OCS announces strategic partners

By: 

Cheryl Chapman

Managing Editor, Philanthropy UK

Nine organisations have been selected as Strategic Partners of the Office for Civil Society (OCS), Nick Hurd, minister for Civil Society announced this week. Strategic Partners will receive a total of £8.2m over the next three years.

The OCS Strategic Partners are:

• ACEVO in partnership with Euclid Network and New Philanthropy Capital

• Community Foundation Network in partnership with Association of Charitable Foundations

•Institute of Fundraising •

Locality (new name from April 2011 resulting from DTA and Bassac merger)

• NAVCA

• NCVO

• Social Entrepreneurship Partnership (School for Social Entrepreneurs, UnLtd, CAN, Plunkett Foundation and Social Firms UK)

• Social Enterprise Coalition in partnership with Cooperatives UK

• Volunteering England

Hurd said: “We have had to reduce the number of strategic partners, not least to focus resource on front line services. However this is a good mix of partners who will represent the sector well. I look forward to working with them to help the sector manage change and maximise the opportunities that will flow from the Big Society agenda.”

The new Strategic Partners Transition Programme replaces the previous similar initiative which finishes at the end of March 2011. The new programme is focused on effective representation to ensure value for money for the taxpayer and to focus resource on front line services.

Some other government departments continue to fund strategic partner programmes to support specific policy objectives which complement this programme.

The fund, set up in 2005, provides support to voluntary sector groups so that they can represent the sector’s interests at a national level. All successful bidders will receive three-quarters of the 2011/12 figure in 2012/13, and half of it in 2013/14, when the programme will close.

Volunteering England and the NCVO will be the only two charities to receive £500,000 from the fund in 2011/12, the maximum amount allowed under rules set for the funding last year.

Volunteering England received £1.6m from the fund in 2010/11 and the NCVO received just over £1m.

A statement from the NCVO said the bid included a memorandum of understanding with Volunteering England that covered proposals for joint events, sharing resources, collaboration in research and an agreement to explore the sharing of back-office services. It said the NCVO also had a memorandum of understanding with the chief executives body Acevo, which included a commitment to working together on future events.

The Social Enterprise Coalition, in partnership with Co-operatives UK, will receive £499,199 from the fund in 2011/12. Last year, the SEC received £534,000 from the fund and Co-operatives UK received £103,000.

Locality, the charity formed from the merger of the Development Trusts Association and Bassac, will receive £496,570. In 2010/11, Bassac received £155,006 and the DTA received £145,624.

Acevo bid for the funding in partnership with the Euclid Network and New Philanthropy Capital, neither of which were strategic partners last year. The partnership will receive £415,000 from the fund in 2011/12, almost twice as much as the £210,125 that Acevo received from it alone in 2010/11.

The Institute of Fundraising will receive £275,000, an increase on its £269,300 in 2010/11. A statement from the institute said it would use the funds to carry out research that would help fundraisers to develop strategies, provide low-cost training for small charities and set up an "online platform" for its codes of practice.

A new group called the Social Entrepreneurship Partnership, whose members are the School for Social Entrepreneurs, UnLtd, Can, the Plunkett Foundation and Social Firms UK, will receive £315,000. In 2010/11, UnLtd was not a strategic partner but the four other groups received £386,711 in total.

The Community Foundation Network, in partnership with the Association of Charitable Foundations, will receive £330,000. In 2010/11 the Community Foundation Network received £210,100 and the Association of Charitable Foundations recieved £126,000.

Navca will receive £345,070, a reduction from the £424,753 it received in 2010/11.

Hurd said: "We have had to reduce the number of strategic partners, not least to focus resource on front-line services. However, this is a good mix of partners that will represent the sector well."

Forty-two organisations received £12.2m from the fund in 2010/11.