Posts Tagged: Nick Hurd

B****cks or knitting? You choose…

A cartoon by Steve Bell a while ago showed a masked robber in the Big Society Bank being told that they didn’t have any money as such – only bollocks. “Put the bollocks in a bag, and hurry,” says the robber. The original of this cartoon was presented as a farewell gift yesterday to Nick… Read more »

First impressions of the new charities minister

Ask tricky questions, went the instructions at an event hosted by St John Ambulance on Wednesday, where I had my first opportunity to met Brooks Newmark, the new Minister for Civil Society. “But please be polite when you do.” That instruction wasn’t for me, but the dozen young people present – St John Ambulance volunteers… Read more »

Hurd leaves a long relationship

When Nick Hurd was introduced as the longest-serving charities minister at a reception at the Institute of Fundraising convention last week, he muttered something enigmatic about how much longer it would last. Whether under pressure or otherwise, it seems likely he had already knew by then that he would be going.

Battling on with the big society

People who do not read Third Sector, or are unlikely to read the full contents of the Giving White Paper, will be under the impression that yesterday David Cameron’s slightly ambiguous big society concept was launched yet again. To name but a few, the Guardian published an article just before the launch event of the… Read more »

Big society fatigue sets in

It’s been hard to get away from the big society in the last couple of weeks. All the papers – including the Sun – have been on about it, and every second programme on radio and TV has been trying to get a handle on it. It’s been enough to make even current affairs addicts… Read more »

Hand-holding by the Office For Civil Society

The Office for Civil Society issued two short documents last week. There was a consultation about how it should take forward capacity-building in the sector, and a policy statement about building a stronger civil society. Does the policy document add greatly to the sum of human knowledge? Not really. It was mostly a recapitulation of… Read more »

Big society means big change ahead

Lord Wei, the government’s big society guru, weighed in recently with a warning that some charities and social enterprises had become too bureaucratic because they received most of their funding from the state. “They have ended up becoming big charity, not big society,” he said. This chimes with Conservative arguments in recent years about the… Read more »

It’s hard to see through the fog surrounding the future of the National Lottery

One of the most vexing issues on the voluntary sector landscape right now is the future of the National Lottery. The government wants to reduce the amount of good causes money awarded by the Big Lottery Fund from 50 per cent to 40 per cent. Considering that the BLF has given £3.6bn to mainly charitable… Read more »

Quick, savage cuts may be good for the economy but they will damage the voluntary sector

A few weeks ago, Nick Hurd, the new minister for civil society, toured Paddington Development Trust, a charity that provides community services. Afterwards he declared himself well satisfied. The trust, he said, was an “emblem of the big society in action”. Barely a fortnight later Hurd’s colleagues in the Communities and Local Government department stepped… Read more »

I’m willing to bet Nick Hurd a tenner the big society bank won’t open on time

The Cabinet Office recently laid out clear goals in its structural reform plan for what it will achieve, and when. The plan is a set of apparently cast-iron policy guarantees that the third sector can rely on. It includes 14 measures to bring about the prophesied big society, which if they are kept will have… Read more »