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Difficult questions were put to those in community and voluntary organisations at an Imagine! Belfast event this week. When does valid criticism end and self-flaggelation begin? Scope has a look.

The whys and wherefores of being poor in Northern Ireland are changing and could become more difficult to address, according to a new Joseph Rowntree Foundation report.

This week New Zealand became the first country in the western world to ban zero hour contracts. Scope examines the issues. 

This week the Committee for the Administration of Justice launched a paper designed to inform people about the whys and wherefores of public order policing - useful for a factual approach to oversight of the PSNI. Scope takes a look.

The recent death of a homeless man on the streets of Belfast has caused a furore and a flurry of emergency meetings as the authorities work out a response. 

The recent consultation document on Accessible Transport appears to have forgotten about community providers – but are things that simple? Scope takes a look.

It has been a truly awful week for the BBC with the publication of two separate reports into its treatment of the Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall affairs.  

The Imagine! Festival of Ideas and Politics returns to Belfast next month for its second year. Scope speaks to organiser Peter O’Neill about the gap it fills in public debate.

Scope editor Nick Garbutt argues that the forthcoming elections provide the sector with the opportunity to fulfil its potential to influence political change. 

Election seasons is upon us and Scope will have a heavy focus on policy. This week NICVA published its own paper. We highlight their ideas.

Next week Prof. Rafael Bengoa and his panel will meet with our major parties. Agreeing principles for health reform is vital - time is short.

With Northern Ireland getting its first taste of private sector involvement in the prison service, Scope looks at the impacts of wholescale privatisation of the justice system in England and Wales. 

The family visitor centre at Maghaberry prison, which, for so long was operated by the Quakers, is now being run by a private company.Here we provide a brief history of the work of both organisations without comment.  

Our structures for tackling labour exploitation are a mess, but moves by the Home Office and DBIS might not help. Scope takes a look.

Social security does not occur in a vacuum and, while Tory changes might look absurd by their own criteria, there are huge global socioeconomic trends that effect what is possible and these have no easy solutions.

Scope unpicks the issues at the heart of a divisive debate as serious questions are raised about the sector’s independence

If you ever needed proof of the dysfunctionality of Northern Ireland’s health service it was delivered from an unexpected source this week, argues Scope editor Nick Garbutt. 

Scope takes a summary view of this week's paper on how to spend the £585m set aside for mitigation of Welfare Reform.

Scope looks at the issues the NI Human Rights Commission has put on red alert for Northern Ireland in 2016.

Scope meets Ellen Murray, the first transgender person to stand for election in Northern Ireland.