Community Fund Consultation

Strategic plan for 2002 - 2007

Response from Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities

Registered Charity Number 801971

Skill is a UK-wide charity which helps people with any kind of disability to make the most of their learning, training and employment opportunities. Skill works principally by giving information and advice to thousands of disabled people every year. Skill has been promoting good practice and influencing policy in partnership with disabled people, service providers and policy makers over 26 years to develop opportunities for disabled young people and adults over the age of 16.

Skill's work has benefited from several projects funded by the former National Lottery Charities Fund, all of which have achieved more than their predicted outcomes, or are currently progressing successfully. There are, however, a number of issues which Skill would like the Community Fund to take into consideration and Skill welcomes this opportunity to comment.

About our organisation

28.People with all types of disabilities - physical, sensory, learning disabilities, mental health, who want to be empowered to make the most of their post-16 learning and employment prospects. Much of Skill's work particularly concerns the transition stage between compulsory and post-compulsory education.

29Skill offers an information and advice service to disabled people and their advisers, promotes best practice through publications, conferences and a work experience volunteering project, and advises key policy makers and practitioners.

30UK, from a head office based in London, and branch offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and another planned for Wales.

31Annual income 2000-2001 in the category £1 - £10 million

32Registered charity.

Part one: Strategy

  1. Other major funders and infrastructure organisations, eg NCVO, Charity Commission etc who support charitable organisations and enable all to function efficiently and effectively.
  1. More advisers 'on the ground' to disseminate best practice. Longer term funding.
  1. Many charitable causes have been set up to address a need for change that is not being adequately tackled by government or other existing organisations. Therefore it is just as important to look at the core functions of registered charities/ non-profits to support their on-going work to achieve change, not just at new ground-breaking projects. The track record of an established organisation is therefore as equally important as a well-founded new idea.

Look at why organisations have been successful in working towards their mission. Assessors should select projects for in-depth monitoring, eg by regular visits, not just relying on form filling (good examples include Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales, and The Barings Foundation). Using independent assessors might also help with objective overviews.

Compare and contrast very successful projects and very unsuccessful projects, ie at either end of the spectrum of achievements, to identify key characteristics of effective use of lottery and major grant funding. For example, our own first lottery-funded project was extremely successful - we would say that this was because it was founded on internal and external independent research, and that the timing of our expansion plan was just right for us to develop in our chosen direction.

Funding priorities

  1. Our mission fits one of the CF priorities - disabled people - which we clearly welcome. We do not feel qualified to recommend other categories.
  1. Yes.

Needs and solutions to benefit disabled people are so varied that a general aim, as already suggested, will meet most needs.

  1. The work charities do best, and on which their reputation has been established, ie their core work, provided that work is still relevant to the modern world. In our own case we changed our objectives towards the same mission, following internal and external research, which was why our project was so successful, being founded on well-researched and timely advice.

We would strongly support user involvement, but this may require investment. For example, there are only so many disabled people from BMEs that are willing and suitable to sit on charity committees. User involvement requirestraining input by the CF and other funders. Using volunteers effectively is not cost-free - this must be taken into account in budgeting exercises.

Targeting across the UK

  1. By putting more emphasis on dissemination of good practice resulting from CF funding, all areas to which a project might have relevance would stand a chance of benefiting.
  1. The quality of good practice to be developed and the replicable aspects are as important as the quantity in assessing projects and their outcomes. Reaching more does not necessarily change things.
  • The charities themselves. More dissemination of outcomes to share best practice.
  • Organisations that support charities with training, research and infrastructure, help them to work together for mutual benefit and cost savings, and assist with advice to obtain other longer term sources of funding.
  1. We have no response to this question.

Part two

Indicative maximum grant size

  1. Maximum grant size? No
  1. Projects do not have to have high numbers of beneficiaries to be expensive to administer. Above all projects must fit key criteria, and be timely. Organisations in receipt of major funds must prove they have the ability to cope with major project funding. Major projects should only be considered if sufficient research, preferably backed up by an independent assessment, indicates that the idea is sound.

Length of project funding and continuation funding

  1. Yes

There are only a limited number of grant-makers that can fund big projects. Smaller projects can achieve funding from a wider variety of sources, but they need help to do so. Therefore by supporting organisations that in turn help non-profits to obtain funding CF can contribute effectively to all sizes of applicants and projects. So many organisations are only aware of lottery funding, and are only beginning to be aware of other grant-making trusts.

Longer term funding assists forward planning. Really worthwhile projects cannot stop after 3 years, and only some will be capable of finding sufficient other sources of funding. 3-year funding is in danger of cutting good projects out just as they are establishing them selves, or in weakening organisations that have to put so much effort into sustaining themselves that the mission founders and the beneficiaries are again left unsupported. Having identified and decided to support a project, the CF may need to offer expertise to help projects that run out of funds in a similar way that jackpot winners are offered help to cope with their wins.

  1. Three grants of up to three years. At the planning stage of a project it is difficult to plan with much certainty or detail for longer than three years ahead. A reassessment after three years builds in a degree of flexibility, while at the same time allowing a greater opportunity to develop a project and move towards sustainability.
  1. On the quality and/or quantity of the outcomes. Often the most beneficial outcomes will take many years to be effective. eg the longer-term aims suggested in the examples on page 4 of the consultation paper.

Core costs

  1. Yes

As previously stated, support for the on-going work of a charity is support for what it does best, the reason why it exists, and the most sustaining option. New projects by their nature are unproven and therefore more risky. By funding projects without core costs, the effort put into new projects by a cash-strapped charity risks its longer term security, as described in "Funding our Future: core costs revisited" by Julia Unwin. By not funding core costs all the charity's beneficiaries may lose out if the charity folds.

  1. By funding the core costs that are a spin-off of the project eg management, additional personnel and finance work that result from the extra staff and work involved. Also a contribution towards other premises overheads, eg rent, heating, security and eveyday running costs. Where projects do not require bespoke accommodation, an efficient organisation will reallocate resources including office space as projects come on-stream. But, these resources need to be secured over time. Overheads need to be an acceptable allocation for each project. In the long term this supplementary core funding ensures the well-being of the whole organisation and may only amount to 10 to 15% of project costs.
  1. No response.

Part Three

We do not wish to make a response to part three.

U/word/lottery/community fund consultation