Category Archives: 11 Better commissioning

Defra wins social action research contract

By Joe Taylor | Published: 19 November, 2009

 
Happy Social Enterprise Day!
Today (19/11/09) Angela Smith, Minister for the third sector, announced the second phase of the Office of the Third Sector’s £1.3m Social Enterprise Action Research (SEAR) programme, which allows other departments to explore ways in which social enterprises offer solutions to policy problems.  The Social Enterprise Action Research programme uses small amounts of Cabinet Office funding to [...]

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Third Sector Strategy ‘One Year On report’ published

By Third Sector team | Published: 6 November, 2009

As Compact Week nears the end we have today (6/11/2009) published our Third Sector Strategy ‘One Year On’ report (PDF 1MB).  The report discusses the progress we have made on the range of commitments we made in our Third Sector Strategy (PDF 4.17MB). 
The report is accompanied by a detailed annex (PDF 920KB) which contains a commentary on the [...]

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Free procurement guide clarifies commissioning process

By Third Sector team | Published: 2 November, 2009

NAVCA and NCVO have today (2/11/09) jointly published and free guide to procurement law entitled: Pathways through the Maze. The publication is aimed at:

Anyone in an organisation who works with commissioning, procurement and public services.
All voluntary organisations, community groups and social enterprises interested or involved in delivering public services.
Public Sector commissioners wanting to improve their engagement [...]

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Funding Central launched

By Simon Berry | Published: 17 June, 2009

Today (17/6/09) saw the launch of Funding Central – the smart guide to over 4,000 grants and loans for the third sector. Funding Central will be run by NCVO in partnership with J4b and is funded by the Office of the Third Sector. We are making a minor contribution to this initiative in trying to ensure [...]

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Have we got the balance right?

By Simon Berry | Published: 24 April, 2009

This is what you get when you put the text of our Third Sector Strategy into a service called Wordle. I did this when I first started my secondment at Defra to help me get another view of the strategy. I am moved to post this now as I am told that this technique was [...]

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Defra launches third sector strategy

By Simon Berry | Published: 3 November, 2008

Today we launched our third sector strategy with the help of three Ministers: Hilary Benn (Secretary of State, Defra); Huw Irranca-Davies (Defra’s third sector minister); Kevin Brennan (OTS) and Joan Ruddock (DECC).
This is the culmination of more than a year’s work with the third sector and across the various divisions within Defra. Thanks are due [...]

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