Young people graduating from National Citizen Service (NCS) will have the chance to continue their community projects in four regions of England thanks to a Social Action Fund grant awarded to the National Youth Agency (NYA) supported by O2 Think Big.
London, UK (PRWEB UK) 14 June 2012
Young people graduating from National Citizen Service (NCS) will have the chance to continue their community projects in four regions of England thanks to a Social Action Fund grant awarded to the National Youth Agency supported by O2 Think Big.The Social Action Fund programme will provide NCS graduates in the North West, North East, Yorkshire and South East regions with cash awards, training and support from a team of specially employed youth workers.
The eighteen month project will see young people build social action projects to benefit their local communities and create volunteering opportunities for their peers. The aim is to provide young people and all who participate with skills and experience for their future and to leave a lasting legacy of social action and volunteering within communities.
The National Youth Agency has a strong and successful partnership with O2, which has evolved through working together to manage and deliver O2 Think Big. The programme funds and supports young people’s ideas to create or change something in their local community.
This partnership will drive and shape the new Social Action Fund project and O2 have provided an additional £500,000 to match the funded awarded. The young people participating in the Social Action Fund project will be provided with cash to develop their ideas, whilst gaining valuable guidance and advice from the O2 Think Big team and O2 Helpers to make sure their projects come to life.
Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd said: “We have awarded the National Youth Agency and 02 Think Big over £900,000 which they have match funded with £500,000. This will give this year’s National Citizen Service graduates the chance to continue their social action projects in their local communities.
“This is a great example of government, business and the voluntary sector working together to provide opportunities for young people so that they can improve their skills and take on new challenges.”
On being awarded the funding, National Youth Agency chief executive Fiona Blacke, commented: “Having the opportunity to build progression routes for young people who have been on National Citizens Service and had a taste of social action is great. We, at NYA, as well as our programme partner, O2 Think Big and our local delivery teams, are really excited about this project coming forward.
“We are going to use teams of paid interns and apprentices led by a youth worker to reach out to and engage young people and signpost them to programmes and funders that can support their next steps. Key to this is O2 Think Big which is providing funding and support for over 850 young people's projects which will drive the creation of volunteering opportunities for many young people.”
Ronan Dunne, CEO Telefónica UK said “We welcome this initiative to further strengthen the support given to young people. The investment announced today, in Britain’s biggest asset, its young people, is imperative. Working with the National Youth Agency and Social Action Fund will allow us to extend the Think Big programme and work with more young people across the UK.”
To deliver the Social Action Fund project, the National Youth Agency and O2 Think Big will be working with local delivery partners – Envision, Youth Action and Keyfund - in each of the regions and partnering with Durham University to evaluate the impact of this programme on young people, communities and O2 Helpers.
The Social Action Fund is managed by The Social Investment Business on behalf of the Cabinet Office, and will fund social action projects in England, from civil society organisations, public sector bodies and businesses with a track record of delivering social action programmes.
The Social Investment Business’ chief executive, Jonathan Jenkins, said: “The energy and vision of applicants has been impressive and we are pleased to manage a Fund that finances ambitious, life-changing social action projects which will really make a difference and bring people together to improve the quality of life in their communities.”
ENDS
For further media information CONTACT
Holly-Marie Draper
Tel: 07921 687 847
Email: hollyd(at)nya(dot)org(dot)uk
Editors Notes
1. The NYA works in partnership with a range of private, public and voluntary sector organisations to support and improve services for young people. Our particular focus is n youth work and we believe that by investing in young people's personal and social development, young people are better equipped to live more active and fulfilling lives.
2.Think Big is an innovative multi-million pound youth programme. It is designed to back young people across the UK and help them harness their ideas, energy and passion to run projects and campaigns in their local community. The initiative works by putting cash directly into the hands of the young people and supporting them to develop skills and to positively impact their community. In addition to the financial support, young people receive training and mentoring to help them tackle the issues that matter to them and affect them most.
3. The NCS Graduate programme’s aim is to create generations of socially active and responsible young people by maximising the impact of the core NCS programme.
4.There are still some NCS places available this summer. If you are 16 or 17 and want to see if this opportunity is still available where you live, you should go to http://www.direct.gov.uk/ncs or http://www.facebook.com/ncs
Holly-Marie Draper
National Youth Agency
0116 285 3764
Email Information
T-Mobile offers free 4G phones for Father's Day, with small catch - Los Angeles Times
T-Mobileplans to give away free 4G phones for two days as part of aFather's Daysale that begins Friday.
The sale includes all 4G phones supported by T-Mobile's network, but the phones aren't exactly free when you get them.
A spokeswoman for T-Mobile explained that anyone wanting to partake in the sale will have to sign up for a two-year contract and pay for the phone up front. T-Mobile will then give them a mail-in rebate card, making the phone free.
A bit tricky, but eventually it's free, assuming you send in the card.
Among the phones included in the sale are the HTC One S, the Samsung Galaxy S II, the Nokia Lumia 710 and the BlackBerry Bold 9900. The T-Mobile Springboard tablet is also included in the sale.
“We want to say thanks to fathers for all they do and keep them easily and affordably connected to family throughout the entire year,” said Andrew Sherrard, senior vice president of marketing for T-Mobile, in a prepared statement.
It's a great sale, but it's only available through T-Mobile's stores, not online. Also, the sale will not include the heavily anticipated Samsung Galaxy S III, which T-Mobile begins selling June 21.
Existing T-Mobile customers can take advantage of the sale, but unless you've had your phone and plan for at least 18 months, you'll have to pay a migration fee.
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Tax judge to UK Uncut: you're idiots - Daily Telegraph Blogs
UK Uncut activists get it wrong
Much joy at Worstall Towers today as the National Audit Office releases their report on whether UK Uncut are tireless campaigners for a better world or simply ignorant teenage Trots. While no retired judge would ever be so unkind as to actually say such a thing outright, the answer is, stripped of politesse, that they're idiots.
Cast your mind back to what UK Uncut were actually claiming about what Vodafone had been getting up to – dodging £6 billion in tax through a subsidiary in Luxembourg. A number which was dredged up from one of the less researched stories in Private Eye (if you can imagine that magazine actually doing less research than normal). In fact, I do actually know how the Eye came up with the number because I've corresponded with the person who calculated it. They made it up. First they assumed that all of the money in that Luxembourg company had not been taxed in Germany and or Luxembourg. Wrong: it had been. Secondly they assumed that UK tax would be payable on all the money in that company. Wrong: even only potentially, it would have been the difference between the tax already paid and the UK tax rate. Thirdly, that UK tax was in fact payable on this amount, whatever it was. This was actually the point at issue: did the UK's tax law apply to that Luxembourg company or not? Fourthly, and finally, the assumption was that as the tax actually paid was less than £6 billion then someone must have let Vodafone off the rest of it.
I will admit to a certain sympathy with that fourth contention and I can even identify who it was: the European Union. For the issue at stake in the third was whether the Controlled Foreign Company laws (CFC, essentially the UK's way of taxing profits in an offshore subsidiary) could be applied to a subsidiary in another EU or EEA country. EU laws say no, except in very specific and difficult to meet circumstances. HMRC was trying to say that the CFC rules apply and send us the dosh pronto. Whether Vodafone Luxembourg fitted these very specific and difficult to meet rules was what they went through the tax courts, the High Court and the Court of Appeal to try and argue out. And at this point they decided to settle and not pay the lawyers any more money.
So what does our National Audit Office say about this now that they've investigated it? Should someone from HMRC be hanging by his heels from Tower Bridge for losing all that lovely lucre? No, not quite:
Sir Andrew Park’s overall conclusion is that the settlement reached was a good one and represented fair value for the wider taxpaying community. Had the Department not reached a settlement, the case would have gone to litigation. In Sir Andrew Park’s opinion, company D had a good chance of winning both of its two arguments: the motive test defence and the Cadbury Schweppes defence. If it had won on either of these, the outcome would have been that it had no tax liability at all relating to subsidiary D’s interest income.
By settling, HMRC got something, not the nothing that could have resulted. And more importantly this was not the only company lining up to make the same claim:
Company D was only one of several major companies that had long-running disputes with the Department over the application of the controlled foreign companies provisions.
I've been told that there were more than 100 such companies in fact. HMRC is thus able to negotiate payments of something from all of these rather than the nothing that could have resulted from losing the Vodafone case. Settling thus, at least a good argument can be made that, collected vastly more tax than not settling.
My interest in this, over and above joy of seeing enemies crushed, hearing the lamentations of their women etc, is that over a year ago I wrote a paper for the IEA pointing exactly this out. Indeed, there were several of us explaining this to the UK Uncut peeps two years ago, as the organisation actually launched. They, and Private Eye, have simply been wrong about this issue all along. And it's their own fault too, for they refused to listen to those who were telling them the truth all along – viz, me.
It's traditional when performing the victory dance to point out that there's a moral to the tale, a lesson that can be learned from the experience. In this case it's that you should make sure you know what's going on before you superglue yourself to a shop window.
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