Community Buildings: Emergency Accommodation Training

CCB has been awarded a grant from Southern Electric Power Distribution to run 2 meetings about using a village or community hall as emergency accommodation, particularly in bad weather, and the implications of doing so.

The first of these will be held on Wednesday 3 February 2016 at the Calcot centre, Tilehurst from 10am -1pm. The Calcot centre is about 1 mile from Junction 12 of M4. The second date and venue will be announced once they are known.

The second meeting will be held on Monday 22nd February in the Davies Room, Swallowfield Village Hall from 7pm - 9.30pm. The hall is about 3 miles south of junction 11 M4. 

If you are interested in attending please select the meeting that is most convenient for you to come along to. There is no charge to attend but places must be booked in advance. For further information please contact Wendy, Community Buildings Adviser on 0118 9612000 or wendy.dacey@ccberks.org.uk

Recruit & Training Volunteers in Your Community

Is your community looking to recruit or train new volunteers? You may be looking for volunteers from your area for a variety of tasks - to run a community event, building, help write a neighbourhood plan or to take over from current volunteers who wish to step down.

CCB is running a training event 'Recruiting & Training Volunteers' on 16th February 2016 at Beedon Village Hall from 7 - 9.30pm. This is FREE to attend and is supported by the West Berkshire Council Adult Community Learning team. 

Garry Poulson from Volunteer Centre West Berkshire will be providing expert guidance and advice on the topic. The workshop will look to challenge attitudes towards volunteering, demonstrate proven recruitment and retention ideas and stimulate thinking that could be used in your own community setting. If you would like to reserve your place please contact Tessa.Hall@ccberks.org.uk.

One in five of Britain's biggest charities spend less than 50 per cent on good works, new report claims

New research, ‘A Hornet’s Nest’, questioning charitable spending levels - finds 17 large charities with £50m+ per annum spend on average 43% on charitable activities.
292 charities, with combined income of £2.4bn, spent 10% or less on charitable activities

The True and Fair Foundation, started by philanthropist and vocal transparency campaigner, Gina Miller, analysed 5,543 charities with a total combined annual income of £40.7bn, with the simple aim of discovering how much of their income was spent on the end charitable activities.  

The team were staggered to find 292 charities, with a combined income of £2.4bn, spent 10% or less on their charitable activities; having analysed data from the Charity Commissions’ websites.  

They also identified 17 of the UK’s largest charities that on average spent 65p or less of every £ of income on their charitable activities.  Three of the charities, the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, The Racing Foundation and The Motability Tenth Anniversary Trust - with a combined annual income of £1.2bn spent just £20m between them on charitable activities.  

To read the research document in full please click here

The research discovered data errors on both the existing and new ‘Beta’ Charities Commission’s websites; even though the new Beta search tool website aims to prominently and simply display income and expenditure.  The Regulator’s online data is meant to be ‘the authoritative source of information on charities in England and Wales’.  Registered charities’ details are viewed online over six million times a year, but it now transpires much of this data is either incorrect or out of date; or sometimes both.

The True and Fair Foundation’s findings pose serious questions for the charity sector:

1. Should there be an urgent review of the rules that allow organisations to be granted charitable status? Especially as this status tends to result in tax benefits such as reduced business rates, VAT, stamp duty, capital gains, tax on dividends, and being granted gift aid.  All of which deplete the public purse.  
2. Should there be a periodic three year review of organisations’ charitable status?
3. Is it now time for a voluntary or mandatory minimum annual dispersal rate set for charities? It is the view of the True and Fair Foundation that a minimum annual dispersal rate of 65% should be debated.
4. Is there a need for a simpler accounting methodology to enable greater understanding of a charities’ finances? 
5. Is it time to impose a ‘Give & Good label’ across the charity sector which would clearly allow donors to see how much of annual income is being spent on the end charitable activities?
6. Does the sector require more financial oversight and accountability?
7. Why are donors - private, corporate and government - not asking more questions about the charitable work being delivered by charities? 
8. Should there be limits on senior executive remuneration, including pension provision?

Gina Miller, founder of the True and Fair Foundation said, ‘As the State continues to shrink, the charity sector will become even more pivotal to society. But this does not excuse many of the excesses and inefficiencies that appear so prevalent within this sector.’  

‘It is an utter disgrace that so much of the money people generously give is going to feed large charity machines, which are often characterised by obscene overheads and salaries, aggressive fundraising, and bloated marketing and publicity departments; resulting in questionable levels of charitable spending.’

‘The other travesty is that the army of extraordinary small and medium size charities who form the backbone of our communities, are being drowned out by some of these extravagant and grossly inefficient big brand charities.  It is time a light was shone on the sector so people can see just how their hard earned money is really being spent by all charities.’

‘There are too many examples of charities of all sizes failing to remember that they exist for the sake of their beneficiaries, not the staff.’ 

‘In my view the charity sector should be regulated as much as the wider financial sector as it has an estimated income in England and Wales of £64 billion, £13 billion of which comes from government and is therefore public money. All donors, public, corporate and private need to have the information to judge whether their money is being properly spent.’ 

The Gift of Housing: Only if you can afford to buy!

Well the government has published its latest consultation on the definition of affordable housing and other changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, see link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/national-planning-policy-consultation-on-proposed-changes

All I can say is at least proposed changes in affordable housing policy and legislation are now out from behind closed doors. And the message is clear, if you have the money, the government will give you incentives to buy a house.  If you don't, well let's hope you can stay in that expensive private rental and that it doesn't get too cold this winter or you may find it hard to pay your heating and we all know that that means it's your fault when mould grows up the walls, good-bye deposit.

For those of you on a local council housing waiting list, the wait has just got longer. The changes all but mean no new social rented properties will be built, affordable rents are still out there, but are generally not very affordable (80% market rents, in Berkshire that is 80% of a lot).  Right to Buy is being extended in other legislation, so the stock of housing will reduce (despite promises to replace on a one to one basis, there is no requirement to replace within the same area).

The main focus of the document is the introduction of Starter Homes in the stable of so-called 'affordable housing'.  Affordable Housing now includes houses for sale at a discounted rate, but that can be sold on the open market after 5 years.  Just exactly who is benefiting from the discount? 

In addition the proposed changes will now allow for development adjacent to settlement boundaries, provided it is 'sustainable' (whatever that means). Well for those of you in villages that have been hanging on tight to your settlement boundaries - you may be pleased to know that that virtually spells an end to rural exception sites. You can now expect anyone who owns land adjacent to a settlement boundary to try their luck for permission for small development. Landowners are unlikely to promote land for affordable housing if they can make a profit on it. Why should they?

Am I exasperated?  You bet I am.  I will be responding to this consultation.  I suggest that anyone with any interest in preserving some opportunity to provide homes designated for local people respond as well.  There is a lot in this document and careful reading between the lines is required.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Arlene Kersley
Rural Housing Enabler for Berkshire
arlene.kersley@ccberks.org.uk
0118 961 2000

Beedon Celebrate their refurbished Village Hall

Big congratulations to the villagers of Beedon village hall in West Berkshire whose hall was reopened on Thursday 3 December having had £85,000 spent on refurbishment to bring it up to 21st century standard.

The hall was identified in the Parish Plan as being the most important asset in the village and an intensive 18 month project was launched to raise the funds to refurbish it. New toilets, kitchen, heating and improved main hall have now made the hall a building that the parish can be proud of and will serve the needs of the 400+ people who live in Beedon. The work was carried out by Marshalstone of Headley, near Newbury.

Wendy Dacey, CCB's Community Buildings Adviser, provided advice and guidance on writing successful funding bids and volunteers from Beedon Village Hall attended her 'Funding Workshop'. She said: " I am thrilled to attend the re-opening and would like to congratulate all the volunteers and villagers of Beedon on all their hardwork and fundraising activities."

If you are a volunteer and involved with running a Community Buildings contact Wendy.Dacey@ccberks.org.uk to find out more about the service.

Baby it's cold outside. . .Don't forget to order the oil!

It’s starting to seem a little bit more wintery outside and with heating getting cranked up we just thought we would remind those that heat their homes with oil to put an order in. 

At CCB we run an oil club, administered by Oil Fuel Poverty Solutions (OFPS), that can save you money on your heating bills this winter. For more details please click here.  The club works by combining bulk orders to bring down the price for everyone. 

As we head towards the festive season and the weather gets worse it’s really important to make sure you have enough oil as demand goes up and delivery times can be increased. Do check your tank and make sure that you have enough oil to get through the Christmas period. The CCB oil club has already placed it's Christmas order so if you have enough to see you through our advice would be to try to delay your order until the New Year as with the price of crude oil continuing to diminish and without the stress of Christmas on delivery schedules you are likely to get a much better price in early 2016. Our next order deadline is Wednesday 6th January with deliveries taking place over the next few weeks.