Research Email Briefing 49

The Website version of the NICVA research email briefing, highlighting news, events, publications and information relevant to the sector.

Recent Research

Intergenerational Transmission and Ethno-National Identity in the Border Area.
NICVA Salary Survey 2006: Job roles, salaries and benefits in the voluntary and community sector.

Forthcoming Research - Calls for material on the Troubles

Remembering the Conflict is calling for ideas about what form could a living memorial museum to the conflict in and about Northern Ireland take.

Research Events

Salary Survey Seminar – Wednesday 1 November 2006

Research Requests

The Science Shop works with community organisations who want some research carried out and with students who need to carry out a project as part of their degree, seeking to make a match between the two.

Publish your own research online

Would you like to make your research more accessible? Have you got a research publication to plug or some research news to share? Now is the time to publish your research online. Publish it on www.communityni.org free of charge.

Recent Research

Intergenerational Transmission and Ethno-National Identity in the Border Area

This interdisciplinary project, linking two centres of research on identity in Dublin and Belfast, focuses on questions of general theoretical, comparative European and of urgent policy significance: how ethno-national identity is transmitted over generations how and when identity shifts occur and the role of major structural and institutional changes (eg European and global investments cross-border cooperation, North-South bodies).

It is particularly concerned with the impact of long term and political transformations on identity, and the generational differences in identity: the project has a particular focus on identity and identity change among young people. It focuses on the impact of the Good Friday Agreement and related changes, seeing when and where identities take an oppositional (conflict generating) form, and under what conditions they may change to non-oppositional forms. The policy relevance is clear. The project aims to identify mechanisms (individual-psychological, political) which force identity into oppositional mode, and types of intervention which may disrupt these mechanisms and allow reconciliation. It aims to identity both the importance and the limits of political change in bringing peace. Some of the main findings of the research are:

Nationality is still important to young people, and for adults. The young are not less national, or less oppositional than their elders. The generation of ‘the Troubles’ may be unusual.
Identity change and identity choice does take place, but fluidity in identity is rare.
The effects of the Good Friday Agreement and more generally of European integration on identity formation were less direct than we had expected.
Identity change — like identity transmission — is mediated through the family and civil society institutions, and legitimated in terms of family history.
Modes of change and transition are discussed in moral terms rather than in national terms, although the ‘moral’ may have an implicit ‘national’ content.

For further information on this research visit the ITENIBA website http://www.ucd.ie/euiteniba/index.html

NICVA Salary Survey 2006

Job roles, salaries and benefits in the voluntary and community sector

This report is the second study of its kind completed by NICVA in the past five years. The research was undertaken to shed some light on the current workforce dynamics of the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland. It looks at workforce composition with regard to age, sex, contracts, job titles and remuneration levels.

The voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland is an exciting and challenging environment to work in but the resources to foster development and growth are not always in place. The 2006 Salary Survey focuses on the salaries of different job levels within the voluntary and community sector. In addition to building upon the findings of the 2001 Salary Survey this research also compares its findings with similar research completed in the private sector to establish if the gap in salaries between the private and voluntary and community sectors still exists.

The issues of salaries and benefits are of huge interest to the sector. Organisations are trying to provide their staff with competitive pay and benefits in an attempt to reduce the high turnover of staff and the costs of recruitment campaigns. Evidence of this can be seen when examining the number of downloads concerning NJC Scales. This is one of the most popular articles to be downloaded from the Community NI website.

Pensions are also of huge concern in all sectors. Issues concerning pensions and the retirement age have dominated discussions within government and in the media over recent months. In an ageing society it is vital that older people receive a fair and adequate retirement income. This has led to an increased number of organisations in the sector offering employees a pension scheme.

Key findings

The first section looks at employment composition in the voluntary and community sector.

18.4% of employees in responding organisations are full-time male workers, 44.5% of overall employees are female and work full time.
Over one quarter of organisations have difficulties with recruitment. The most prominent difficulty with regard to recruitment is the lack of specialist skills from prospective candidates.

The second section of the report focuses on pay and conditions in the sector:

Nearly 60% of organisations operate occupational sick pay schemes in excess of the statutory minimum.
The 2001 Salary Survey found that 49% of organisation had pay links with specific pay scale, in 2006 that has increased to just over 67%.

The final section of the report examines any changes or developments in salaries and benefits in the sector since 2001. This section also looks at recent research produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on salaries and benefits in the private sector and provides a comparison with the voluntary and community sector.

Over 50% of organisations in the private sector and just over 54% of organisations involved in the voluntary and community sector provide flexible working policies.
Overall this research found that 43% of organisations offer staff an occupational pension scheme of which 98% are contributory in nature.

For further information on this research please contact Andrea Burke.

andrea.burke@nicva.org
028 9087 7777

If you would like to order a copy of this report please contact Lynn Anderson.

lynn.anderson@nicva.org
028 9087 7777

Or to order the report online visit http://www.communityni.org/store/

There is a charge of £50 per copy for non-voluntary and community organisations, £30 for organisations that are not NICVA members and £10 for NICVA full members.

Forthcoming Research

Remembering the Conflict

Remembering the Conflict is calling for ideas about what form could a living memorial museum to the conflict in and about Northern Ireland take?

Healing Through Remembering would like participants to keep the following questions in mind when forming a submission

Who would the memorial museum be for?
What could it be — a place, a space an empty space for reflection, something living and growing?
Should it be something other than a building?
What should/could it look like?
What should/could it contain?
Location(s)/virtual spaces?
Name?
New or old building?
Permanent or temporary?

Closing date for receipt of submission is 30^th September 2006. All submission should be sent to the Healing Through Remembering address and clearly marked ‘Open Call For Ideas’.

For further information or to send completed request form for information packs and workshops contact:

Emma McClintock

Healing Through Remembering

Alexander House

17a Ormeau road

Belfast

BT2 8HD

Or call 028 9023 8844 or email callforideas@healingthroughremebering.org or visit the Healing Through Remembering website http://www.healingthroughremembering.org/

Research Events

2006 Salary Survey and Human Resource Seminar

This seminar is due to take place on Wednesday 1 November 2006 with registration at 10.30am. We anticipate the seminar will last no longer than two hours and will finish at approximately 1pm.

The seminar will present the findings of the NICVA Salary Survey 2006 as well as other human resources issues of relevance to the voluntary and community sector. If you would like further information on this seminar or would like to register for it please feel free to contact me by emailing andrea.burke@nicva.org or 028 9087 7777.

Research Request

The Science Shop works with community organisations who want some research carried out and with students who need to carry out a project as part of their degree, seeking to make a match between the two.It is run jointly by Queen’s University Belfast and University of Ulster.

Whether you have a general research idea or a specific research request,The Science Shop can work with you to help turn it into a research project suitable for a student. Whilst The Science Shop is happy to take new research requests throughout the year, this is a particularly good time to contact us since students will be looking for research opportunities at the start of the new academic year.

For further information, go to their website www.qub.ac.uk/scisho where you will alsobe able to downloadour new voluntary sector newsletter ENGAGE which offers examples of recently completedresearch projects. Or contact Emma McKenna at Queen's University Tel: 028 9097 3107 or science.shop@qub.ac.uk

Publish your own research online

Would you like to make research more accessible? Have you got a research publication to plug or some research news to share? Now is the time to publish your research online. Publish it on Community NI, free of charge. Follow the simple online form at:

http://www.communityni.org/index.cfm

What is Community NI?

Community NI has been developed by the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) to promote the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland. The website was officially launched in April 2005.

Publish your information

The principle behind the site is that every voluntary and community organisation will be signposted and will have the opportunity to publish information, whether that be a newsletter, press release, job advertisement or event. Community NI aims to be the first central online source of information about the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland. It gives voluntary and community organisations the chance to promote themselves on the internet and to share their resources and expertise.

Thanks to everyone who sent information that has been included in NICVA Research Update 49. Please remember to send information about research that you have undertaken and requests for information that you would like included in the next update. Also remember to let others know about NICVA Research Updates. To register send an email entitled ‘NICVA Research Updates’ to andrea.burke@nicva.org

Andrea Burke

Research Assistant

NICVA

61 Duncairn Gardens

BELFAST BT15 2GB

028 9087 7777

028 9087 7799