Insight and latest updates from our team

Advice, opinion and event reports from NICVA's staff and guest authors.

Refugees, migrants and Ireland

Scope editor Nick Garbutt reflects on the refugee crisis and looks back at Ireland's history of migration 

Every Lidl helps: helping charities can be super marketing for businesses

Following the announcement of a new Lidl scheme to fund community groups across Northern Ireland, Scope asks whether partnerships between the voluntary and private sectors are a world of untapped potential.

Sector faces massive job losses, survey claims

Scope reports on the latest threat to community and voluntary sector funding

Did the IRA go away?

Are there any politicians and commentators who seriously did not know that the IRA still existed? 

Time to make the most of the welfare crisis

Even if an under-pressure Iain Duncan Smith is forced from the cabinet his recent policies are set to run and run, writes Ian James Parsley. They have popular support and this is unlikely to change.

Shroud education: sharing and the future

Shared Education is the big new thing for helping society come together and improving schooling. But what are we supposed to expect?

Will the BBC get blown away by the gathering storm?

Just how serious is the threat to the BBC posed by the Westminster government and should we be worried about it? 

Whatever happened to Heenan Anderson?

Whatever happened to the Heenan-Anderson Commission?

Two years of death and serious injury on Northern Ireland’s roads

The second Detail Data story Two years of death and serious injury on Northern Ireland’s roads was published yesterday.

NI's rejection of marriage equality 'a breach of religious rights'

Local failure to bring forth marriage equality legislation matching the rest of the UK is set to be challenged in the High Court this autumn, on the basis that it is an infringement of the right to freely practice religion.

Why we need to know the truth about Kincora

Why is Secretary of State Theresa Villiers so determined to ensure that allegations about child abuse at Kincora Boys Home in Belfast does not form part of the UK investigation? 

Shifting sands: NI's political landscape on marriage equality is changing

Last week Scope highlighted the view that marriage equality in Northern Ireland is "inevitable" - are changes in the past week a sign of this inevitability in action?

Should we have the right to die on our own terms?

Debate about right to die - and the right to help our loved ones do so, if they wish - is growing in the UK. Scope looks at a deceptively simple point of principle and its complex fine details.

Crisis Fund: can a little go a very long way?

Earlier this year OFMdFM released a small amount of funds to help vulnerable ethnic-minority migrants in crisis. Scope speaks with fund administrators the Red Cross about its success.

Automatic Enrolment Compliance and Enforcement

Key Points from The Pension Regulator’s Automatic Enrolment Compliance and Enforcement quarterly bulletin: 1 January – 31 March 2015.

The inevitable equality - why NI will embrace same-sex marriage

A key figure in the successful marriage equality campaign in the Republic of Ireland says Northern Ireland will move into line with the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Spooky action at an unknown distance - GCHQ and Amnesty International

The security services exist to protect us as citizens and allow us to live in freedom. Scope speaks with spying victims Amnesty International about whether spying on human rights organisations can fulfil that purpose.

A complex solution to a simple problem

Analysis: Colin Harper of the Belfast Law Centre on the Mental Capacity Bill 

The other Villiers in Ireland: famine, internment, rebellion

Theresa Villiers is not the first of her family to hold high office in Ireland.