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Cabinet Office releases Social Investment Readiness Charter 1

Finance | Vibeka Mair | 21 Sep 2012

The Cabinet Office, Big Society Capital, Big Lottery Fund and Nesta have jointly agreed on five principles to develop social investment-readiness, including favouring 'non-grant' mechanisms to minimise distortion.

The news comes as the Cabinet Office announces the first £1m in grants from its £10m Contract and Investment Readiness Fund.

Eight small social ventures will share £1m in grants from the Fund to help them raise £23m in further investments and contracts.

Alongside this the Cabinet Office has published the UK’s first Social Investment Readiness Charter, which has been signed by the Cabinet Office, Big Society Capital, Big Lottery Fund and Nesta. It sets out five agreed principles by which all signatories have agreed to operate to support the social investment-readiness ecosystem.

This includes greater collaboration and transparency on funding of investment-readiness. The Charter also says that while grant funding may be required in some circumstances to accelerate development of investment-readiness, the preference is for ‘non-grant’ mechanisms that minismise distortion, to deliver long-term, sustainable impact.

The Cabinet Office is encouraging more social investors to adopt the Charter, which can be found on its website.

The Big Lottery Fund, which is delivering the Social Incubator Fund for the Cabinet Office, is also developing its own investment-readiness fund which will complement the government’s Investment and Contract Readiness Fund.

A Big Lottery Fund spokesman said it would launch sometime next year.

The social ventures that will receive grants from the government's £10m Investment and Contract Readiness Fund include:

• Centre at Threeways, a newly-formed community trust, supported by Calderdale council, in its bid to take on the largest community asset transfer in England. It aims to turn the former Ridings school in Overden into an enterprise development hub which will be for and owned by the community.

• Reds10, a social business which supports disadvantaged, young and unemployed people to find jobs on local construction sites while helping local authorities, developers and contractors meet their local labour and apprenticeship targets. This grant will help scale up its successful London operation into a national social business.

• Shared Lives Plus, the UK network of small, community-based care and support solutions for older and disabled people. This grant will allow it to expand in ten new areas across the country.

• Abundant Life, a new enterprise that is being built on the Dartington estate. This grant will allow it to develop plans for a new, self-sustainable residential development for older people based around the historic listed buildings on the estate.

• West Itchen Community Trust, which tackles economic and social disadvantage in deprived areas of inner-city Southampton. The grant will help them to bring a dormant building into its portfolio which can be turned into an improved enterprise hub.

• TLG The Education Charity, which has developed unique alternative education provision for young people at risk of exclusion from school or in crisis. The grant will help it scale up the education provision.

Directory: Big Lottery Fund | Big Society Capital | NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts)