The Big Lottery Fund (BLF) will be scrapped and replaced with a new body funding voluntary and community groups if the Conservatives win the next general election, it emerged this week.

Launching a 20-point plan, the party said that instead of having to fight to retain their share of funding from BLF, a Voluntary Action Lottery Fund would be ‘dedicated in its entirety to the voluntary and community sector’.

Arts, sport, heritage and communities would share all of the money, and a new law would make it illegal for the government to raid the fund to prop up public services – or to bail out the Olympics.

The party also believes the emphasis on winning public contracts has gone too far and has pledged a return to grants, often on a three-yearly basis, although the sector would also be able to compete for government contracts on a level playing field.

Volunteering and charitable donations would be encouraged.
The proposals, widely welcomed by the sector, also included plans to:

• create a network of social enterprise zones to provide incentives for social investment in deprived communities
• set up a social investment bank as a wholesaler of ‘patient capital’ to social investment institutions
• allow voluntary organisations delivering public services to earn a competitive return on investment
• create an Office for Civil Society to replace the Office of the Third Sector and set up a civil society select committee
• strengthen the compact between the government and the sector ‘by undertaking to abide by the judgements of the commissioner’

There are strong indications that Futurebuilders would be reformed and retained, although ChangeUp and CapacityBuilders, set up to reform the voluntary sector, could face the axe.

Clare Tickell, chief executive of children’s charity NCH, and Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations were among those welcoming the emphasis on longer-term, strategic funding.

Stephen Bubb, boss of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo), said: ‘It’s great to see plans to develop our role in transforming public services, reducing regulation, strengthening the compact and improving contracting. Recognition that we should be making a profit from contracts is spot on.’

A stronger society, voluntary action in the 21st century, www.conservatives.com

by Susan Downer
susan@newstartmag.co.uk