OTS Campaign Programme withdrawal 'breaches Compact' 2

Fundraising | Tania Mason | 16 Nov 2009

NAVCA has accused the Office of the Third Sector of breaching the Compact in withdrawing £750,000 in funding from the Campaigning Research Programme, and urged charities minister Angela Smith to reverse the decision.

In a strongly-worded letter to the minister, NAVCA chief Kevin Curley said that if the decision to cancel the funding had been made before grants were awarded, it would have been “less disturbing”, but to cancel after grants had been awarded and without consultation “will be seen in the local sector as an expression of OTS’s non-compliance with the Compact”.

He reminded Smith that NAVCA had promoted the programme and helped many local charities and community groups to submit proposals. Lots of groups had already been informed by Capacitybuilders that their applications were successful, and will now “think it unfair and unreasonable to take their grants away”, Curley said.

He told the minister that she did the job of championing the sector in government at central and local levels “really well” but this decision is “bad grant-making practice” and sets a poor example.

Curley (pictured) concluded by saying that the Hardship Fund – the new beneficiary of the funding – was a valuable expression of government support for local organisations. But, “the benefits gained in the short term by transferring £750,000 from the Campaigning Fund to the Hardship Fund will be far outweighed by the damage done to OTS’s role as an exemplar of good funding practice and to the Compact”.

Some of the groups that were due to receive campaigning grants suspect the decision was motivated by the government’s fear about the unpopularity of some of the causes that had been selected. These included asylum seekers, transgendered people, travellers and ex-offenders.

The OTS admitted the move did breach the Compact but said it was more important that charities were supported through the recession and this was why the Hardship Fund was deemed more urgent.

Directory: Capacitybuilders | National Association of Voluntary and Community Action | Office of the Third Sector
Who's Who: Angela Smith | Kevin Curley

Place a comment

Andy Gregg
Chief Executive
Lasa
30 Nov 2009

In the thick of it?
At a time when the voluntary and community sector is already feeling under threat, the decision of the Office of the Third Sector to cancel Campaigning Research grants to 32 small charities (7 of them London based) is extremely damaging. The Minister recognises that her decision is a clear breach of the Compact - and this at a time when the Compact is about to be "refreshed". The independence of the sector and our ability to campaign is something that we must continue to protect however difficult the circumstances and the OTS decision is particularly damaging in this respect.

Some of us were hoping to ask the Minister questions about her decision at the recent LVSC Conference but unfortunately she was unable to attend due to illness. Had she been there I would have wanted to ask her whether her decision resulted from pressure from above (Number 10?) due to the nature of some of the groups that capacity builders had put forward to receive the funding. The word is that it was the nature of some of the campaigning groups that had been chosen (and the fact that No 10 was worried about Sun and Daily Mail headlines) that led to the Government's embarrassing decision to pull back the grants having already informed the groups that they would be receiving them.

Those of us who have been watching "In the Thick of It" can almost see Malcolm making that phone call!

[Reply]

Stephanie
Online community manager
NCVO
18 Nov 2009

If you have been affected by the OTS decision to withdraw the campaigning fund, react http://twurl.nl/i215ly #otscampaign

[Reply]

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.