Futurebuilders returned £6.6m to Treasury in 2008/9

Finance | Tania Mason | 7 Oct 2009

Some £6.6m of government funding earmarked to be distributed by the Futurebuilders Fund had to be returned to the Treasury at the end of March because Futurebuilders was unable to spend it in time.

According to the Cabinet Office annual report and accounts just published, a total of £13.8m in capital grants was sent back to the Treasury – 31 per cent of the total budget.
The rest was derived mainly from an underspend in the Grassroots Grants endowment match challenge programme and to a lesser extent, the Community Assets Fund.

The Grassroots Grants programme returned £7.3m because charities did not raise enough money themselves from local communities to apply to the government to match it. The Cabinet Office report blamed this on “economic conditions for local fundraising becoming increasingly difficult towards the end of the financial year”.

The Futurebuilders underspend occurred as a result of “delays in investment recipients being able to meet important conditions before the fund can be disbursed”.

Futurebuilders, which has £215m to spend over the period 2003/4 to 2010/11, has so far spent £73.9m. It has also made offers of loans and grants to prospective investees totalling a further £45.8m.

Cabinet Office staff and ministers donate clothes

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, his wife Sarah Brown, and charities minister Angela Smith have all donated an item of clothing to support the Cabinet Office’s clothes collection for Age Concern and Help the Aged.

Brown donated a tie, Sarah Brown offered a dress, and Smith parted with a coat from Marks and Spencer. In total, the Cabinet Office collected over 900 items of clothing from staff which will be donated to Age Concern and Help the Aged charity shops around the UK as part of the Don’t Dump Campaign, set up by the Association of Charity Shops and Mary Portas, 'Queen of Charity Shops'.

Directory: Futurebuilders England
Who's Who: Tania Mason | Vibeka Mair

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