A three year contract to develop and promote social enterprises in the Highlands and Islands has been won by The Highlands and Islands Social Enterprise Zone Community Interest Company (HISEZ CIC). The contract which has been awarded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) will help deliver the Scottish Government’s new strategy - ‘Better business: a strategy and action plan for social enterprise in Scotland’. Under the contract HISEZ CIC will promote and support the growth of social enterprises across the Highlands and Islands region. This will include providing expert encouragement and support to social enterprises with real potential as well as bringing them together to share ideas. Common forms of social enterprise - which aim to benefit society through trading - include credit unions, community co-operatives, housing associations, development trusts and social firms.

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© Highlands & Islands Enterprise

20 August 2008

Model farmers across the North are being asked to apply to become Focus Farms within the Rural Development Programme 2007-2013 (RDP) Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew MP MLA said today. Through the RDP, a range of farm businesses will be selected to become Focus Farms. This coaching and mentoring scheme will introduce farmers to a series of new and emerging technologies as well as demonstrating how to take a more business orientated approach. Focus Farmers will host farm visits and demonstrate good practice across a range of farm types. The scheme will establish a network of up to 60 farms and promote the adoption of good production, business and environmental practice.

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© Crown Copyright

20 August 2008

Council leaders have been urged to join the campaign for a national home insulation programme that would lift 500,000 people out of fuel poverty, cut £200 a year off the energy bills of 10 million households and reduce domestic carbon emissions by 20 per cent. The leaders of all four political groups at the Local Government Association have written to the leaders of all councils in England and Wales asking them to lobby their local MPs over the proposals. The LGA is campaigning for councils to be put at the centre of the insulation scheme, which would be funded through the six main energy suppliers matching pound for pound the existing contribution households are already making through their bills to cut carbon emissions. These proposals form a central plank of the Association’s Small Change, Big Difference climate change campaign.

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© LGA Media Office

20 August 2008

Small businesses are being offered the chance to win awards of up to £40,000 to help fund innovative ideas to tackle climate change. The Shell Springboard programme, now in its fourth year, is offering up to six awards in each of three UK regions - north, central and south. Last year, oil and gas giant Shell handed out maximum £40,000 awards to five businesses for their projects, which had to prove they can lead to greenhouse gas reductions and be commercially viable. “SMEs are a vibrant and creative sector of the economy, so they’re ideally placed to be climate change entrepreneurs,” James Smith, chairman of Shell UK, said. “Shell’s planning scenario planning suggests that in the future we will be reliant on a mix of a number of different energy sources and energy saving technologies. Grassroots innovation from small businesses could be a crucial factor in driving the development of this mix.”

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© Faversham House Group Ltd

20 August 2008

A lack of storage space or access to recycling sites, confusion over collection days and skepticism about the environmental benefits are just some of the obstacles stopping people recycling more. The government-funded Waste & Resources Action Plan (WRAP) has carried out research investigating the barriers preventing a further rise in household recycling rates - and offering local authorities advice on overcoming them. According to WRAP, these barriers can be broken down into four distinct areas - physical, behavioural, lack of knowledge and attitudes and perceptions.

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© Faversham House Group Ltd 2008

20 August 2008

Green campaign group Friends of the Earth has said the government should invest in high-speed rail as an alternative to air travel. The organisation believes this would encourage Britons to travel to parts of the country they have rarely or never visited, including England’s northwest. However, this form of travel must be affordable to the majority of the public, said a spokeswoman. The Airport Operators Association recently reported that consumers have become less willing to pay for eco-friendly alternatives to flying as the economy tightens. “Rather than support the expansion of airports, the government should invest in greener travel alternatives such as high-speed rail links … and make it cheaper for people to travel this way,” she remarked. Last June, Network Rail launched a study to see whether it would be possible to build five high-speed lines across the UK.

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© EnglandsNorthWest

20 August 2008

As the Olympic Games reach a climax in Beijing, CABE is challenging every local authority across the country to create public spaces fit for 2012. Launching its annual report for 2007/08, Richard Simmons, chief executive at CABE, said: “2012 will be a massive test of the quality of our public space. Not just in London, but right across the country when people gather in all the major civic spaces to watch and celebrate. So are we ready? Local authorities have four years to get it right.” To back this call for action, CABE is setting five gold standards for great public space, one for each of the Olympic rings, against which local authorities can judge their parks and squares.

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© CABE 2008

20 August 2008

Ministers have been forced to delay the timetable for implementing Gordon Brown’s eco-towns scheme, in the latest setback to the project. A shortlist of applicants due to be published in October will not come out until next year, it has emerged. In addition, there is evidence that ministers may be starting to row back from their target of 10 towns.The government had a long-list of 16 applicants, drawn up in April. Three of those dropped out but the Financial Times has established that three others – in Norfolk, north Yorkshire and near Cambridge – are facing difficulties. One more – in Rossington, south Yorkshire – has been reduced from 15,000 homes to just 5,000. In Coltishall, Norfolk, the government has just won permission to build a prison on the same site as the proposed eco-town.

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© The Financial Times Limited

20 August 2008

The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) has written to the Chancellor, Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP, and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) requesting full protection for banked charity funds in the event that a bank fails.The letter asks for the proposal of full compensation for deposits of charity money to be included in the FSA consultation on changes to the FSCS compensation limits that will take place in the autumn.

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© Charities Aid Foundation

20 August 2008

Newport City Council has recently implemented a range of Web 2.0 and other technologies from Jadu, a leading provider of web content management systems, to dramatically improve access and delivery of its citizen facing services. The Council’s corporate plan and key national initiatives, such as the Wales Programme for Improvement, the Beecham Review and Making the Connections, provided the driving force behind the Council’s service transformation initiatives. Newport City Council’s improvement programme aims to achieve integration of telephone, face to face and web channels, using a common technology to deliver an improved ‘experience’ for the citizen and improved efficiency for the Council.

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© Policy Dialogue International 2005-08

20 August 2008