BIG says Transition Fund not for infrastructure

01 Dec 2010 News

The government’s new £100m Transition Fund will not give grants to infrastructure organisations whose main mission is to support other civil society groups, the BIG Fund said today.

Neil Cleeveley

The government’s new £100m Transition Fund will not give grants to infrastructure organisations whose main mission is to support other civil society groups, the BIG Fund said today.

Yesterday Civil Society reported that Neil Cleeveley (pictured), director of policy and communications at Navca, had met with BIG officials to discuss the fund and afterwards published a statement to Navca members suggesting that they might be eligible to apply to it.

He said that BIG representatives had “not categorically ruled out” funding infrastructure bodies.

But today a BIG spokeswoman said this was misleading, and that BIG chief executive Peter Wanless had written to Navca to correct the misconception.

She said: “The programme aims to target organisations providing frontline public services – ie directly to the end users/beneficiaries - to enable them to adapt and change to a new funding environment. Organisations that are mostly providing support or training to other civil society organisations do not meet this criteria.”

She said the situation is spelled out in the Q&A section on the Fund's web pages, where it states that organisations are not eligible to apply if they “are primarily providing infrastructure services to civil society organisations”.

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