sense of excitement as we approached the end of 2011, but that was in the days when we were being told the days of boom and bust were gone ... more

27 Jun 2011

Cutting off nose and getting support

If a charity closes because it loses its funding it is a bit different to a private sector supplier who loses a contract. Many third sector organisations are very dependant on a few small sources of funding and cannot survive their loss. If they have to close they are likely to be gone forever, whereas a private organisation will suffer, but probably has more of a mix of income streams to see them through tough times ... more

6 Jun 2011

Impact of cuts on third sector

Cadence Works are working in collaboration with Voluntary Action Leicestershire on research into the impact of public spending cuts on Third Sector organisations ... more

26 May 2011

Localism and not localism

The Communities department Eric Pickles is sticking to his guns on localism. This week he is pushing Nottingham City Council with legal action if they do not publish details of all spending over £500. People in Northamptonshire might wish he'd been so keen to keep to the localist principles in mind when he decided to approve the disposal of low grade nuclear waste in a landfill in the county ... more

18 Mar 2011

Collecting and using data

One of the cuts that the public sector might welcome would be to their data collecting budgets. Especially if it meant they had to do less of it. The trouble is that more often than not, what is done is it is collected, but not used ... more

9 Mar 2011

Not a lone star state - Texas Volunteers

Quite a startling article in the Society Guardian today about the volunteers of Plano, Texas, USA. Expect an invasion of Coalition advisors looking for Big Society ideas soon ... more

18 Feb 2011

Grumpiness - the easy option

These are difficult times. The cuts are stressful for many organisations and individuals. It would be easy to end up being grumpy about it all. We all shout at the radio sometimes (OK it is just us then). That does not really work when you are a charity working out how to not just survive, but thrive ... more

11 Feb 2011

First cut is the deepest?

Rod Stewart said the 'first cut is the deepest' and that seems to be the case as the full impact of the CSR starts to bite in council budgets. In Rod's 1980s hey day there was plenty of agro between Labour Town Halls and the Tory government. Is it going to happen again? ... more

1 Feb 2011

Connected Communities - getting heard?

At an RSA event on Connected Communities there was as usual some interesting material presented. A couple of years ago the response might have been more enthusiastic, but the presenters had to stomach a few praise sandwiches ... more