Increasing charitable giving, the dangers and opportunities

In an effort to make the ideas behind the big society more concrete, the government has come up with a new white paper on ways it intends to increase the giving of money and time to the third sector.

It’s approach its summarised by the acronym GIVES, which is…

Save our libraries

At our family’s Christmas dinner, there was much hilarity as 4 separate copies of Stephen Fry’s autobiography were exchanged. Many of you reading this post may also have received books as a gift, and reading remains a hobby enjoyed by millions. Indeed hopefully some of you will have received…

Christmas on the Dole

Christmas looks grim for nearly 70,000 people in Wales who are currently claiming Job Seekers’ Allowance.  Those who receive JSA’s £65.45 a week are unlikely to be splashing out the average household spend of £645 on Christmas, and instead face pretty lean times in the ‘season of goodwill’.

About a…

Positives can be found if you look beyond the cliches

Whilst we all digest the latest analysis from the institute of fiscal studies that illustrate how “average incomes are forecast to stagnate and both absolute and relative poverty among children and working-age adults are expected to rise”, it is perhaps worth reflecting on some more positive news.

Perhaps the…

Cuts advice for third sector groups

The Local Government budget settlement announced on 23 November was judged ‘as good as it gets’ by local authority representatives. It announced a revenue decrease for local authorities of 1.4% for 2011/12, followed by rises of 0.2% and 1.3% for 2012/13 and 2013/14. This means local authorities need not…

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step

Why is it that as a society we have travelled so far and appear to have got nowhere? Just a couple of generations ago, a father would think nothing of walking 6 miles to work and home again. Today, for some, the insecurity of even leaving their housing estate…

A Baby’s View of the Cuts Landscape

Laura Trefor writes the point of view about her new grandson, GryFF.

I am not yet part of the digital revolution – but I hope to be so soon.

But I want to make my voice heard. This coalition government is making cuts and they’re affecting me and I want to…

Third of households marooned over Xmas

Looking forward to a break over Christmas?  Visiting friends perhaps, bit of shopping and maybe an outing or two? The third of Welsh households that don’t have a car…

Beware England’s Backlash

Yesterday’s announcement of cuts of nearly 10% to local authority spending in England comes hot on the heels of the decision to treble tuition fees at English universities, scrap the educational maintenance allowance and make thousands of other cuts.  Meanwhile in Wales local authorities face a cut of 1.4%,…

Making e-democracy more inclusive

Last week, the Welsh Assembly government announced its strategy for digital inclusion at the Digital Inclusion Wales Conference in Swansea. As outlined before, there are 10 million people in the UK who have never been online, and around 750,000 of those live in Wales. Not using…