The Department for Communities and Local Government seconded five civil servants to Big Society Network when it was being set up, at a total cost of around £25,000.
This revelation was disclosed in CLG’s response to a Freedom of Information Act request in October 2010. Richard Caulfield, chief executive of Voluntary Sector North West, had requested information about grants and contracts awarded by CLG to Big Society Network (BSN), and also about staff secondments.
The response from Nick Burkitt, of the ‘Big Society Programme Team’ within CLG, said that by 7 October 2010 “the BSN has not received any grants or contracts from CLG or any other government department”.
He wrote: “The BSN is independent from government, and has not received any direct financial support from it.”
However, he confirmed CLG had lent BSN five members of staff – four who had started in June 2010 and the fifth in September. The number of days spent on placements varied from one day a month to two full-time posts.
Four placements had already ended and the fifth would conclude at the end of October 2010.
“There is no formal secondment arrangement,” Burkitt wrote. “We agreed to temporarily second a small number of CLG staff with the organisation. The intention behind this was two-fold; to support the BSN as it established its work programme and recruited its own staff and to give CLG staff some extra experience in a community sector organisation as it starts out, which they could bring back to inform future policy work in CLG on the Big Society agenda.”
He confirmed that as at 24 September the total cost of the placements amounted to £24,013, based on the number of days worked multiplied by the average salary for their grade.
Burkitt's assurance that BSN had not received any direct financial support from the government has since been proved wrong, as Nesta had provided a grant of £80,000 in August 2010. In December it would give another £400,000.
In total BSN has received more than £3m from public sources, that is known about.
Click here to read Richard Caulfield's blog about the Big Society Network scandal.
