It’s crunch time for Brexit; this month Theresa May announced that the government’s deal was 95 percent complete.

Brexit has proven notoriously difficult to predict – and not just in terms of the referendum outcome. The direction that the political processes could take is also subject to a number of factors, each of which could see it take a drastically different turn.

The Government has launched its new Loneliness Strategy in a bid to tackle what it calls “one of the greatest public health challenges of our time”.

Under the strategy, GPs in England will be able to refer patients experiencing loneliness to community activities and voluntary services by 2023.

Voscur has contributed to a recent call for evidence on the future of social care from the House of Lords. You can read our response below. To find out more about the call for evidence, visit: www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/economic-affairs-committee/news-parliament-2017/social-care-call-for-evidence

The Charity Commission has updated its guidance on how workers or volunteers can report wrongdoing at a charity.

The updates mainly focus on broadening the definition of safeguarding and what should be reported.

The Charity Commission has released a new Statement of Strategic Intent, which sets out its core purpose and priorities for the five years to 2023.

It says that the new purpose will “…ensure charity can thrive and inspire trust so that people can improve lives and strengthen society”.

The new measurement looks beyond income, accounting for a range of essential costs that reduce people’s spending power such as rent, mortgage payments, childcare and disability costs.

These are measured against the positive impact of people’s liquid assets on alleviating immediate poverty. These include savings and – where relevant – stocks and shares.

Bristol City Council has announced its next steps for reversing the £5 million in savings from its Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) budget for 2018–19.

The reversal follows a High Court challenge brought by two families in which the judge ruled that the council should have consulted on the decision before it was made and that it was therefore unlawful.

The next steps are as follows:

A serious case review published by Bristol Safeguarding Children Board has stated that agencies working with children and families in the city need to provide a more robust response to child-to-parent or child-to-sibling violence.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) is consulting on a draft code of ethics.

The code is aimed at helping organisations to review their policies and practices in order to update them in line with their purpose and values. It seeks to provide an overarching set of principles that reflect values shared across the charity sector.

The Arts Council is expected to focus on diversity and localism in its strategy for 2020–2030, following release of the results of its recent consultation.

According to the consultation, two thirds of those surveyed believe that diversity presents one of the greatest opportunities for the sector over the next ten years. Yet the sector does not currently reflect society well enough – in its workforce, leadership, participants and audiences.