A leading voluntary sector figure says that councils should not be allowed to establish leisure centres as charities because of fears over their independence.

Many local authorities are taking their leisure centres out of the public sector and setting them up as charities, which entitles them to tax benefits.

Kevin Curley, chief executive of the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, criticises the practice in Third Sector (April 30) after the Charity Commission ticked off a Yorkshire leisure trust for infringing the rules on charitable independence. In its job advertisement for a chief executive, Kirklees Active Leisure, which was set up by Kirklees Council, said that the post was “politically restricted” and described the job category as “local government”.

“It is the most blatant example of a council treating the chief executive of a local charity as though he or she was one of its own officers,” Curley says.

Assessors wreathed in secrecy

Research assessment exercises are now so secretive that academics are using the Freedom of Information Act to view assessors' reports

BACKGROUND

• Has local government a future?

• Champion of the caring cause

• What worked for me

• Polyclinics told to poach patients

Related Internet Links

• Public sector jobs

• Snakes & Ladders

'Sub-prime market' is a concern

The new chief executive of Futurebuilders has denied claims that his organisation could create a “sub-prime market in the voluntary sector”.

Management of the £215 million government fund to help charities to deliver more public services was moved to the Adventure Capital Fund last month.

In Third Sector Online, Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Association for Voluntary Organisations, says that the new regime's pledge to process loan applications more quickly means that there is a possibility that some recipients would not meet their repayments.

But Jonathan Lewis tells Charity News Alert (April 30) that Futurebuilders is obliged to act quickly. “If the money is not on the market it is not helping organisations [to] get contracts,” he says. “At the moment it is taking five months, with only 7 per cent of applications getting through, which is not acceptable.”

Times Recommends

• C&G axed - 1,660 jobs to be lost
• UK house prices rise 1.1% as buyers return
• Mixed reaction to US banks repaying bailouts