Markets, Money and Power – ProgrammeThe Programme for this ThinkSpace event is now available on our News Page and as a download. Please share this with your colleagues and your wider communities. As spaces are limited, please book in advance by email. You can also see the Event Invitation on this website. Or read the blog which draws together the […]

A glimmer of hope?IF – like me – you wondered why Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, was being so very complimentary to Chancellor George Osborne yesterday, you might like to download the IMF’s (annual) Concluding Statement of its Chapter IV Mission to the UK. It makes interesting reading. Alongside the positive signals that the […]

Council Leader names picksEdinburgh Labour has confirmed its appointments to the Labour-SNP coalition administration. The Council will agree appointments to posts over its two meetings on Thursday 17th May and Thursday 24th May. The picks announced  on the Edinburgh Labour website are as follows:   Leader: Andrew Burns Provost: Donald Wilson     Convener of Education: Paul Godzik […]

Your Vision for Edinburgh?PEOPLE tend naturally to want progress. Humans have an in-built motivation to do better. Most of us also want progress for ourselves and for our neighbours. Some might call that community development, others social justice. The Edinburgh Partnership has articulated its Vision for Edinburgh in terms of an overarching vision and Four High-Level Outcomes. Now […]

Date with Democracy 03 May – Local Council ElectionsIT is an old platitude that ‘we get the government we deserve!’ An engaged and informed electorate will likely choose a government with policies which benefit most people. Conversely, an apathetic and disengaged electorate is likely to get a government chosen by very few, with policies which appeal to a minority. With reports of an […]

Which Way Welfare?FACED with tough choices and the urgent need for action on Welfare Reform, what would you do? Caught between UK Welfare Reform explicitly driven by the imperative to save money on one hand, and the emerging impacts of the financial recession and low/slow growth which drive up demand on the other – what provisions will […]

In Search of Sustainable FundingAT the last of EVOC’s series of #TwilightTalks, where the city’s Third Sector met Councillors and prospective Councillors, representatives of the SNP committed themselves to working with the Third Sector to find more sustainable ways of funding the vital services the Sector delivers. On behalf of Edinburgh’s Third Sector Interface, EVOC hosted a series of […]

Person-Centred Politics, Trust and NeighbourhoodsON Tuesday 27th March representatives of Edinburgh’s Third Sector met up with candidates from the Scottish Liberal Democrat Party Councillors Paul Edie and Robert Aldridge for a frank exchange of views covered in a wide-ranging discussion. The fourth #TwilightTalks event at EVOC brought a core of committed Third Sector players together to build on the […]

Time to Raise our Game; Time to End PovertyOVER two days last week I was privileged to join hundreds of people keen to tackle poverty at The Poverty Alliance’s third Poverty Assembly.  Details – and plenty of multimedia – via YouTube and at PovertyAlliance.org and via #PovertyAssembly for those of a twitterary bent. I was heartened and encouraged by what I saw and […]