Charity loses Hope in shuffle

OK, so that could be officially my final Phil Hope-related punningly-titled post. He's been promoted to take over the Social Care brief in the Department of Health (formerly run by Ivan Lewis), which will at least ensure he is still involved in working with the third sector, including social enterprise, as that all comes under that remit in the DoH. Congrats to him on the promotion.

So, who's our new minister? Step forward, Kevin Brennan, MP for Cardiff West, who's previously been at the Department for Schools, Children and Families. More biography here and here.

The other major news in the reshuffle for the sector? Probably Ed Miliband moving to take on the new energy / environment department (which can only be good news for environmentally-focused third sector orgs, surely?) and also the arrival of Liam Byrne as Minister for the Cabinet Office. I was always pretty impressed with Liam Byrne when he was at DoH and then in charge of immigration, so that bodes well for that department, within which sits the Office of the Third Sector.

Oh, and some Mandelson bloke came back, apparently. Don't know if you saw that in the papers....