£11m cuts announced by Office for Civil Society

The Office for Civil Society will cut £11 million from its 2010/11 budget by reducing its funding for Capacitybuilders, the Commission for the Compact and the youth volunteering charity v.
The reduction, which is part of the £6.2 billion of savings announced by the Treasury in May 2010, brings the budget down from £147.9 million to £136.9 million, a drop of 7.4 per cent.
The OCS cuts will come from:
• £5 million reduction in match funding for youth volunteering charity v. The match fund provides for v to match fund private sector investment in youth volunteering projects on a pound-for-pound basis. The £15 million fund was underspent by £4.4 million in 2009. In 2010-11, v will now have access to up to £10 million for matching purposes.
• £1.95 million reduction in the £39 million grant to v.
• £1.3 million in Capacitybuilders’ funding. Existing grant holders will be unaffected, committed grants will continue to be paid. The majority is being saved by cancellation of any further new awards under the Regional Networks Fund, social enterprise support and remaining elements of the ChangeUp programme.
• £0.4 million in the Commission for the Compact. The organisation has identified savings which can come from non-essential work.
• Other smaller savings, including £0.13 million in payments to the Regional Development Agencies to deliver business support for social enterprises and £0.111 million from the social enterprise action research programme which funds individual projects across Government addressing policy issues with social enterprise solutions.
• £2 million which was already unallocated in the Office for Civil Society budget.
♦ Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, and minister for civil society, Nick Hurd, have written an open letter to the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors asking them to contribute their ideas of how things can be done more efficiently. They are being asked to share ideas about how they can help reduce the deficit directly with the Office for Civil Society.
A copy of the letter can be found via the link below. The deadline for responses is the 20th August 2010.
Ideas and examples from the sector can be posted on the Cabinet Office website or e-mailed directly to sectorchallenge@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk.