Democracy not Tyranny at Work
Let’s create our own ways of managing
We need your experiences and views. Please come and join us on Saturday, FEBRUARY 27th 2010 in Nottingham to debate and create alternatives to current management practices which don’t work for you, or the people you’re there for.
NCIA has been accused, rightly, of saying what it doesn’t like but not what it wants. So we’ve joined forces with Nottingham Trent University to spark a discussion amongst us about the impact of current management approaches on voluntary and community action & alternatives to: repressive contract specifications and targets, competition, top down hierarchies; mechanistic and uncritical quality assurance systems; prescriptive and uniform practices. All of which can stifle the fire in the belly, political action and dissent.
Co-option or what? NCIA asks second tiers why they support the new Compact
The National Coalition for Independent Action today released an open letter to the Chief Executives of the five national bodies which have endorsed the revised National Compact, launched on December 16th. The full text of the letter reads:
What’s 2010 bringing & what’s NCIA doing ’bout it?
2010 promises to be a year of change, upheaval and hardship. On the one hand there is the prospect of a change in government following the General Election. Although the result of the election may lead to some change in the way in which the government behaves and in its choice of priorities, in truth there is little to choose between the parties, which continue to fight for the middle ground and operate according to a consensual managerial and ideological creed. Of overwhelmingly greater importance, the year will see the impact of the country’s indebtedness resulting from the massive transfer of public assets to the private banking sector as, we, the people, are required to bear the cost of this. This will show itself in increased taxation, significant reductions in public spending and deterioration in the quantity and quality of public services. All parties are committed to this direction of travel.
Newsletter No: 14 – December 2009
Say No to Commissioning
One of the principal ways – perhaps the main way – in which the Government is mounting its assault on the voluntary sector is through the peddling of its latest ‘fad’ for PROCUREMENT AND COMMISSIONING. Statutory services of all sorts have been told – explicitly or implicitly – to develop strategies for this. There has been an unseamly rush to comply, despite the reality that in many places no two people seem to have the same idea of what ‘procurement and commissioning’ means exactly. One council officer asked why the authority was moving to commissioning told us, “because everyone else is doing it”.
Democracy at Work – A True Story
Little Fish is a social justice organisation that supports vulnerable clients with acute needs while also campaigning on equality issues nationally. Earlier this year, Little Fish made a charity of the year-type arrangement with a commercial organisation, let’s call them Loan Sharks Ltd. Little Fish’s management were pleased to announce the sponsorship of Loan Sharks and the charity hoped to benefit from the large and expanding customer base of the company.
Am I a waste of money?
A personal view from Charlotte Pell
Look into your brains and tell me if I am a waste of money.
The money that pays me comes from a national quango called ‘Capacity Builders’. But this isn’t one of those bad quangoes everyone talks about, this one doesn’t take money off you, it gives its money away to charities and community groups. It has given over 70 million pounds away since 2006 to ‘build capacity’.
Newsletter No: 13 - October 2009
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Systems thinking in the public sector
Grass roots message to world leaders?
Perhaps a group of young people CAN change the world for the better? Here’s a story of acting local and thinking global, initiated by a NCIA supporter.
If you have just one minute to spare, you can help them…