Liverpool groups lose funding case

Nine voluntary organisations that applied for a judicial review over the way Liverpool Council cut their funding have lost their case and been ordered to pay 8,000 in costs.

The nine, which include advice centres, poverty charities and a disabled group, will also have to find an estimated 10,000 to pay their own legal costs, after the decision at the High Court last week.

The group brought the case after the council cut their grants from its supported living and community safety fund under a new points system used to assess value for money. They also argued the consultation had been unfair and “unreasonably short”.

But Judge Montgomery decided the time allowed for consultation had been long enough.

The council argued that the allocation of scarce resources between competing voluntary organisations was not a matter for the courts and said the judge’s decision was a “vindication” of the way it handled voluntary sector funding.

Marie McGivaron, chief executive of Vauxhall Neighbourhood Council, one of the nine, said it had to consider how it would survive until next year. The legal costs award was a further “millstone” around the organisation’s neck, she added.