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Latest news and opinion 

The latest blogs, thinkpieces, Government policy, consultations and responses.

EU Public Procurement Directives - NCVO forms a sector-wide lobby to demand the Proposals Pass

NCVO has signed up over 20 umbrella bodies across the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector to support a lobby in favour of the proportionate changes to the EU procurement directives, set out last Autumn.

2012 will be a year of continual lobbying at EU level to see these proposals accepted. NCVO is bring in voluntary sector networks from across Europe to support the changes - so reluctant governments can be compelled to take on new rules that will be smarter, clearer, and substantially lessen the bureaucracy around procurement of welfare services.

Read our explanation of the proposed changes (126KB), our joint letter to Francis Maude (262KB) (Minister for the Cabinet Office) and the sector statement (1.6KB) (which lists all the current partners).

NCVO National Survey explains Current Commissioning Practice by Local Government

Read NCVO members February 2012 account of current local authority commissioning (PDF 272KB) (submitted to the Department of Communities and Local Government).

NCVO and partners submit TUPE evidence to Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Ove December 2011 and January 2012, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) called for evidence on the effectiveness of the TUPE Regulations 2006. NCVO, ACEVO, NAVCA, CFDG, VSNW, BVSC, SEUK, and Locality ran a joint survey for the sector and a subsequent roundtable (PDF 46KB) with central government representatives and solicitors.

We then submitted the final survey evidence (PDF 195KB) and a covering letter of recommendations to BIS (PDF 134KB), calling for further engagement and an address to the many issues of proportionality and clarity raised by the voluntary sector.

EU Consultation on Procurement Legislation

In 2011 the EU consulted widely on their procurement legislation. Having drafted amendments to the EU European Procurement Directives, they are now out to consultation. I'll update you on this next week (16th Jan 2012) - but for now, see this Cabinet Office document in which they raise the key issues as they perceive them (PDF 125KB). We'll be consulting on the key issues facing the voluntary and community sector - but it'll be a very short turn around of only three days!

See also the EU's own summary FAQs (PDF 32KB) outlining the main changes.

Consortia for Contracts - latest free guidence publication by NCVO

The journey to creating sustainable and effective consortia structures can seem like a torturous, unending journey. How do you know what steps to take? How do you know its going to end well?

Demystifying this is a priority for organisations delivering public services, as contracts scale up and organisations can't take them on solo. Ian Curtis, excellent technical master of all this has kindly written us his starter notes on how to create effective consortia to deliver contracts in our latest free case study 'Collaborate to Compete: developing consortia to deliver contracts' (508kb pdf).

We also have spaces for training days with Ian, here at NCVO in October and February (or you can book us to put it on in your area).

NCVO publishes thinkpieces on public service reform

We're delighted to publish a series of thinkpieces on public service reform. We've kept them on ice for a while, waiting for the Open Public Services White Paper to be published.

Contributors include KPMG, Sociability, Directory of Social Change, and the RSA.

We want to make the debate genuinely radical - to pull back thoughts to the very beginning and ask 'What is the role for publically funded services in our society?'.

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