Pre Budget Report 2009 - What does it mean for the Voluntary and Community Sector?

For headlines from today’s Pre Budget Report see the BBC news website.

In terms of the voluntary and community sector there are a number of announcements of relevance:

The Social Investment Wholesale Bank

The PBR documents reveal (p88) that that the Government is committed to the creation of a Social Investment Wholesale Bank.

The Bank would be "mission-driven, operate at a wholesale level, and would be independent from Government."

The Bank will be funded by up to £75 million of the funds expected to be released through Dormant Accounts. This would be subject to the final volume of funds and alongside other funding priorities.

NCVO reaction

This is a useful first step. NCVO has been actively lobbying on this issue for some time.

However the money from dormant accounts alone will not be sufficient - the government should look to additional ways of capitalising the social investment bank.

In our submission to the Office of the Third Sector we called for an initial cash injection from government of £50 million in addition to a share of the unclaimed assets that become available.

Gift Aid

The PBR documents state that the government "continues to explore how best to support the third sector through the Gift Aid system".

A research report into the possible effects of redirecting Gift Aid higher rate relief from donors to charities will be published on 15 December.

NCVO reaction

The lack of progress on this issue is disappointing.

We will work with sector partners to push the government to make a positive and right decision around Gift Aid reform as soon as possible, making the point that charities are playing a major frontline role in supporting communities right across the country to weather the recession and in delivering services to beneficiaries.