London Regional ICT champion

A funding fare jointly hosted by KCSC and CaVSA H&F brought together last week funders from City Bridges Trust, Big Lottery and Grassroots Grants.  With apologies to the keynote speakers, I’m reproducing the edited highlights of their presentations on the state of funding for London’s third sector.

Context:

• coalition Government
• Labour controls 17/32 London boroughs
• No certainty about future economic growth
• Expectations of big funding cuts
• Concept of the ‘Big Society’
• Comprehensive Spending Review 2010 to leave ‘unprotected’ services with reduced resources

Office for Budget Responsibility Report (14 June 2010)

• Departmental expenditure limits for 2010/11 are close to 0% growth
• For unprotected services this could means cuts of 2-5% per year or 15-20% budget reduction over 5 years
• Having protected services means greater cuts to unprotected services
• Download OBR Report from here

Services in order of protection:

• NHS
• Schools
• childrens services
• Police
• Elderly people services

Less protected services:

• Housing
• social benefits
• Adult education
• Highways
• Capital investment (already to be cut by 50%)

What London local authorities might do:

• Likely to have -1 to 0% growth in cash support for each of next 5 years
• May see some ‘salami slicing’ of budgets or a more strategic approach
• Unlikely that funding for London authorities will be protected

Can we do anything about it?  It’s unlikely, but we can register suggestions here.