Mark Garnier, Wyre Forest's Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman, welcomed important new proposals announced by Conservative leader, David Cameron, this week. These new proposals are designed to help boost the work of charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups that will benefit organisations across Wyre Forest.
A series of practical policies seek to strengthen the voluntary sector, cut unnecessary red tape and get more people involved in local charities and local community groups.
The Conservative policy proposals include:
- Simplifying the Gift Aid system to reduce the bureaucratic burden on charities and promote more charitable giving
- Replacing the Big Lottery Fund (BLF) and with a Voluntary Action Lottery Fund; the BLF has attracted criticism for giving grants to controversial causes and spending money on government services rather than funding voluntary good causes.
- Creating a network of Social Enterprise Zones to boost social investment in deprived communities.
- Cutting unnecessary red tape and form-filling.
- Establishing a one-stop funding portal for significant government grants, to help voluntary groups through the confusing 'jungle' of different state grants.
- Enabling the voluntary sector to compete on an equal footing with the private sector to provide services.
- Promoting co-operatives, to allow local communities to run, and own, community assets and set up new government-funded schools.
Mark Garnier said: "These new proposals will be a major boost for local charities and organisations. Only yesterday I was visiting an organisation in Kidderminster that was looking to raise money for a new mentoring project designed to help local kids. This, and organisations like it, is the life blood of some of our more deprived areas. Importantly, they understand what the problems are locally and they adapt to change. They are the opposite of centrally imposed, 'one size fits all' organisations.
"The problem is, the funding is a nightmare. It is not that it is not available - the problem is two fold. Firstly, there are plenty of start up grants about, but after the organisation gets on its feet, the funding dries up and the project withers on the vine.
"Secondly, the method of getting hold of follow on cash is so complex, many organisations employ full time people to process the applications. An organisation can spend a significant proportion of what they raise just on the staff to fill in the forms!
"The social challenges we face today are every bit as serious as the economic challenges Britain faced in 1979. The big dividing line in British politics today is about the role of the state. Gordon Brown believes in top-down state control; Conservatives believe in bottom-up social responsibility."