Government strategic partner v is "being treated differently" from other strategic partners who are facing a government review, Civil Society has learned.

This month, the Office for Civil Society (OCS) sent a letter to its strategic partners revealing it planned to reduce their numbers from 42 to a maximum of 15 and cut their funding by nearly 40 per cent from March 2011.

The letter also said the OCS would ensure that no organisation would receive more than 25 per cent of its funding from the agency and that no one organisation would receive £500,000 or more.

However, v has told Civil Society that it has not received the letter as it is being "treated differently" from the other partners.

An OCS spokesperson confirmed that v was being treated differently from other strategic partners as the government was essentially v’s main funder:

“The government is in contact with them on a daily basis,” he said. “They will be treated differently from other strategic partners as the scheme set out in the letter will limit what v does. So v is being looked at in a different way.”

He added the government was looking at separate funding arrangements for v and it wouldn’t be included in the new batch of strategic partners in the same way it was currently.

According to our feature on public spending cuts in Charity Finance March 2010, v received £51.7m from the Cabinet Office in 2009, which accounts for 95 per cent of its funding.

It is one of four strategic partners who get over 70 per cent of their income from government and one of seven strategic partners who receive more than £500,000 from the Cabinet Office.

The OCS would not confirm whether these organisations are being treated differently too.  

Strategic partners who get over 80 per cent of their income from government, according to our calculations, are:

Those who get £500,000 or more are: