Hurd concedes some sector services will fold due to cuts 5

Governance | Tania Mason | 26 Jan 2011

Minister for civil society, Nick Hurd, admitted yesterday that some civil society organisations (CSO's) would "be lost" in the period between the public spending cuts taking effect and the new opportunities afforded by the Big Society becoming available.

At a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Civil Society, Lord Newton of Braintree told Hurd (pictured) that while a lot of the government’s aspirations for the Big Society were “worthy and capable of being achieved in the long-term”, the worry is that during the transition period a lot of voluntary organisations will “go to the wall”, often because of factors central government can’t control like local authorities cutting funding to the sector.

“Associated with this is the worry about the near disappearance of core funding and the move to contracts,” Newton added. “At the end of the day if you don’t provide core funding, the organisations to bid for the contracts won’t be there.”

He said the £100m bridging finance offered by the Transition Fund sounded a lot but wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things.

“Can the Transition Fund get us through from where we are now to where we might be if everything else works, or do we find ourselves with all these desirable aspirations met but no sector left to benefit from it?”

Hurd replied that the government had been very clear that local authorities should look to make savings internally before cutting voluntary sector budgets but the reality is that “some local authorities will get it and some won’t”.

“Some will cut the things that are easiest to cut and we will lose some things in that process,” he said. “Our challenge is to minimise that loss, and those local authorities that take a different view, we will throw a spotlight on.

“But the sector can’t be immune from cuts, and is this a difficult and awkward period of transition? – yes.”

Hurd added that the total sum of applications to the Transition Fund had surprised him: “The multiple is much lower than I expected.”

Who's Who: Nick Hurd

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Bernard Dainton
Business Development Consultant
Dainton & Kalema Associates
27 Jan 2011

It's not surprising that so few Third Sector organisations applied for Transition Funding when the eligibility criteria were so tight. I was approached by 8 or 9 different organisations to write Transition Fund bids for them, but in the end only three met all the eligibility criteria.

I expect we'll see Mr Hurd et al now saying that the small number of applications proves that the sector doesn't need support...

[Reply]

Bernard Dainton
Business Development Consultant
Dainton & Kalema Associates
27 Jan 2011

[Reply]

Peter Horah
Vice Chair
CAYSH
26 Jan 2011

Mr Hurd's comments confirm that he and his government have had no idea how complex and delicate the Third Sector is and the Government's punitive and narrow approach to addressing the national deficit. If they had taken time to study and understand what has happened over the past 30 years, they might have been more wise in their decisions.

This government is breaking up the very sector that they will depend on to address social problems and like Darleks, they are blindly adhering to the Chancellor's mantra of cut, cut, cut.

Mr Hurd's penny dropping moment will be of little help to the organisations facing closure and the vulnerable who will be left searching for the Big Society.

[Reply]

Darren Willbourne
Chief Executive
ERVAS Ltd
26 Jan 2011

Hurd added that the total sum of applications to the Transition Fund had surprised him: “The multiple is much lower than I expected.”

Not surprising when infrastructure organisations cannot apply and those that can apply are unlikely to know the value of any cuts until the end of February

[Reply]

Rob Young
CEO
coHearentVision
26 Jan 2011

Hurd should not be surprised at the low number of Third Sector organizations applying to the Transition Fund: most of the sector is small-scale and does not have the capacity/expertise. The only one's who have that skill-set are the bigger (and better-off) organizations so, "money goes to money" and very little will change!

[Reply]

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