Personal protective equipment (PPE) is available for Leicestershire based VCSE sector organisations to order from Leicestershire County Council (LCC)

The order form can be accessed here:https://leicestershirecc-self.achieveservice.com/AchieveForms/?

If you have any queries regarding an order  you can contact LCC’s representative at: LRF.PPESupport@leics.gov.uk

Employers responsibilities to workers on providing PPE are changing from 6 April 2022.

The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 2022 amend the 1992 Regulations to extend employers’ and employees’ duties in respect of PPE to a wider group of workers.

The health and safety executive has produced some interim guidance explaining the changes, which you can access here.

General advice by the executive about PPE can be accessed here.

We recommend that trustees review their organisation’s health and safety policy in light of this changes.

If your organisation would like any supporting in reviewing or writing new policies, contact VAL’s helpline for your request.

In 2016 the Charity Commission opened a compliance case into the charity following receipt of an anonymous complaint which made allegations that a trustee was receiving personal benefit from the charity in the form of family holidays and designer handbags.

The charity inquiry found a number of issues, including the trustees expending funds renovating part of the school site to create a residential facility for respite care. This represented a breach of trust as this activity was not in furtherance of the charity’s objects at that time. The inquiry used its powers to appoint an interim manager and those action contributed to the improvement of the charity’s overall financial position. Putting the charity back on track ensuring that a school providing much needed education for children with special needs can now continue on a secure footing.

The wider learning for the sector identified through this charity inquiry, highlighted that :

• Trustees must use their charity’s funds and assets in furtherance of the charity’s purposes. This means ensuring the charity funds are used in accordance with the terms of the charity’s governing document and in accordance with the requirements of any contractual obligations.
• Trustees must ensure that their charity has adequate financial and administrative controls in place, and that the funds of their charity are applied for the benefit of the public for which it has been set up. This includes reporting sufficient information at trustee meetings to satisfy them that the controls are being properly implemented.
• Trustees have a legal duty to act in their charity’s best interests when making decisions as a trustee. Including making sure where a trustee has a personal or other interest, that a conflict of interest is managed appropriately. For example states that trustees cannot receive any benefit from their charity including in return for any service they provide to it, unless they have legal authority to do so.
• Charity trustees are responsible for the beneficiaries of the charity and must ensure that there are policies, processes and procedures in place to adequately ensure the safety, welfare and well-being of those beneficiaries. Charity trustees should take steps to regularly review, and if necessary, update any policies, processes and procedures.

Further details regarding the inquiry can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charity-inquiry-hope-house-school-limited/charity-inquiry-hope-house-school-limited

If your charity would like any help with reviewing the wider learning in context to your charity’s circumstances, please get in touch via VAL’s helpline
https://valonline.org.uk/contact/

Voluntary organisations in our region have just received a share of £1.8m in donations.

Thousands of good causes are able to update their facilities, buy new equipment, and improve their services, thanks to fundraising website easy fundraising and their low-maintenance approach to fundraising.

Through the easy fundraising platform, 6,000 online retailers including Sainsbury’s, eBay, Amazon, M&S, Just Eat and Argos will donate to third sector organisations for free.

To take advantage of this free income stream for your organisation, find out more here:

http://efraising.org/8C6DDl6JsK

Our communities make living and working in Leicestershire special: They are vital to supporting our health and wellbeing and provide many of the opportunities for people to contribute and support others. The Covid 19 pandemic showed how powerful community action can be and how much can be achieved by the skills, strengths and resources of communities.

The county council is committed to collaborating with, and working alongside, Leicestershire Communities and this commitment is central to our Communities Approach which sets out our proposed way of working with communities over the coming years. Key principles of this Approach are;

Prevention – how the whole council works towards providing preventative and self-help support
Engagement – building trusting relationships to collaboratively define and design local solutions
Catalysts – supporting voluntary organisations and town and parish councils to provide local services and activities.

A draft version of the Communities Approach is attached below along with an Easy Read version. We welcome your views on the contact details below.

V0449 Our Communities Approach 2022-26 07a

Communities Approach Easy Read Web Accessible

Please take part in a short online survey to give your views and help with the development of the Council’s Approach. The survey deadline has been extended 18th February 2022.

We are keen to encourage people to actively participate in their communities, whether this is through becoming involved in community groups and activities, setting up new groups and activities or through other forms of social action, such as telling us about the issues that are important to you.

We want to know what you think about the Communities Approach – whether you agree with the proposed principles and way of working with Leicestershire Communities. We also want to hear about what else the Council could do to help Leicestershire communities to support each other, collaborate and use local skills, abilities, and physical spaces in the most effective way.

Further information on how we work with communities can be found on our dedicated website www.leicestershirecommunities.org.uk/ or by calling (0116) 305 7743.

The Living Wage Foundation is a UK campaigning organisation which aims to persuade employers to pay a living wage

They are looking for case studies to aid a study on the business case for paying the real Living Wage in the hospitality, retail,  and health and social care sectors.

They are interested in interviewing business leaders and their employees.

The requirements would be one informal interview lasting approximately 45 minutes.

If you are interested in being involved, please email their Research Manager, Joe Richardson at joe.richardson@livingwage.org.uk

As part of their campaigning work their director Katherine Chapman has recently written about one of the 12 priority missions ( policy objectives set out in the Levelling up White Paper -e boosting pay and productivity in the places that need it most. ” The article can be accessed here.

Green Fox are interested in hearing from local Town or Parish Councils, Community associations or Community groups  who may have an interest in creating an electric car club.

Partners in the community electric car club and energy sector are keen to identify the potential for locally based electric car clubs, which could be run on a not-for-profit basis and managed by the communities they serve.

Car clubs in rural areas are invariably less economic compared to an urban location, which left to market forces, means that rural villages and towns may be left behind in the transition to electric transport and the costly charging infrastructure it requires.

They hope that the research will support a baseline of evidence for funding to develop more local car clubs, reducing isolation and transport poverty.

The online survey can be found at: https://forms.gle/DQ8cWki19ifqJy588

The programme takes place between March and September 2022.

Applications close 5.30pm on 15 February 2022

The programme will be  delivered entirely online, and is open to registered environmental and climate charities based and conducting work in the UK.

The core programme is designed to be flexible to the needs of participants, but will offer structured activities including:

• Five workshops led by communication experts on topics including: framing climate change, talking to different audiences, and using social media strategically.
• Surgery sessions with climate framing experts at On Road Media for charities to test their messaging and receive feedback.
• 1-2-1 consultations with industry experts at MG OMD to design a campaign or communications solution for the charities to implement and test in 2022.
• Monthly peer networking sessions to connect charities on the programme and provide spaces for learning and collaboration.

For more details and how to apply click here.

Issues for the wider sector

The Commission found trustees’ misconduct and/or mismanagement caused significant financial losses, from which the charity was unable to recover. Mr Nathan Rahulan and Mrs Padma Rahulan had been trustees of the Hindu Community Society since it was registered in 2010. But they mismanaged the charity’s finances by obtaining finance to buy a property on terms the charity could not afford to repay, without consulting with the other trustees or seeking financial advice.

The issues for the wider sector section of the inquiry is to highlight the broader issues arising from the Inquiry that may have relevance for other charities.

These being that Charity trustees have a general duty to manage their charity’s resources responsibly, reasonably, and honestly. This means not exposing their charity’s assets, beneficiaries, or reputation to undue risk. It is about exercising sound judgement and then taking decisions that a reasonable body of trustees would do.

Trustees are collectively responsible for their charity and ultimately accountable for everything done by the charity and those representing the charity. Trustees must actively understand the risks to their charity and make sure those risks are properly managed; the higher the risk, the greater the expectation and the more oversight is needed.

The Commission has produced guidance to assist trustees in implementing robust internal financial controls that are appropriate to their charity.
This guidance, Internal Financial Controls for Charities (CC8) is available here.

Details of the inquiry can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charity-inquiry-hindu-community-society?
Including the press release.

If you’re planning a street party, a community event or any sort of get-together for the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend and you need extra funds to deliver it, why not crowdfund your celebrations on the Spacehive platform. They state their platform has the highest success rate in the UK, where two campaigns in every three hit their funding goal.

Space hive have created a guide to setting up your crowdfunding campaign which you can download here.

A national project lead by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), and Leicester Diabetes Centre (LDC) is aiming to improve services for those with Type 2 Diabetes.

Having early onset of Type 2 Diabetes can be a very lonely place and sometimes, it can have a big impact on people’s personal and professional life.
This is why the M3 project have started a support network to help connect people with the condition and at same time gain expert advice and knowledge. Each session will be held monthly aiming to be relaxed, informative and fun.
These hubs also allow participants to be involved with the research element of M3 where participants have the chance to help shape services through their input to vital questions in creating the best accessible service.

The next upcoming session is 21 February 2022 at 6.30pm where they will be covering the topic of mental health in relation to Diabetes followed by some light stretching and breathing exercises.

Local VCSE organisations may want to refer clients to this to project.

Individuals can sign up to the sessions here.

Or first you may want to ask some questions about the project.
If so Hena Ahsan, the Centre for Ethnic Health Research’s (CEHR) Community Engagement Officer can be contacted by email: hfa3@leicester.ac.uk

Or you can find out more here.