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Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats:Covering the constituencies of Twickenham and Richmond Park |
Local charities under threat as council moves from grants to contracts
July 23, 2011 2:41 PM
• [Jul 22] LIBERAL Democrats have warned that local voluntary sector organisations could be wiped out by the Council's move from awarding grants to competitive tendering of contracts.
Richmond Council is in the process of withdrawing grants from local charities and instead putting the services they provide out to competitive tender. Children's' charities have already faced this change, which saw local charities miss out to larger national bodies from outside the borough, such as the Catholic Children's' Society, which won a council contract to deliver counseling services in schools earlier this year in preference to the longstanding Twickenham charity 'Off the Record', which had been built up over decades.
Charities that provide advice to adults, serve older people, carers and those with disabilities face the same commissioning process within the next few months.
Cllr Stephen Knight, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Opposition, said: "The move from grant giving to commissioning was started in order to ensure that council funding for the voluntary sector was focussed on delivering the outcomes that local people most need. However no one envisaged that the result might see longstanding local charities losing funding in favour of large national or international bodies.
"It would be a disaster for our community if this process were to result in a collapse of our local voluntary sector. I am concerned that the process being followed is overly formulaic, removes the scope for good judgement, and could simply reward large organisations that are expert at presenting bids that meet commissioning criteria.The move to commissioning should be suspended for 12 months whilst the whole process is reviewed to ensure that local charities don't lose out."
• Richmond Council opposition warns of voluntary sector collapse [RTT Jul 23]
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