The Big Fund will deliver a new £16.8m government fund released to support advice-giving not-for-profits in England which have suffered statutory funding cuts.
Grants of between £40,000 and £70,000 will be available to organisations offering free advice on debt, welfare benefits, employment and housing through the Advice Services Fund.
Organisations will apply to Big Fund, the non-lottery arm of the Big Lottery Fund, for the grants and must be able to evidence funding cuts of at least ten per cent for their advice services from central and local government funds for 2011/2012, with priority given to those suffering the most severe cuts.
Announcing the Big Fund as the delivery partner for the fund, which opens for applications at the end of November, Nick Hurd, minister for civil society, advised the Cabinet Office will also conduct a review of the services to conclude early next year. The review will look at the funding environment for these services as well as likely levels of demand and how the government will be able to assist them in the future.
"This is a serious commitment to help free advice services carry on delivering much needed help to people struggling...in these difficult economic times," he said.
BIG England chair Nat Sloane said: "In delivering the Advice Services Fund programme on behalf of the Cabinet Office, BIG will work to ensure that this important funding reaches these organisations as quickly as possible. These grants will make a real difference in enabling advice services to continue to provide good quality support and guidance to people in their communities."
Across the UK £20m has been released by the government to support advice services, with £3.2m distributed in devolved nations.
Citizens Advice, the umbrella body for the UK's largest advice service which has 394 bureaux throughout the country, has reported a number of cuts to its budget from local authorities. Fears at the start of the year that 900 staff members could be made redundant were temporarily allayed by the government's commitment to continue the Financial Inclusion Fund for another year.
