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DCLG scraps £6.4m third sector programme at last minute 1

Finance | Tania Mason | 8 Apr 2008

The Department for Communities and Local Government has scrapped its £6.4m third sector strategic partners programme despite being several months into the bidding process.

The Department sent letters on behalf of secretary of state Hazel Blears (pictured) to 37 shortlisted organisations last Friday, informing them the scheme had been abandoned because it no longer fitted with departmental priorities. 

The organisations had been waiting for several months to find out whether they had been chosen to deliver the first phase of the programme, which was first announced in the Department’s Third sector strategy for communities and local government last June. 

They had all submitted expressions of interest last summer and detailed bids in December, and had been promised that a final decision would be made in January this year for three-year grants to start in April.

That deadline passed, as did the start of the new financial year, and the bidders were still left in limbo. That is, until this week, when they were told the whole programme had been ditched.

Replacement scheme announced soon

The DCLG said the money had not been lost to the sector just because this programme had been pulled, and that a revised scheme would be announced as soon as possible.

A spokesperson said: “We want to work with the third sector to increase empowerment and social enterprise and reduce worklessness, and funding remains in place to support this. However, we believe a revised approach to strategic partners funding is needed, to better support our policy aims and provide value for money for government. 

“We are grateful for the input of the third sector. The third sector is vital to government in delivering our policies to empower communities and give people a real say on improving local services.”

‘Bizarre decision’

But the prospective partner organisations were outraged at the way they have been treated. Bec Clarkson, director of the Community Alliance which counts bassac, Development Trusts Association and Community Matters as its members, described the decision as “bizarre”.

“We want to work in partnership with the government, because a lot of their aims seem the same as ours and we want to assist them in delivering those aims,” she told Charity News Alert.

“But this raises serious questions about how seriously they take us as partners if this is how they treat us.”

She said all three organisations had spent several days each preparing their bids, and she hoped that time would not simply be wasted. “We hope to get news very quickly about what they plan to replace it with.”

The NCVO’s Compact Advocacy Programme is investigating whether the decision breaches the Compact.

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