Small community organisations to get £80m – and other third sector Budget
announcements
In today's Budget(21 March 2007), the Chancellor announced a new £80
million fund to provide small grants to community groups to make a real
difference in their neighbourhood.
The fund will be distributed over four years by local grant makers with the
greatest knowledge of their areas and local community groups.
The fund responds to a need identified in the Government's third sector
review, informed by consultation with hundreds of third sector
organisations and the Local Community Sector Taskforce.
The details of the programme will be developed with the sector over the
Spring as part of the final stage of the Third Sector Review.
Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, said:
“Much of the life–changing work accomplished by the third sector takes
place at a community level, through small organisations responding to
unique combinations of local needs.
“In recognition of the importance of their work, we are launching a fund
to provide small but crucial injections of funding to ensure they can
continue to tackle disadvantage in innovative ways.”
Futurebuilders
Also in today's statement, the Chancellor announced that the
Futurebuilders programme will be expanded in its second phase from
2008–2011.
Current funding criteria will be widened to enable the sector to apply for
funding to deliver in all areas of services provision. (Currently,
applications are eligible for just 5 areas – crime, community cohesion,
education & learning, health & social care, support for children
&: young people.)
In addition, today the independent Futurebuilders Advisory Panel publish
their
first progress report on the Futurebuilders programme, in which they
congratulate ministers for creating a fund that is ‘highly
innovative
’ and ‘ahead of its time
’.
Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, said:
“As we move into its second phase, the Futurebuilders programme is going
from strength to strength – and will now have even greater opportunity to
provide important investment that can unlock the third sector's
potential to deliver innovative public services that transform lives.”
Community Investment
Finally, today social enterprises stand to benefit from changes to the
rules around Community Investment Tax Relief (CITR).
The Chancellor announced a change that allows funds raised under CITR to be
used more flexibly by Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs).
This will benefit not only the CDFIs themselves (many of whom are social
enterprises), but also those organisations that borrow from CDFIs (many of
whom are social enterprises).
The Chancellor announced a change to the operation of the tax incentives
for investors in disadvantaged communities via CDFIs. The change will allow
CDFIs to keep an average of 75% of their fund onward invested, instead of a
minimum of 75% – providing better flexibility in the way they manage their
loan books.
These changes are a part of the ongoing review of the operation of CITR,
announced in last November's social enterprise action plan. The Office
of the Third Sector will continue to build the evidence on access to
finance for social enterprises, to establish whether there are
inefficiencies in the market that could be addressed.
