The government has announced around £150m worth of funding for military, church and orchestral organisations in today's Budget.
Increased Libor funding
In his 2015 Budget announcement speech given in Parliament today, Chancellor George Osborne pledged that a further £75m worth of Libor fines from banks would be directed towards the voluntary sector over the next five years.
Some of the biggest contributions from those fines include a £25m healthcare fund for aged veterans, including nuclear test veterans, which will be delivered through the existing Armed Forces Covenant Fund.
£10m will also go to armed forces charities on the basis of need arising from the Afghanistan war. That figure will be split, according to the Chancellor, across “every regiment that fought in that conflict,” as well as establishing a memorial to those who fought and died in Iraq.
Neil Cleeveley, chief executive of Navca, said in a statement: “It’s good that Libor fines are being used to help some terrific charities.
"However, I feel uneasy that a Government decides what charity they want to help instead of having an open fund that all charities can access.”
Church roof fund “trebled”
The £15m ‘Church Roof Fund’ set out in the Autumn Statement was “so heavily oversubscribed” that the Chancellor announced he was “more than trebling it” to a figure in the region of £50m.
The addition to the ‘Church Roof Fund’ represents an extra £40m worth of funding, on top of the £15m set out in the Autumn Statement, to the Listed Places of Worship – Roof Repair Fund. This funding will be spread out over two years from 2015 to 2017.
Orchestra tax relief to the tune of £35m
As part of a plan to keep “Britain a cultural centre of the world,” the Chancellor also announced a range of tax cuts for the creative industries, including to charitable orchestras.
The Budget will provide orchestras with a tax relief rate of 25 per cent from April 1 2016. According to the policy costings document which accompanies the Budget, this will cost the Exchequer some £35m over the next five years.
These figures were developed in consultation with the Charity Commission.
