No decision on use of Treasury cash to help voluntary sector

The government’s active community unit is still unsure how to use
the money allocated to it in the Treasury spending review last July
to boost the voluntary sector’s delivery of public services (news,
page 6, 12 September 2002).

Unit co-ordinator John Routledge said that it had not been decided
whether £80m of the £93m allocated for implementing the
strategy would be given to the community directly or via government
offices. Also it had not been agreed whether councils would receive
cash to help build the sector’s capacity.

In two months the unit is due to produce a draft strategy on
building the capacity and infrastructure of the voluntary
sector.

Routledge said it was important that councils and the sector worked
together. “Unless we have some sort of agreement for local
government that they will buy into the sector in terms of
commissioning and planning and evaluating services then this will
not work.”

He added that the unit had run into difficulties finding out how
much voluntary sector providers were used by other agencies. “There
are problems in mapping how much the voluntary sector is used by
the Department of Health because it does not keep any records,” he
said.