Award winning charity to distribute Home Office cash

Finance | Ian Allsop | 1 Jul 2006

The Home Office has chosen the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund over the statutory compensation body to distribute an additional £2.5 million to victims of last summer's terrorist attacks.

The fund, winner of the effectiveness award at last month's Charity Awards organised by Charity Finance (see www.charityawards.co.uk ), reportedly told the Home Office that it would only accept and disburse the money if it was given as a pure donation, with no conditions attached to its administration.

Asked whether this were true, fund spokesman Alan Ali said: "They approached us and said 'what would be the best way of getting this money to the people that need it'. After some discussion, they realised that the best way was to make a donation with no strings attached."

Home Secretary John Reid announced the extra cash in a written ministerial statement in June, a week before the fund picked up its award. It is the second donation the Government has made to the fund - it gave £1 million last summer too.

The Home Office said it chose the fund to distribute the money because the rules of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme would have required a change to legislation.

Ali said the speed and efficiency with which the fund responded to the attacks last year was a great example of how nimble and effective the voluntary sector could be. The fund has already distributed £8.2 million of the £9 million raised for the victims, and the rest is being handed out in the next few weeks. Some 305 families and individuals have received grants ranging from £3,000 to £120,000.

The deadline for new applicants to approach the fund will be 21 July, a year to the day after the fund wrote its first cheques to survivors and relatives of the dead.

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.