Austerity hampering social action, government report says

13 Nov 2018 News

Cuts to local authorities’ budget have been a barrier to place based social action, a new report by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) says.

DCMS published a review yesterday of its £4.5m Place Based Social Action Programme, co-funded by the Big Lottery Fund, which was launched in October last year.

The fund is open to existing partnerships between charities and others such as representatives from VCSE organisations, local authority representatives, statutory and non-statutory bodies and Clinical Commissioning Groups.

Now the first year of the programme has been evaluated by social enterprise Renaisi, which identified a number of barriers to organisations developing social action programmes.

These barriers include local authority cuts, which the report says can contribute to a lack of risk culture in public sector organisations, which in turn can lead to “stagnation in growth and projects struggling to get off the ground”.

The report also says that high staff turnover, a lack of community engagement, and differing cultures and priorities between partners can have a negative effect on social action programmes.

The three-phase programme will run until 2025, will be administered by the Big Lottery Fund, in partnership with DCMS.

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