24th April 2009
By Alex Klaushofer
Struggling third sector organisations will be able to apply to a new £16.7m government hardship fund, it was announced in the Budget.
The Cabinet Office initiative will be targeted at third sector organisations providing frontline services in England that are facing hardship as a result of the recession.
But voluntary sector leaders criticised the government for not doing enough to help charities and not-for-profits in the downturn.
Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, said he was disappointed by the lack of funding for a social investment bank to help the third sector provide public services.
In February, the Third Sector Taskforce, set up jointly by the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and the Department for Work and Pensions, recommended the establishment of a £250m bank.
Etherington said that a £50m investment to kick-start the bank ‘could have given the sector a much-needed shot in the arm’. The failure to do this was ‘deeply disappointing’, he added, ‘especially when the government announced a range of substantial measures to support the private sector’.
He also regretted the chancellor’s failure to ‘look beyond the conventional solutions offered by the market and the state’ to enable the voluntary and community sector ‘to play its part in helping to take the country out of recession’.
At a reception for third sector representatives on the eve of the Budget, Cabinet Office minister Liam Byrne said it was an ‘enormously exciting time’ for the sector. ‘[We should be] growing our way through the downturn, not cutting our way through,’ he added.
