ChangeUp and Futurebuilders are not yet "value for money" says NAO
Howard Lake | 6 February 2009 | News
The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report on ChangeUp and Futurebuilders, two programmes aimed at building capacity in the third sector. Both have achieved “a positive impact on frontline third sector organisations” according to the NAO, but, although they “will cost £446 million”, neither has “yet demonstrated value for money”.
Both have suffered from “administrative weaknesses” and a lack of initial targets against which the effectiveness of the programmes could be measured.
Launched in 2004, both programmes were transferred to the responsibility of the Cabinet Office in 2006.
According to the report, both programmes have had positive results. The £231 million ChangeUp programme “has created stronger partnerships among those organisations that support frontline third sector bodies”. This has helped some of these organisations to work more efficiently, spend less time on administration, manage staff and volunteers more effectively, and improve the service to their users.
Futurebuilders, the experimental £215 million investment fund, has similarly enabled some organisations to improve governance, strategies and premises and this in turn has helped some recipients of Futurebuilders loans to win contracts to deliver public services.
However, the NAO identified weaknesses in programme management including delays in implementing ChangeUp that created a rush to spend public money quickly, with some being wasted. Outcome measures and targets were not established so “no effective evaluation of the impact of the programme has taken place”.
Similarly, the first Futurebuilders management contract “did not focus sufficiently on the fund’s objectives”, and some loan recipients were slow to take up and apply the funding. Also, some organisations received “mixed messages” about whether their loans would have to be repaid.
However, the NAO reports that Capacitybuilders, which has managed the programme since 2006, is taking action to address these problems; and the second management contract for Futurebuilders contains targets that are “more clearly aligned with the objectives of the programme”.
Tim Burr, head of the National Audit Office, said: “Frontline third sector organisations provide important services to the general public. ChangeUp has made good headway in improving support for these organisations while Futurebuilders loans have improved the potential of some to win public service contracts.
“But basic flaws in the administration of both programmes have reduced their beneficial impact to date. Value for money will depend on whether the steps now being taken successfully address these problems.”
www.nao.org.uk
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.