Big Society Audit and under-representation of women in charity leadership

Civil Exchange has just published its Big Society Audit. See: http://www.civilexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/THE-BIG-SOCIE...

In a more irreverent take on the Big Society, published on the Voluntary Action History Society website, Dr George Campbell Gosling of Oxford Brookes University likens the coalition government's initiative to the famous Monty Python dead parrot sketch. Proclaiming it an ex-policy he writes: "I’m an historian, so I know a dead policy initiative when I see one and the Big Society has definitely passed on. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It has gone to meet its maker. It is a late policy. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace." Make up your own mind by visiting: http://www.vahs.org.uk/2012/04/coalition-gosling/

On a much more serious note, research carried out by Women Count shows that only 17 of 100 top charities has a female Chair. There is also a marked under-preresentation (sometimes a complete non-representation) of women trustees on boards. As a male Chair this is a serious reproach and I am on record as stating that the balance needs to be redressed within VAWF itself, which has three women trustee/directors on its board. See:  http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/go/news/article/1131435/women-are-under-rep...