The Recession, the Economy and Funding Cuts


Voluntary Sector Cuts

Several sector umbrella bodies have teamed up to build a new website to monitor all the public spending cuts that are affecting their members.

The site, www.voluntarysectorcuts.org.uk, is intended to build a nationwide picture of how government spending cuts are affecting civil society.

The joint project involves the NCVO, Acevo, Volunteering England, Navca, the National Council of Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS), Compact Voice and the nine Regional Voluntary Networks from across the country (Regional Voices).

The interactive website will allow people from voluntary and community organisations to share their concerns about funding cuts and provide evidence of the impact on their ability to deliver services. All of the data captured will be public.

If you're involved in a voluntary or community group which has been told its statutory funding will be reduced, you can be part of this work by sharing your story.

Your contribution will be crucial to building a wider picture of the scale of the challenge ahead in your community, your region, or nationally.

 

NCVO - Crowdsourcing the Cuts

NCVO wants to find out what effect changes to planned central and local government spending are having on voluntary and community organisations.

You can use this form to share any specific cuts you've experienced this financial year (we're focusing on the current financial year - which finishes in April 2011).

We're defining a cut as a statutory body (in central, local or regional government, including government agencies, local authorities, PCTs and others) informing you that you will receive less money than they had previously agreed to provide, as part of a grant, a contract or another formal funding arrangement.

This may include them asking you to make efficiency savings as part of an existing contract or cancelling a grant which they had previously agreed to provide. We're not including funding applications that have been turned down, but we are interested in funding programmes that have been cancelled, or continuation funding that is withdrawn due to budget cuts.

We want to share this information with anyone who's interested, so by filling in this form you agree to publicly share any details you enter. If you'd rather not do this, you can alternatively email your details to almanac@ncvo-vol.org.uk and we'll collect the same data from you anonymously.

To share your experience click here and complete the form.

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Learning & Skills Improvement Service (LSIS)

How can LSIS help providers be more responsive to employers and their training needs during the economic downturn?

Becoming more employer-responsive is even more important in times of economic uncertainty.

This section on the LSIS web site brings together and signposts useful information on existing resources and lets you know what is in the pipeline.

 

NAVCA - Recession Resources and Support

The economic recession challenges the local third sector as demand for services rises whilst funding gets tighter.

These NAVCA web pages are intended as a resource to assist your work supporting local groups and organisations.
They will inform you of the support available from NAVCA and bring together in one place the best resources from other organisations relevant to your work. They will be regularly updated - so keep checking.

This will work best if you let us know of any useful resources you come across so we can add them to this site and share them with all NAVCA members.

If you have any information please contact Barney Mynott (barney.mynott@navca.org.uk)

Visit the NAVCA Recession Resources page at  http://www.navca.org.uk/localvs/recession/

 

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How resilient is your organisation?

Tools for Success online self-assessment tool

A new online self-assessment tool, produced by the Centre for Charity Effectiveness at Cass Business School and funded by Capacitybuilders as part of the Modernisation Fund Grant Programme is available.

It asks some big questions to help identify key areas where you already meet the basics for sustainability and those where you need to do more work.

On completion, you can print a report listing all your findings and giving advice on areas to be strengthened.

The tool is sitting on the KnowHow NonProfit website, which is an online knowledge resource for the nonprofit sector.

Information that you enter into the tool will be confidential.

Access the Self Assessment Tool (registration required)

Visit the Modernisation Fund web site

 

Toolkit to measure rural sustainability

Experts have devised a new method of measuring rural sustainability. They seek to address the need for a more sophisticated approach to measure the sustainability of rural settlements.

The project aims to help public authorities, local communities and professionals reach a balanced view about rural sustainability. It was commissioned by a range of organisations, including the Rural Services Network and the Commission for Rural Communities.

Documents describing the sustainability process are available on a dedicated website at www.ruraltoolkit.org.uk.

Although website visitors must register to download the documents, doing so is free of charge.

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