The government’s £100m Transition Fund for service delivery organisations in England that are facing cuts to their public sector funding, opens for applications today.
The Big Fund, which is administering the grants programme on behalf of the Office for Civil Society (OCS), has published its eligibility criteria online.
This shows that grants will range from £12,500 to £500,000 “depending on the reductions in taxpayer-funded income your organisation is facing”. As previously announced, recipients must have annual income of between £50,000 and £10m.
Organisations will only qualify for grants if they can meet all six of the criteria, including that at least 60 per cent of their total income in the most recent financial year came from taxpayer-funded sources, and that they spent at least 50 per cent of their income delivering frontline public services in specified causal areas.
Applicants must also have evidence, or substantial reason to believe, that between April 2011 and March 2012, their organisation will suffer cuts to their public sector funding of at least 30 per cent.
They must also have no more than six months' reserves.
They can apply for a grant of up to half of the reduction in taxpayer-funded income that they use to deliver frontline public services in England.
Applications will close on 21 January 2011.
Infrastructure bodies 'not eligible'
Neil Cleeveley, director of policy and communications at Navca, met with BIG on 11 November to discuss the Transition Fund. One of the issues he pressed BIG officials on was whether the Fund will make grants to infrastructure organisations.
Afterwards he said, in a statement to Navca members: “On the specific issue of whether the Fund will be available to support infrastructure, it was not categorically ruled out by any of the presentations or by the BIG officials present.”
Hurd visit to Age Concern Kingston
Minister for civil society Nick Hurd (pictured) marked the opening of the Fund with a visit to Age Concern Kingston. Kingston Council is being highlighted by the government as a model of good practice for local authorities working with civil society organisations to find new opportunities in public services.
