21/11/11
By Andrew Holt
A new £16.8million central government fund to help not-for-profit free advice services in England will be delivered by the Big Fund, Nick Hurd, Minister for Civil Society, announced today.
The fund will provide immediate support to debt, welfare benefits, employment and housing advice services.
In addition, the Cabinet Office will conduct a review to ensure that people continue to have access to good quality free advice services in their communities.
Nick Hurd, minister for Civil Society, said: “This is a serious commitment to help free advice services carry on delivering much needed help to people struggling with debt, welfare benefits, employment and housing problems in these difficult economic times.
"The Cabinet Office will also be carrying out a review of free advice services to ensure that we do all we can to help the sector.”
Nat Sloane BIG England chair added: “In delivering the Advice Services Fund programme on behalf of the Cabinet Office, BIG will work to ensure that this important funding reaches these organisations as quickly as possible.
"These grants will make a real difference in enabling advice services to continue to provide good quality support and guidance to people in their communities.”
The new Advice Services Fund will open for applications by the end of November and will be managed by BIG Fund. It will be for not-for-profit advice providers in England. Applicants must:
Provide advice in at least one of the following priority areas: debt, welfare benefits, employment and housing; and
Be able to evidence public funding cuts of at least 10% for the specified advice service areas from central and local government sources in 2011/12.
Priority will be given to organisations with higher levels of reductions in funds.
How applicants plan to use their grants, their plans for the future (including ways to improve efficiency) and how the quality of their advice services help meet local needs, will also be taken into account.
The Advice Services Fund will provide grants of £40,000 to £70,000 to be spent on service delivery.
The Government review will conclude early next year.
It will look at the funding environment for these services, likely levels of demand, and how government can play a positive role.
Other stories you may find of interest:
Spending Review: charities could face up to £4.5bn hit
The Comprehensive Spending Review revealed a major reduction to the administrative costs across government, with George Osborne's four-year plan slashing a total of £81 billion from public spending, with ACEVO noting the changes could result in charities facing up to £4.5bn hit to their funding. The chancellor announced a reduction in revenue grants to local authorities by 26% over the period 2011/12 to 2014/15. Of significance to the charity sector are the cuts to the Department for Culture Media and Sport (-24%), Local Government (-27%), and reform of welfare and housing: with local authority revenue grants no longer protected, and social housing funding cut by 60 per cent.
Sector welcomes Giving White Paper
Sector organistions have broadly welcomed the Government's Giving White Paper published today. ACEVO, NCVO, CFDG, CAF, IOF, Volunteering England and the Philanthropy Review all welcome the paper, albeit with different levels of qualification. The Social Enterprise Coalition's Peter Holbrook and the DSC are the most critical....
Big Society speech fails to win over sector
Sector organisations have not been won over by David Cameron's Big Society relaunch today, with the consensus being the government is not doing enough to support the sector. Sir Stuart Etherington, NCVO chief executive, noted his organisation supported the idea of the Big Society, but, he warned the Government needs to take swift action now to ensure that voluntary organisations survive to deliver it.
The European Union is one of the largest donors to civil society in the world, but also accused of not truly engaging with sector organisations. Peter Davy investigates the EU/sector relationship
Current struggles over the Eurozone debt crisis have done little to endear the EU to British voters, it seems. Two polls in July had half the population saying they would vote to leave were a referendum held. In the survey by pollsters AngusReid, only a third thought EU membership had been positive for the country...
With morale in the sector at its lowest ebb, Duncan Jefferies asks what makes an effective leader and how charities can attract and develop the best management talent in the current environment
