Public opinion: Your blogs

Scaling up from bunnies to bananas

Having spent a year or so at Forth Sector I have come to two conclusions: social enterprises don’t really exist and our social firms have no future. At this point I should go home, but you deserve an explanation.

Why do I think social enterprises don’t exist? A social enterprise has no legal status. You can’t register one. There are no Companies House, Inland Revenue or OSCR rules governing one. Notwithstanding CICs and other structures, most so-called social enterprises are in fact charities, some for legitimate reasons and others as a financial or political expedient, like social housing or independent schools.

Our leaders call for responsible banking, but refuse to take action

On the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, politicians, bankers and commentators were queuing up to pass judgement on the financial services sector yesterday.

What are we/they hiding?

A recent enquiry by Charity News Alert to the Office of the Third Sector to ask about how their core funding to 11 national infrastructure bodies in the third sector is going has been rejected on grounds that '...it would do more harm than good to make that information public...'!!

And the nominations are…

In the past few years South Yorkshire has come a long way. In a region that used to contain some of Europe’s most deprived areas and needed one of the largest Housing Market Renewal (HMR) pathfinder investment programmes, industries have expanded and diversified, and there are some great new places …

Tenants need to be seen as people not just bodies

Overcrowding is a hidden problem. Unlike rough sleeping, society is never confronted with the daily misery of the families struggling with no room to live with dignity.

What does £140bn buy you these days?

Figures recently released by the Office of National Statistics show that so far the government have spent over £140bn bailing out banks.

That massive investment means that there will inevitably be less public money available for things like education and health over the coming years.