Anti-Conservative Emails

Sustainable transport charity the Campaign for Better Transport is to strengthen its volunteer induction procedures after a temporary member of staff sent out an email to supporters asking for evidence that the Conservative Party was "hostile to good public transport".

Harry Phibbs, a Conservative councillor on Hammersmith & Fulham Council, said he had complained to the Charity Commission. He wrote on the ConservativeHome blog: "Here is a charity behaving in the most blatantly partisan manner."

The CBT's trustees had been asked to read the regulator's campaigning guidance and send "a clarification with regard to meaning" to the recipients of the email.

Stephen Joseph, Executive Director of CBT, said the email had not been seen by any of the charity's staff before it was sent and did not reflect the intentions of CBT. He said its campaigning followed commission guidelines and a clarification email had already been sent. "We have strengthened our volunteer-induction procedures and are confirming this to the commission," he added.

Having Scope and doing little about it

Scope is a leading UK disability organisation with more than 50 years experience in providing support to disabled people to increase their employment opportunities. The Welsh Assembly Government is a devolved government with nearly 10 years experience of falling short as an employer in the area of equal opportunities.

The development of the Leadership Recruitment Programme by Scope promotes awareness of staff diversity and the contribution disabled people can make to the workplace. It also aims to ensure that disabled people of graduate calibre achieve equality and are valued in society, rather than being overlooked.

Last month the programme marked a year since ending its first 12-month trial of running in the Welsh Assembly Government, who was one of many high-profile employers taking part.

Not a bad ongoing gesture from an organisation that seems to fail in this area, and needs to show a vast improvement when it comes to equal opportunities.

The Prince of Wales at 60

The Prince's Trust was his idea and, in the 32 years of its existence, it has helped more than 500,000 disadvantaged young people to improve their lives. That alone would entitle him to credit. But Charles has involved himself in very much more than the Prince's Trust.

He believes he has a duty to use his position as Prince of Wales to bring together people of wealth and influence to focus on some of the major issues which face us. This is a role which he describes as his "convening power".

The Prince of Wales title carries no established or formal role, so Prince Charles has had to forge his own path. He is patron or president of about 400 organisations, but is best known for the Prince’s Trust, which he set up in 1976 with his Navy severance pay of £7,400.

Prince Charles set up the Prince's Trust because he felt many young people were excluded from society through lack of opportunity.

The Trust gives training, mentoring and financial support to people aged 14 to 30, focusing on those who have struggled at school, been in care, are long-term unemployed or are young offenders. To date, it has helped more than half a million young people change their lives.

The Trust appears to embody the prince's desire to heal society's many modern-day ills.

Relaxed and informal, the Prince of Wales cuts a dashing figure in his uniform as Colonel of the Welsh Guards in his official birthday photograph released today.

Happy birthday, Your Royal Highness.

[Pippa Wagstaff is currently on a blogging break]

Donate Wales

FIRST EVER CAMPAIGN TO GET WALES TALKING ABOUT ORGAN DONATION

A pioneering campaign aimed at increasing the number of organ donors in Wales. It is supported by leading charities and celebrities. Transplants are the best possible treatment for most people with organ failure. But there is a serious shortage of donors.

RHODD CYMRU

A Kidney Wales Foundation Campaign

Email: leni@donatewales.org
Website: http://www.donatewales.org/

Office:
Contact Noel Davies-Kidney Wales Foundation for further details
1-3 Museum Place
Cardiff, United Kingdom