Funding trends: moving from state aid to self help

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Funding trends: moving from state aid to self help 1

Finance | Gordon Hunter | 9 Sep 2010

Big Society blogger Gordon Hunter says beating the cuts will take clever manipulation of funding practice.

The next three-year spending plan will be announced on 20 October 2010. It covers the period to April 2014. Labour set aside £500m last time for the sector for the three-year period to April 2011. How much will we get this time?

“Significantly less,” according to Nick Hurd, “the nation's finances are in dire straits.” Nevertheless, the government vision is of “a stronger society where there's a better balance between state, market and civil society", a sector that is “more resilient and independent” but that can “deliver more public services... (and) more community-led solutions”. Communities will, somehow, be empowered through the so-called “localism” agenda and Lord Hodgson’s flying taskforce of red-tape-scissoring, pin-striped paratroopers.

It’s going to take some nifty manoeuvring to cut the budget, launch a flotilla of flagship projects and increase grassroots activity. Mr Hurd’s initiatives include National Service for 10,000 16-year-old volunteers, the Big Society Bank (based on those nice bankers releasing millions of pounds worth of hidden dormant accounts), a fund for start-up groups (but nothing to sustain existing groups with less council funding but more clients) and fewer Lottery grants but more loans (see social investment bonds).

Does that make you feel empowered?

We are forced towards self-sufficiency, knowing that the state safety net is, at best, being stored away. I anticipate a move from bid writing back to local fundraising. Not just the traditional big breakfasts and pub snail racing but also the new online giving opportunities like localgiving.com.

Who's Who: Gordon Hunter

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David Fitzpatrick
Chief Executive
HCF
28 Sep 2010

Gordon's comments are, as ever, well focused. The issue for me is capacity: I support what I understand to be the concepts behind 'Big Society' but am concerned lest this onset of initiativitus infect the society it is meant to support.

Without basic social infrastructure in place, local communities will suffer hugely. Whilst those with time and money on their hands will, as ever, come forward to do their bit, those struggling with three jobs already to make ends meet, those vulnerable as a result of age, ill health or disability, those trying to cope as their support world collapses around them, will have nowhere to turn. The organisations that would usually be there to help, will have gone. This all will be exacerbated by another nascent development. I support the personalisation agenda - the funding following the person - but the implications of that for places such as the local day centre also will be huge, if it is not appropriately managed.

Provided the safety nets are not, as Gordon suggests, put away but remain in place, Big Soc may just succeed but, with the tendency at the moment for the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater, I fear that we may emerge blinking in the new light, post cuts apocalypse, to see but the ruins of the social capital many of us have worked towards over years.

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Funding Big Society

Gordon Hunter is director of the Lincolnshire Community Foundation, which he started in 2002, and blogs for Civil Society on all things 'local'. He has a background in HR and an ambition to expel all thoughtless jargon.

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