London Councils commit to static budget

Howard Lake | 4 November 2006 | News

London Councils (formerly the Association of London Government) has agreed that the grants budget for 2007/8 should remain the same as the previous year, despite fears of cuts.

The organisation has been through a major consultation to see how best to distribute funds which has caused it to review the way this is done. Instead of an ‘open bidding’ system, London Councils will ‘commission’ services from the voluntary sector from now on.

There had also been a suggestion earlier this year that some money should be returned from the pan-London funds to individual London boroughs to fund local schemes, but this was never carried out.

The Executive has recommended a number of areas that should become future priority areas for commissioning these services including supporting schemes reducing bullying and gun crime, increasing affordable childcare, tackling child poverty and spreading the legacy of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games across London.

London Councils Leaders Committee is meeting on 14 November to decide what the actual priorities are for next year. A spokesman for London Councils said: With a £28m pot we will not be able to fund everything. This is not to say that some of the causes are not worthy, but that we have some tough choices to make.

UK Fundraising understands that organisations currently receiving funding but which will not receive funding under the new regime will be given a six-month grant to ease the transition to further funding from other organisations.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.