Futurebuilders Advisory Panel publishes final report
10 April 2008
The Futurebuilders Advisory Panel (the Panel) today (10
April) published its final report to ministers.
Since it was created in 2005, the Panel, Chaired by Baroness Jill
Pitkeathley, has been on 120 visits to organisations that have had
experience in applying to Futurebuilders and has worked closely with
Futurebuilders England and OTS staff.
The report highlights that Futurebuilders has demonstrated that third
sector organisations can take on loan finance. The Panel commends
Futurebuilders England for investing in a good breadth of investees, which
shows that third sector organisations have an appetite for loan finance at
all levels.
In particular, the report praises the wide range of financial products that
Futurebuilders offers to third sector organisations, which supports the
individual nature of third sector organisations.
The Panel welcomes the fact that its suggestion to open up the programme to
all areas of public service delivery was taken on board and implemented
from 1 April 2008.
In light of the Third Sector Review’s measure for how the Office of the
Third Sector will strengthen and rationalise its advisory structures, the
Panel held its final meeting on 1 April 2008.
The OTS would like to thank the Chair and the Panel members for proactively
engaging with the Futurebuilders programme and making such a valuable
contribution at all levels.
Also published today is the Interim Report from the Futurebuilders
Evaluation Team, led by Professor Peter Wells at Sheffield Hallam
University. The report can be found at www.shu.ac.uk/cresr [external
website].
