Cor, what a pea-souper engulfing these isles. Which way out of the fug?

Everyone, it seems, is losing their way. Take the labyrinthine tax and benefits system. Fighting on the service delivery frontline for benefits, tax credits and employment services has become significantly tougher for disadvantaged users over the past decade, finds the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Incorrect advice, lost or late documents, lack of privacy in open-plan job centres and general complexity dog the system.

The entire government- funded social enterprise initiative also lacks direction, say its appointed ambassadors. Once fêted by all political parties, social enterprise has become unfocused, reports Third Sector (June 25). The 33 ambassadors - who include Emily Eavis, from the Glastonbury Festival, and John Bird, founder of The Big Issue - clashed heads at a London event where dissatisfaction at their PR company also seeped out. One suggestion was for the ambassadors to do their

own PR and reclaim the company's £68,000 annual fee. Jonathan Bland, head of the Social Enterprise Coalition, said that it had always been intended that the programme would become more targeted after the first year.

Is patient data being abused?

Evidence suggests that NHS trusts around the country are letting staff off the hook for breaking data privacy rules

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• Laying some new foundations

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Donors are playing the field

The public is a fickle beast. Nuzzling into your neck one moment then casting you broken into a ditch the next.

Now charities are feeling the infidelity. Used to price-comparison services on gas suppliers and phone tariffs,

donors are starting to apply the logic of consumerism to charities, says Third Sector (June 25). Research by Bluefrog, a marketing firm, on lapsed donors, shows that they are increasingly switching between charities, lavishing their affections on several

causes because donors are less likely to have faith in a single organisation. The study was compiled from 100 interviews and 12 focus groups with existing and lapsed donors.

Mark Astarita, fundraising director at the British Red Cross, says that donors need to be made to feel special. “We need to get better at caring, nurturing, supporting and

informing them and treating them as individuals,” he says of the dire attrition rate. Hard-edged business should be disguised as love, he says. “It will be a huge challenge to make the mass-marketing approach feel like a one-to-one relationship, but if we are going to

survive we need to invest more in fundraising strategies.”

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