The Cabinet Office has opened a consultation on its proposed £40m sustainability fund for charities and social enterprises, which are working with vulnerable and disadvantaged groups and are in danger of closure.

The consultation document says the fund will prioritise medium-sized organisations, defined as those with turnovers of between £50,000 and £1.5m.

It will support struggling charities and social enterprises delivering services to vulnerable and disadvantage groups.

The consultation will last 12 weeks, and asks questions such as whether frontline organisations must partner with a third party intermediary to apply for funding and if it should set an upper and lower limit on the size of organisation that can apply.

The document says an average grant size of £30,000 has been suggested. It says this would enable approximately 1,300 organisations to benefit.

Nick Hurd, minister for civil society, said: “This is an important fund for the sector that will allow organisations to plan for the future and continue to deliver services for society. I encourage everyone to participate in the consultation period so that together we can design and deliver a fund that truly meets the needs of the sector.”

Andrew O’Brien, senior policy officer at NCVO, said: "We’ll look closely at the details to make sure the right kind of support is being offered to best benefit grant recipients and meet the needs they say they want support with."

The deadline for responses to the consultation is 24 July. The Office for Civil Society anticipates launching the fund for applications by the end of the year and to start awarding funding in April 2015.

This week in Parliament shadow charities minister Lisa Nandy asked if the fund was "too little, too late" from the goverment in its support of the charity sector.