Funding Frequently Asked QuestionsContents:
1. Funding changes
(i) The Comprehensive Spending Review
(ii) Local Government Settlements
(iii) London Councils Funding Review
(iv) Young People
2. Restructuring
(i) National Treatment Agency
(ii) Government Office for London
(iii) London Development Agency
(iv) Homes and Communities Agency
3. Key contacts
(i) Who to lobby in local councils
(ii) List of funders
FundingWatch - Tell us about changes in funding here
The drug and alcohol policy and funding environment in London is changing rapidly, particularly in light of the new government, and large scale re-structuring of statutory bodies and funding mechanisms. We have put together this webpage to keep you up to date with funding and policy developments that could have an impact on your service. We will be adding to this information as situations change and develop. Included on this page are also details of funding bodies which have traditionally supported drug and alcohol organisations in London, and key policy makers who you could lobby.
If you would like more information on any of the issues below, or to suggest an item for inclusion, please email Esther Sample, LDAN Policy Officer: esthers.ldan@drugscope.org.uk
1. Funding Changes
i) The Comprehensive Spending Review
What is the ‘Spending Review’?
The Spending Review is a process whereby the Treasury ultimately decides how much each government department can spend over a fixed amount of time, determining priorities for public investment, both within individual departments and across Government. It has been conducted every three years. The last Spending Review was conducted by the Labour Government in 2007 and specified departmental budgets up until the financial year ending in March 2011. The new Government has now conducted its first spending review, released on 20th October 2010.
What are the proposals/changes?
The Spending Review has set out all government spending plans for the years 2011-12 to 2014-15. The Government’s priority is to reduce the budget deficit, largely through reductions in spending, as opposed to an increase in taxes. The Government stresses that the Spending Review is about more than just reducing spending, and states that it is ‘a complete re-evaluation of the Government’s role in providing public services.’
What are the possible effects?
The Spending Review has set the frameworks within which the levels and nature of central government investment in drug policy and drug treatment are decided over the next three years. Key announcements include:
- The Government will pay and tender for more services by results, bringing in independent providers from the private and voluntary and community sectors, rather than be the default provider of public services. The use of tariffs and more innovative payment mechanisms will be explored in new policy areas, including drug and alcohol treatment.
- The Government will look at setting proportions of appropriate services across the public sector that should be delivered by independent providers, from the voluntary and community sectors and social and private enterprises. The Government will direct around £470 million over the Spending Review period to support capacity building in the voluntary and community sector. The Big Society Bank will bring in private sector funding in addition to receiving all funding available to England from dormant accounts.
- The Department of Community and Local Government’s (CLG) overall resource budget will reduce by 33 per cent over the period. Within this, CLG will devolve £1.6 billion to local government. Cuts to local authority budgets will inevitably have an impact on drug and alcohol services.
- Significant devolution of financial control to councils, by removing ring-fencing around all revenue grants, with the exception of a new simplified schools grants and a new public health grant. Around £1 billion of current drug and alcohol money will go into the ring fenced public health budget, but there will be no specific ring fence around the drug and/or alcohol budget within the public health grant.
- The NHS budget will rise with a total increase of 0.4 per cent over the Spending Review. This however will not be enough to keep pace with expanding demand.
- The Department for Education will be expected to achieve a reduction of 12 per cent in its non-schools budget by 2014-15, which is relevant to schemes such as Think Family and Every Child Matters. Young people's drug and alcohol treatment services could be impacted if the focus of the department becomes more narrowly on schools and education.
- The government will cap household benefit payments from 2013 at around £500 per week for couples and lone parents and around £350 per week for single adult households, so that ‘no family can receive more in welfare than median after tax earnings for working households’. This could have a negative impact on many vulnerable people, in London in particular, due to high rents.
- Social landlords will be able to offer new flexible intermediate rental contracts rather than long term contracts. There will also be reduced investment in social housing. This could also have negative impact on those drug and alcohol service users who rely on stable long term tenancies in social housing to support their recovery.
Funding announcements in Drug Strategy
Following on from to the Spending Review, the 2010 Drug Strategy has announced the following additional funding changes:
- In its bid to simplify funding to local authorities, the government will create a single Early Intervention Grant, worth around £2 billion by 2014–15. This will draw together a range of funding streams for prevention and early intervention services. Sitting alongside the Public Health Grant, an aim of this grant is to allow local areas to take a strategic approach to tackling drug and alcohol misuse as part of wider support to vulnerable young people and families. See: http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/earlylearningandchildcare/a0070357/early-intervention-grant-frequently-asked-questions/
- Community Budgets will be established for 16 local areas from April 2011. These will pool funding from a range of Departments, enabling local areas flexibility to deliver better outcomes for vulnerable families. The Government intends to roll out Community Budgets nationally from 2013/14.
- From April 2011, the Department of Health will assume responsibility for funding all drug treatment in prison and the community and, with the Home Office, will contribute towards DIP.
Where is more information available?
DrugScope/LDAN’s submission to the Spending Review:
www.drugscope.org.uk/ourwork/Policy-and-public-affairs/topics-and-campaigns/key-topics/SpendingReview2010.htm
The Spending Review document can be accessed on the Treasury website:
http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sr2010_completereport.pdf
The 2011 Drug Strategy can be accssed at: www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/alcohol-drugs/drugs/drug-strategy/drug-strategy-2010?view=Binary
ii) Local Government Financial Settlements
What are the proposals/changes?
The Spending Review announced the total formula grant all local authorities will receive over the next four years. The Local Government Finance Settlements, approved by the House of Commons on 9th February 2011, sets out how that grant will be distributed between authorities over the next two years, and how much each individual authority will receive. London councils have received above average cuts to their budgets. The national average decrease in councils’ ‘spending power’ is 4.4%. Overall London councils will experience a 5.2% cut. The three poorest London boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney have received the biggest budget cuts, all hitting the ‘maximum cut’ mark that has been set at 8.9%. Short term transitional grants, totalling £8.5 million nationally, will be given to all local councils which would otherwise be experiencing cuts of more than 8.9% to support them to manage the transition
Why?
This is a consequence of the wider national reductions in public spending as outlined in the Spending Review of October 2010.
What are the possible effects?
Local authority funding for statutory and voluntary sector services could be cut substantially, impacting directly on drug and alcohol services and also on other local services that support recovery, such as housing, domestic violence and family support. At particular risk are those services that rely most on local funding in addition to the Pooled Treatment Budget. These include as young people’s services, which often receive funding from other local authority budgets, including the Area Based Grant.
Are there any consultation processes?
The Department for Community and Local Government Business Plan 2011-15 was published in early November 2010, with the consultation closing on 31st January 2011. The Plan sets out the Department of Communities and Local Government’s responsibilities in delivering the Government’s Priorities, a revised Structural Reform Plan, and their Spending Review Settlement.
Where is more information available?
Details of the Local Government Finance Settlement are available on the Department for Communities and Local Government website: www.local.communities.gov.uk/fianance/1112/grant.htm
iii) London Councils Funding Review
The role of London Councils
London Councils is the umbrella body for local councils across London. It lobbies the government and other agencies on behalf of its member councils to secure resources for London and to protect and enhance council powers. It is funded by the 33 London boroughs to work on their behalf, and has distributed around £28 million a year to voluntary groups. The London Councils grants programme is funding around 400 organisations in 2010-11, with many working with marginalised populations, including people with drug and alcohol problems. Its grants range from £5,000 to £500,000 and are normally awarded for four years, with annual renewal dependent on the achievement of agreed outcomes.
What are the proposals/changes?
At the London Councils Leaders Committee in December 2010, it was announced that the Grants Programme would be reduced from £28 million in 2010-11to £7.8 million by 2013-14, with a focus on pan-London projects, which individual boroughs could not realistically fund. All projects categorised as ‘local’ or ‘sub-regional’ in nature (or ‘non-priority’) would not receive continued funding after 30 June 2011. For example, frontline homelessness services were not recommended for continued funding.
The London Councils process did not allow for any right to appeal against this decision. However, one of the charities affected by the cuts, the Roma Support Group, sought a judicial review of the decision. On 28 January 2011, Mr Justice Calvert-Smith gave judgment in favour of the Claimants in the judicial review proceedings. The Judge held that London Councils had failed to meet their statutory equality duties. He quashed all the funding cut decisions for the 200 plus projects and he said that London Councils should run another consultation.
Why?
Steve Bullock, Chair of the London Councils Grants Committee, has suggested that ‘in the light of these tough economic times, many boroughs feel they are in a better place to decide how the money should be spent locally, especially as this will vary borough to borough’. The move fits in with the new Government’s focus on localisation, and devolving more power and autonomy to local areas. Under the current arrangements it has sometimes proven difficult to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the individual boroughs that they are necessarily benefiting from service provision in their borough proportionate to their contribution to the London Councils funding pot.
What are the possible effects?
The London Councils Grants Scheme funds a number of drug and alcohol services in London. It is also a major funder of related services, such as domestic violence, homelessness and youth offending services. If there is a withdrawal of London Councils funding, it will have a profound impact on the voluntary sector in London. The impact will tend to vary across London, depending on the extent to which boroughs allocate any repatriated funds to supporting local services. Even if this money is invested in the same or similar services, they will need supporting to manage the transition in funding arrangements.
Are there any consultation processes?
LDAN/DrugScope responded to the first consultation both via the online form and in a letter to the Gants Committee (available at www.ldan.org.uk). Our response highlighted the need for substance misuse, domestic violence and homelessness services to continue to be commissioned at a Pan-London Level, because these issues cannot be effectively addressed by one borough alone.
London Councils has now launched a ‘supplementary consultation’ to make sure that they get sufficient information and take into account equalities impact, which LDAN will be responding to. The consultation closes on 8th April 2011. For the latest see www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/services/grants/
The London Voluntary Service Council have an ongoing campaign for the continuation of the Grants Scheme and are now developing resources to support agencies that could lose funding, to find out more see: www.lvsc.org.uk
iv) Young People’s Treatment
In the past, local funding for under 18s was determined by Drug Action Teams who would take a decision to invest a proportion of their adult pooled treatment budget in young people’s services. This resulted in variations in the availability of young people’s services, which did not necessarily reflect the extent of need in the local community. Since 2005-06 there has been a specific allocation within the pooled treatment budget for young people’s services.
In 2009 the National Treatment Agency undertook a review of the effectiveness of the approach to allocating funding for young people’s treatment. It concluded that the allocation of funding should be based on local need, and linked to factors known to be associated with young people’s substance misuse, such as poverty and deprivation and poor levels of educational attainment.
As a result, a new funding formula is being phased in by the NTA between 2010 and 2012. It has been estimated by the NTA that a little over half of the 149 partnerships in England will receive more funding, with other areas facing reductions in funding. This comes at a time when available funding from the national young people’s treatment budget is plateauing at around £25 million annually following a period of expansion (25.4 million for 2011/12). At the same time, there are pressures on other budgets that support young people’s services. For example, the Department for Education (DfE) non ring fenced contribution to the local authority Area Based Grant has recently been reduced by 24 per cent in-year, requiring local decision makers to determine what proportion of this smaller budget will be available to support drug and alcohol treatment during 2010-2011.
The DfE have conducted a Value for money review of specialist drug and alcohol treatment services provided to young people, published by Frontier (Europe). The report focuses on the 24,000 young people who received specialist drug and alcohol treatment in the UK in 2008-09. It finds that the cost of providing specialist treatment is significantly outweighed by the immediate and long-term benefits associated with these treatment services. See:
www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-RR087.pdf
Why?
The allocation of funding for young people’s treatment was previously determined by Drug Action Teams at local level (and since 05/06 there has been a specific allocation of funding per partnership based on previous investment). This resulted in substantial variations in funding that did not reflect local need for young people’s services. The NTA reported that the most generously funded areas were getting twenty times more per person than the least well-funded, £249 compared to £4,306. The overall aim of the reallocation is to narrow variations in funding from area to area and more closely link funding to ‘child well being', which is considered the best available indicator of local need.
What are the possible effects?
Locally, some areas have seen their funding from the young people’s treatment budget rise in 2010, while others will experience falls as a result of the application of a new funding formula. A staged approach is being adopted for 2010-11, with partnerships that stand to lose under the new formula having their losses restricted to 25% and those partnerships set to gain having their increases restricted to 60%.
LDAN has been tracking local disinvestment to young people’s services, and in December 2010 conducted a telephone survey 18 young people’s providers in London. Out of 18 service providers only three saw there current funding situation as ‘safe’. Of those respondents who had been informed of definite cuts in funding, most expected reductions of around 40 per cent, although one service was facing cuts of up to 75 per cent. Where budget cuts had led to service reduction, it was reported by 8 out of 18 respondents that Tiers 1 and 2 were being scrapped in favour of later intervention and treatment. We are keen to continue to track the impact of cuts on young people’s service in London. If you service has been effected, please get in touch: esthers.ldan@drugscope.org.uk
Where is more information available?
www.nta.nhs.uk/young-people.aspx
2. Re-structuring
i) National Treatment Agency
What are the proposals/changes?
The NTA will be abolished as a statutory organisation, and its functions will be transferred to the new Public Health Service, in April 2012. The NTA has published a Business Plan for 2010/11 and its functions will remain active until 2012.
Why?
The new government has stated that stand-alone bodies and quangos will become the exception rather than the rule within government.
What happens to the different functions?
The NTA will be working with the Department of Health and its partners across government on the transfer of the key functions of the NTA to the new Public Health England service, both nationally and locally. Exactly how the NTA functions will sit within the new body has not yet been determined. The NTA and Department of Health have emphasised that drug and alcohol treatment will remain a priority. The Secretary of State for Health has said that the new Public Health Service will have a ring-fenced budget at national and local level, but there will be no specific ring fence for drug and alcohol treatment. It is unclear what other mechanisms may be used to ensure Directors of Public Health are required to and accountable for investment in substance misuse services. The Public Health White Paper outlines the basic structure of Public Health England, with responsibility devolved to Directors of Public Health in local authorities and new ‘Health and Well Being Boards’. It has not been determined how drug and alcohol will sit within these structures
Where can I find more information?
For information on the National Treatment Agency see: www.nta.nhs.uk/
To access the Public Health White Paper go to: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth/Healthyliveshealthypeople/index.htm
ii) Government Office for London
What are the proposals/changes?
Government Offices act for Government in the regions and localities, and represent twelve Whitehall departments. They include Home Office representatives that have substance misuse issues included in their remit. In July 2010, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, announced to Parliament that the Government was to abolish Government Office for London, and has the intention in principle to abolish the remaining eight Government Offices. The Government Office for London has been abolished, with final decisions on the remaining offices to be made at the end of the Spending Review in the autumn.
What happens to the different functions?
Work is continuing on the transition of work from GOL to other organisations. Any substance misuse related work is likely to be transferred back into the Home Office centrally. The Department of Health Regional Public Health Group, which has alcohol in its remit, has currently not been abolished.
Why?
This change is part of the government's commitment to cut ‘quangos’ in a bid to reduce costs.
Where can I find more information?
www.gos.gov.uk/gol/
iii) London Development Agency
What are the proposals/changes?
The London Development Agency (LDA) will be abolished, and the Mayor will become directly accountable for the LDA’s roles in managing EU funding and regeneration. The London Development Agency, which employed nearly 400 staff, previously had a budget of £480 million. It has been said that only projects that the LDA are legally committed to will continue to be funded, this is thought to total around £50 million.
Why?
The Localism Bill published in December aims to transfer more powers from central government to local government. However, the regional tier of government that exists in London, in the form of the Greater London Authority (GLA), adds further complications in deciding the levels to which particular powers should be devolved. The Government is aiming to simplify the regional tier in London and cut costs.
What happens to the different functions?
The housing and regeneration and EU funding functions will all be transferred directly to the GLA. It is thought that some of the LDA’s programmes related to skills, employment and industry will also be transferred in-house to the GLA, however other programmes are likely to be axed.
Where can I find more information?
Check for the latest news on the London Development Agency’s website: www.lda.gov.uk
(iv)Homes and Communities Agency
What are the proposals/changes?
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, has announced that many of the housing investment powers previously held by the Housing and Communities Agency (HCA) in London are to be devolved to the Greater London Authority. The HCA budget is currently around £1.1 billion, all of which will be transferred to a new housing and regeneration arm of the GLA; also incorporating some of the LDA’s previous functions.
Why?
The Government is aiming to simplify the regional tier in London and cut costs.
What happens to the different functions?
Housing investment powers and strategic decisions about long-term housing needs of London will be transferred to the GLA.
Where can I find more information?
Check for the latest news on the Homes and Communities Agency website: www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/
3. Key Contacts
Who can we lobby in London Authorities/Local Councils?
Which funders have historically supported drug and alcohol services in London?
Comic Relief
Comic Relief have a specific funding stream for projects that help young people with alcohol problems. Funding of £5,000 or more is available to organisations working in partnership, work with 'at risk' groups of young people such as young offenders or young carers or training in specialist skills for staff working with young people who have alcohol problems.
www.comicrelief.com/apply-for-a-grant/
The Pilgrim Trust
The Pilgrim Trust’s Social Welfare Programme aims to break cycles of dependency and to help develop a sense of social inclusion in disadvantaged or marginalised groups within the UK. In this category they concentrate their grant-giving activities to two specific areas: projects that support people who misuse drugs and alcohol and projects in prisons and projects that provide alternatives to custody. Last year the Trust made grants totalling nearly £3 million. The grants were made via two schemes: Main Grant Fund: organisations can apply to this scheme for sums above £5,000 and Small Grant Fund: This fund is for requests of £5,000 or less.
www.thepilgrimtrust.org.uk/
Tudor Trust
The Tudor Trust aims to support work which addresses the social, emotional and financial needs of people at the margins of our society across the UK. Their focus is on smaller groups and the Trust has a track record of funding projects aimed at tackling substance misuse.
www.tudortrust.org.uk/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx
Drinkaware Trust
The Drinkaware grants scheme aims to change the UK’s drinking culture, work to positively influence public behaviour and find innovative ways to raise awareness about the effects of alcohol, to help minimise alcohol-related harm.
Grants are available to groups in any part of the UK, working with any population group, through 3 schemes :Ideas Fund - up to £2,000, Awareness Projects - up to £25,000 and Big Impact Awards - up to £100,000. Their current funded projects include peer-led education schemes, alcohol education work and awareness raising among disadvantaged people who are at risk of harm from alcohol misuse.
www.drinkaware.co.uk/grants
The Abel Charitable Trust
Originally supporting just those charities which addressed housing needs, the trust has now has expanded its giving to include projects helping offenders, young people, those with addiction problems and sex industry workers. It funds charities in southeast England and favours smaller agencies. Grants are usually in the region of £3,000-£5,000.
www.abelcharitabletrust.org.uk/
The Archer Trust
This Christian grant-making trust gives grants of between £250 and £3,000 to small UK charities. It supports organisations which provide aid or support to a defined group of needy or deserving people, particularly those working in areas of high unemployment and deprivation, and favours charities which make good use of volunteers.
www.archertrust.org.uk/
Big Lottery Fund
The fund has a large number of different progammes open at any one time. Some are only open for applications for a short period. Others, such as the Reaching Communities programme, have no closing date.
www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/
The Percy Bilton Charity
One of the trust's areas of funding is disadvantaged and under privileged young people. In particular it will fund supported housing schemes and educational and training projects to encourage disadvantaged young people who may be homeless and/or unemployed away from crime, substance/alcohol misuse and homelessness. There are two grant programmes - one for large grants for capital expenditure over £2,000, and a small grants programme for donations of up to £500 towards furnishings and equipment for small projects.
www.percybiltoncharity.org.uk/
The Barrow Cadbury Trust
The Barrow Cadbury Trust is an independent, charitable foundation, committed to supporting vulnerable and marginalised people in society. The Trust provides grants to grassroots voluntary and community groups working in deprived communities in the UK and also funds researchers and think tanks. Two funding streams are Criminal Justice and Poverty and Inclusion.
www.bctrust.org.uk/
The Cadbury Foundation
The foundation makes grants to projects working in the fields of education and enterprise, health and welfare and environmental sustainability, focusing on areas of social deprivation where their larger sites are located. In London this is Hackney and Uxbridge. Drug misuse is listed as one of the supported issues.
http://collaboration.cadbury.com
East London Community Foundation
The community foundation for the boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Hackney, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. It has a number of different funds available although substance misuse not mentioned specifically
www.elcf.org.uk/
The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity
The company gives widely to London-based or national charities. It does not fund individual housing associations or very large charities but its grants list includes grants to organisations working around the issue of homelessness.
More Information
www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/charities/
The Peter Minet Trust
This trust funds social welfare, health and community projects in the inner city boroughs of South East London, especially Lambeth and Southwark. It has a small grants programme (up to £500) and a main grants programme (up to £3,000).
www.peterminet.org.uk/
The Oak Foundation
This international foundation, based in Geneva, is a group of charitable and philanthropic organisations established in various countries. Its housing and homelessness programme has funded projects in London that work with clients that have substance misuse problems. Grants are usuallly for over $25,000. www.oakfnd.org
Henry Smith's Charity
This large trust has a wide range of interests including ‘Projects supporting the rehabilitation of people affected by, or at risk of, drug and/or alcohol dependency, and projects supporting their families.’
www.henrysmithcharity.org.uk/what-we-fund.html
Trust for London(City Parochial Foundation now part of this Trust)
Aims to help small, new and emerging charities in London to tackle povert and inequality.
www.trustforlondon.org.uk/
UIA Charitable Foundation
Funded entirely by donations from UIA (Insurance) Limited, the foundation supports small organisations that help people in need, where modest grants (rarely over £1,000) will make a real difference. The foundation funds projects which deal with: victims of domestic abuse, victims of drug and alcohol addiction and the rehabilitation of offenders.
www.uia.co.uk/About/Charitable-foundation/
Yapp Charitable Trust
This trust makes smallish grants to registered charities with an annual expenditure of less than £60,000 working with: elderly people; children and young people; people with disabilities or mental health problems; or people trying to overcome life-limiting problems such as addiction, relationship difficulties, abuse, or a history of offending.
www.yappcharitabletrust.org.uk/
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