Please be advised that the Coventry Community Cohesion Awards were launched by Cllr Phil Townshend and Saleem Sheikh from Coventry Ethnic Minority Action Partnership (CEMAP).

Since 1st April 2010 Coventry has increased its number of stop smoking service providers from one to seven. Organisations such as More Active Living for Health and the Coventry Irish Society are now providing a service and are paid on the tariff scheme for 4 week and 12 week quitters. Higher payment is made for pregnant women and hard to reach groups e.g.

This guide gives some essential information about various tools and methods that can help you to prove and improve your organisation's quality and impact.

The guide includes:

The Payments Council has reassured voluntary sector organisations that cheques or a paper equivalent might be retained beyond 2018 if no suitable alternative is in place.

The Charity Commission has agreed in principle to issue supplementary guidance for the voluntary sector on how to comply with new equality legislation.

The charity sector could lose credibility with funders because of the poor quality of its impact measurement, according to the author of a new report.

A position paper published this week by the think tank New Philanthropy Capital examines how charities apply social return on investment, which measures an organization's impact in financial terms.

Coventry City Council have arranged a seminar for third sector providers in the City geared towards personalisation and in particular preparing for the challenges this presents as a result of the different contracting arrangements that will be required. A particular focus of the session will be around Day Services.

Nick Hurd, Conservative MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, has been announced as the new Minister for Civil Society. Nick previously spent 18 months as shadow charities minister. The Rt. Hon. Francis Maude MP has been appointed Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Rt. Hon. Eric Pickles MP as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

VAC's Voluntary Sector Market Development Programme, funded by NHS Coventry, held a very successful and well attended seminar on the commissioning cycle on 19th May. These seminars aimed at voluntary sector providers give the opportunity for providers to share expertise with each other.

Coventry is attracting national attention for recent work on Compact, not least being the first area in the country to hold Compact awards to celebrate successful joint working in the spirit of Compact. Coventry presented at the first of a series of regional conference held by Compact Voice.