Voluntary Sector Funding (Hansard, 4 April 1990)

§ Mr. Waddington

The report has been published today. The Government value highly the great contribution made by voluntary bodies to individuals, the communities in which they live and work, and their environment. Effective voluntary organisations channel the energies of individuals to help themselves and others. They meet people's needs imaginatively. They encourage individual and community responsibility.

The Government already support the voluntary sector on a very large scale. In 1988–89 Government grants exceeded £2 billion. This money must be used for good purposes; and it must be used efficiently. The report of the efficiency scrutiny of Government funding of the voluntary sector provides a basis for improving arrangements to secure this.

The Government will continue to provide funds for efficiently managed voluntary organisations which provide worthwhile services, yield practical benefits and meet other valuable objectives. Support for the voluntary organisations involves a partnership between the public sector, the corporate sector and individual donors. We have made tax concessions to encourage this. Voluntary bodies should be encouraged to raise more money from private and corporate donations: it would, clearly, be damaging to the whole nature of voluntary effort if voluntary bodies were to become over-dependent on public funding.

Government funding for voluntary bodies will be governed by a number of principles: They will support organisations which can achieve a direct practical effect: for example, assisting disabled people; improving the environment; providing skills for the unemployed. Projects and bodies receiving Government money must uphold accepted ethical standards: for example to support family life. Government financial support for voluntary bodies should help to achieve the overall policies of Departments: they must carefully determine how this should be done. The opportunity which voluntary bodies give ordinary people to make an active contribution to the life of the community is one of their important strengths. One of the factors to be taken into account in Goverment support to voluntary bodies should therefore be the extent to which they use or encourage volunteers. Any campaigning in which voluntary bodies engage must be ancillary to their objectives as required by charity law. Government grant conditions will, therefore, take this fully into account. Government funding will normally be for specific services or for projects limited to a particular period. It will be subject to review as policies evolve with changing circumstances; though where a body has a continuing role in achieving particular policy goals or provides services for other voluntary organisations Goverment funding for the body's administrative core costs may in certain circumstances be appropriate. Departments funding voluntary bodies will monitor the results obtained from their funding and have regard to the efficiency with which the body is administered and the costs of its administration.

In the light of these principles Departments will take action to review their funding programmes. They will prepare action plans which will be considered in July by the ministerial group on the voluntary sector chaired by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State.