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Government needs a more creative approach to supporting charities, says Tory minister

Finance | Niki May Young | 6 Dec 2011

Government should be more creative in engaging with the third sector, according to Conservative MP Richard Fuller responding to Labour calls for an assessment of the effects of local authority funding cuts on the voluntary sector.

Three Labour ministers raised the call for a report into the effects of cuts in Parliament yesterday. David Wright, MP for Telford, Gordon Marsden, MP for Blackpool South, and Gavin Shuker, MP for Luton South posed their request to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Andrew Stunnell.

In response, Stunnell repeated the government’s call for local authorities not to disproportionately cut funding from the voluntary sector: “Local spending decisions are of course a matter for local councils, but there is no excuse for targeting the voluntary sector disproportionately,” he said. “The government are working closely with the third sector to assess capacity and to provide support—for example, through the Transition Fund and Big Society Capital—and we are looking together at opportunities for the voluntary and community sector to benefit from local authority commissioning.”

But Fuller said, “This may not be an issue of funding but of the need to jolt local bureaucracies into being more creative in engaging with our social enterprises and local third sector organisations”. He cited the example of Chris White’s Public Service (Social Value) Bill which aims to add more weight to social value outputs in public service commissioning. Fuller urged Stunnell to work closer with the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and minister for civil society, Nick Hurd “so that we can have more creative local authorities that engage with civil sector organisations”.

But Labour ministers remained adamant that funding cuts present too tall a barrier for local authorities. Directing his frustrations at Stunnell, Chris Williamson, MP for Derby North, claimed that “Big Society is a big con leading to a big unfair society.

“How can he possibly justify a system that leads to huge variations in funding cuts to charitable organisations?” he asked.

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